KER Nutritionist Discusses Feeding Management

Kathleen Crandell, Ph.D., an equine nutritionist at Kentucky Equine Research, was recently featured in an article in The Horse magazine.

The article, titled “Food for Thought: Are Feeding Practices Hurting Your Horse?” covers the topic of how modern equine management affects the gastrointestinal health of horses, especially regarding the stress of confinement and social contact.

“Those are the three aspects (free movement, foraging, and social interactions) of normal equine behavior that we have interfered with when we started putting them in stalls or small pens,” Kathleen told writer Heather Smith-Thomas. “We limited their locomotion and meal-fed them. They have lost some of that foraging behavior, and even if they can see other horses when they are in stalls, it’s not the same as having continual social contact.”

To learn more about how these management practices cause stress in horses and affect their gastrointestinal health, read the article here.

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