How a horse’s digestive system works

horses.
Free access to clean water at all times.
Add water to feed to mix it andor include a soaked bucket to increase water intake.
Regular dental care to aid chewing.
Feed food damp and cutting fruit and vegetables into small pieces to avoid choke.
Introduce any changes in management or diet gradually to give the microbial population in the system time to adapt. Not doing so increases the risk of colic.
Feed small regular meals alongside highquality forage. Little and often is key.
Control parasites worms by good pasture management faecal worm egg counts and targeted use of appropriate wormers.
If your horse is turned out on sandy soil consider feeding psyllium as a supplement to prevent sand colic.
Ensure your horse is getting enough exercise. Movement is key to digestive health. If a horse is retired there are still ways to get them moving leading out inhand light lunging and increasing turnout for example.
How to feed for good digestive health
The horses hindgut is where fibre is fermented by microbes to produce energy. Its important to keep the hindgut healthy as well as the balance of beneficial and harmful microbes that reside there as an unhealthy gut can cause problems in the gastrointestinal tract. Olivia Colton senior nutritionist at Feedmark advises the following to keep the hindgut healthy
1 Keep your horse hydrated
Dehydration increases the risk of hindgut issues including impaction. If a horse is reluctant to drink try giving a soaked feed adding water to bucket feeds and soaking hay. Offering warm water can also encourage drinking.
2 Provide plenty of forage
Where possible provide your horse with adlib forage. If this isnt an option ensure forage is fed regularly. Too little forage increases the risk of colic gastric ulcers and other digestive problems.
3 Keep highstarch feeds small 
If you feed too much starch in one go it gets pushed too quickly though the small intestine where starch should be digested and so enters the hindgut undigested. Its then rapidly fermented producing lactic acid and lowering the pH of the hindgut which inhibits the population of fibrefermenting microbes.