How does sward accessibility affect the choice of feeding sites and intake in horses?
Résumé
Grass represents a large part of the diet of horses, which has important consequences for their nutritional management, as well as for the management of biodiversity in grasslands. However, very little is known on the factors affecting their daily intake and patch selection at pasture, including the effect of vegetation characteristics such as sward accessibility. This question was the subject of this study: three groups of three 2-yr-old saddle horses were grazed on a semi-natural pasture that was managed to produce three contrasting vegetative sward heights of similar quality, i.e. 6, 11 and 17 cm, in a Latin-square design. The different sward heights were offered either alone to the animals or in pair-wise preference tests. Daily food intake was measured individually using faecal collection on swards offered alone. In preference tests, animals spent more time grazing on the taller sward where they realised higher instantaneous intake rates. Voluntary intake was not affected by sward height and averaged 20gDM/kgLW/day, but depletion that affected sward heights could have reduced the potential variations in DMI.
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