Understanding Your Horse’s Appetite
Hunger is surprisingly difficult to recognise in horses. Unlike many animals, they cannot communicate when they are hungry, and their feeding behaviour doesn’t always reflect what we might expect. Ponies, of course, often seem like the exception; many appear to have an almost constant drive to eat.
In reality, a horse’s appetite is the result of a complex system of internal signals that either stimulate or suppress feeding. At its core, horses eat to meet their energy requirements, not simply because food is available or appealing.
One study highlights this clearly. Ponies were fed grain diluted with sawdust, effectively reducing the energy content of the feed. Over a few days, they increased how much they ate. When the sawdust was removed and energy density returned to normal, their intake dropped again. This showed that horses were not responding to taste differences, but to signals from their body’s energy stores.
What actually drives appetite?
It’s easy to assume that how full a horse’s stomach is determines how much it eats. In fact, stomach fill has relatively little influence. Instead, appetite is shaped by a combination of metabolic, sensory and environmental factors.
These include:
Energy density of the feed
Blood glucose levels
Taste and smell
Rate of eating
Time of day
Social environment (particularly visual contact with other horses)
Low blood glucose, for example, causes horses to eat more rapidly and more frequently. Interestingly, in ponies it affects the timing between meals rather than the amount consumed.
Diet composition also plays a role. Feeding oil leads to lower, more stable blood glucose levels. This can extend the interval between meals and reduce total feed intake for several hours after eating.
Taste, preference and palatability
Horses rely heavily on taste and smell when choosing what to eat. Their preferences are influenced by both the physical and sensory characteristics of feed.
Processing feed can significantly change its appeal. Whole grains like oats or cottonseed are often eaten more readily when crushed or mixed with molasses. When tested, horses typically show a strong preference for oats and corn, with sweetened mixed feeds being particularly attractive.
Some horses favour familiar feeds, while others show interest in novelty. Beyond taste, factors such as texture, temperature, appearance and even the sound of feed preparation can influence acceptance.
Many horses also show a natural preference for sugar and phosphorus, much like humans lean towards sugar, fat and salt. Highly palatable flavourings, such as apple, carrot, molasses, peppermint or even cinnamon, can encourage intake, particularly in fussy or unwell horses.
The overlooked driver: the need to chew
While taste influences whether a horse starts eating, one of the strongest drivers of feeding behaviour is the need to chew.
Horses are designed to graze for most of the day. Under natural conditions, they may spend up to 60% of a 24-hour period eating, chewing continuously at a rate of 30–50 chews per minute. This can amount to as many as 60,000 chews per day.
Modern management rarely allows for this. Horses fed two meals a day may consume their ration in as little as 30 minutes, particularly when fed concentrated or pelleted feeds.
The type of feed has a significant effect on chewing time:
Pelleted diets: around 2½ hours of chewing (~10,000 chews/day)
Hay-based diets: over 12 hours of chewing (~45,000 chews/day)
When chewing time is reduced, horses often seek alternative outlets. Horses fed pelleted diets spend noticeably more time searching for food, sifting through bedding or exhibiting behaviours associated with frustration or boredom.
Chewing, saliva and gut health
Chewing is not just behavioural, it is essential for digestive health.
Horses only produce saliva when they chew. Reduced chewing means less saliva, which in turn leads to higher acidity in the stomach and an increased risk of gastric ulcers. Ulcers themselves can further reduce appetite, creating a cycle that impacts both health and performance.
Providing constant access to hay or pasture increases chewing time, helps buffer stomach acid and reduces ulcer risk.
Fibre and the feeling of fullness
The sensation of fullness in horses is influenced more by what is happening in the intestine than in the stomach.
High-fibre feeds, particularly coarse-stem hay, remain longer in the large intestine because they ferment more slowly. This prolongs the feeling of fullness and can suppress appetite. Combined with the increased chewing required, this can be very useful for:
Overweight horses
Greedy or compulsive feeders
Horses prone to boredom-related behaviours
In effect, the horse feels like it has eaten more, even when energy intake is controlled.
Meeting a horse’s appetite
Appetite and feed intake are influenced by a wide range of factors, including body weight, workload, growth stage, environmental conditions, general health and even social interactions.
As a guide, most horses require between 1.5% and 3% of their body weight in feed per day, including pasture.
Spelling horses: around 1.5–2%
Horses in work: around 2.5%
Young, lactating or high-performance horses: up to 3%
For example, a 400kg horse in work typically needs around 10kg of feed per day. If much of this comes from pasture, which may be up to 80% water, the actual volume consumed will be significantly higher.
Because feeds vary greatly in energy density and bulk, measuring by weight rather than by volume is essential to avoid under- or overfeeding.
It’s also important to recognise that horses can appear to “go off their feed” when, in reality, they may have been offered more energy than they require.
When appetite declines
Since feeding is a default behaviour, a loss of appetite usually indicates an underlying issue.
Physical problems are a common cause. Anything that affects the ability to taste, chew, swallow or digest, such as dental disease, pain or gastrointestinal issues, can reduce intake. Feeding position also plays a role; eating with the head raised can lead to poor dental wear and subsequent discomfort.
Dietary imbalance is another major factor. High-grain, low-roughage diets increase acid production in the gut. While some of this acid is converted to glucose, the process requires B vitamins. If demand exceeds supply, particularly when roughage intake is low, acid levels rise, which can suppress appetite.
Signs of this imbalance may include:
Reduced feed intake
Wood chewing or bedding consumption
Manure eating (coprophagy)
Restoring roughage intake often resolves these issues and encourages a return to normal appetite, even in high-performance horses.
Not all pasture is equal
A horse surrounded by lush, green pasture is not necessarily well-fed. Grass contaminated with manure or urine becomes unpalatable, and some weeds are simply not edible. In these cases, a horse may appear to have plenty to eat but still lose condition and show reduced appetite.
The role of social behaviour
Horses are herd animals, and their feeding behaviour reflects this. A horse is more likely to eat when it can see other horses eating, a phenomenon known as social facilitation.
This likely stems from their natural anti-predator behaviour. In a group, horses can take turns being vigilant while others continue to graze. Isolation can therefore reduce both confidence and appetite.
Do horses crave what they need?
It is often believed that horses instinctively seek out nutrients they are lacking. In practice, this is generally not the case.
Apart from salt, horses do not reliably increase intake of specific nutrients when deficient. They eat primarily to meet energy needs, not to balance vitamins or minerals. This means a horse cannot be expected to select the correct diet from a range of feeds or supplements.
Final thoughts: appetite reflects wellbeing
Hungry horses are not happy horses. When appetite is not satisfied, either physically or behaviourally, horses are unlikely to be content or perform at their best.
Supporting appetite means more than just providing enough feed. It requires:
Adequate access to forage
Diets that support gut health
Opportunities for natural chewing behaviour
Attention to underlying health and management issues
If a horse’s appetite changes, it’s important to look beyond the feed bin. In most cases, there is a reason, and addressing it is the key to restoring both intake and overall health.
Dr Jennifer Stewart
BVSc BSc PhD Equine Veterinarian and Consultant Nutritionist
