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Have you ever wondered why horses so often suffer from diet-related diseases or unexpected changes in behaviour and performance? Common equine conditions like colic, tying-up, laminitis, Cushing’s syndrome, acidosis, unruly behaviour, poor appetite, developmental orthopaedic disease (DOD), and even mood or focus issues can all be linked directly to the horse’s diet.
So, why does what we feed our horses cause such significant health problems? To find answers, we need to look at the difference between a horse’s natural diet and how we feed them in domestic environments.
Horses evolved from a small, four-toed browser (Hyracotherium) living in dense forests, into the single-hoofed, grass-grazing herbivores we know today. As forests gave way to grasslands, horses adapted to survive by increasing in size, developing a larger gut, and evolving the hindgut fermentation system which allows them to digest large amounts of low-energy, high-fibre grasses.
This adaptation created a highly efficient digestive system built for continuous grazing on fibrous pasture, not for digesting grains or large, infrequent meals.
In their natural environment, horses are opportunistic grazers. Studies of wild horse populations in North America show that up to 93% of their diet is made up of grasses, with the remainder consisting of forbs, shrubs, moss, and lichens. Wild horses often eat 40+ plant species in a year, spending up to 75% of their day grazing (up to 18 hours per day).
Once domesticated (less than 6,000 years ago), horses became tools of transport, agriculture, and now, competition and recreation. Their diets changed drastically:
Domestic horses now consume less than 15 species of plants, with many diets dominated by cereal grains (corn, oats, barley), which are high in starch and sugars (NSC – Non-Structural Carbohydrates).
Horses do have some capacity to digest starch, but it’s limited. Research shows that exceeding 3.5–4 grams of starch per kg of bodyweight per meal can lead to starch overload in the hindgut, causing:
These problems were first noted decades ago, yet grain remains a staple in many horse diets because it is cheap, palatable, and energy-dense, especially for horses in work or breeding.
While cereal grains provide energy, they come at a cost to gut health. So how can we meet the energy demands of performance horses without feeding excessive grain?
Because horses evolved to digest fibrous plants, they are well adapted to extract energy from fermented fibre. Additionally, grasses naturally contain 2–3% oil, and horses can safely digest diets with up to 20% of their energy coming from oil.
Modern research shows that using high-energy, low-NSC feeds such as fibre-rich forages and plant-based oils can provide safe, sustainable energy without triggering digestive issues.
Not all “cool feeds” are created equal. Some still contain over 40% NSC, which can contribute to the very issues they claim to avoid. Coolstance Copra Meal is a natural, high-fibre, low-NSC feed derived from coconut. It’s:
Coolstance Copra meal allows horse owners to fuel performance without compromising gut health.
A horse’s diet is one of the most powerful tools we have to prevent disease, optimise performance, and maintain calm, healthy behaviour. Understanding the difference between natural and domestic feeding practices, and making better choices with low-NSC, high-energy alternatives, can help your horse thrive.
