Is A Horse An Herbivore? (Revealed!)

The answer is yes, a horse is an herbivore. Horses only eat plants, mainly hay, grass, and grains, and no meat. Their digestive system is not made to process meat, and eating meat could make a horse very ill. Luckily, horses are very happy to eat plants, including fruits for a treat!

Although horse diets may seem simple, since many people think horses simply live in a field and eat only grass, there can be a lot of other details to consider.

In many places there isn’t enough grass to provide as much food as a horse needs daily, and there are also supplements to consider.

We will cover more on a horse’s well-rounded herbivore diet below.

What do horses eat?

Since horses are herbivores, they only eat plants and other foods that have no meat in them.

The majority of a horse’s diet will be made up of hay or grass, depending on where and how they live.

For some horses, eating only grass can mean they ingest too much sugar.

Horses can be insulin-resistant or develop conditions like laminitis, both of which mean they need a diet that is lower in sugar.

In this case, their owners may not want them to eat as much grass in their pastures, or they may time the horse’s access to the pasture so that they graze when the grass is lower in sugar.

The sugar levels of grass actually fluctuate both with the seasons and time of day.

Hay is another big part of horse diets. Hay is easier to buy and distribute for stalled horses or horses living on farms that do not have enough land to grow enough grass.

Fresh grass also may not be available depending on the season, and hay can fill in the gap.

Grain is also a strong component of a horse’s diet, providing calories that are sometimes much needed as well as other nutritional value.

Grain products are more condensed than the hay horses will get.

How much do horses eat?

Make no mistake, horses eat a lot.

They can spend all day eating, and should eat anywhere from 1.5% to 3% of their body weight every day.

Considering the average horse weighs around 1000 pounds, and the bigger horses can weigh much more, be ready to hand out a lot of hay!

It typically amounts to 15 to 20 pounds of hay per horse each day.

Horses that are working hard or exercising heavily will need even more food to maintain their healthy weight and muscle.

Remember to make sure their diet is made up of their staples; as much as horses love treats like apples and carrots, they do need to get the bulk of their nutrition from their hay, grass, and grain.

How many meals do horses need?

Horses should have several small meals throughout the day.

The minimum number of times to feed horses is two times, and they do better if they can be fed more frequently.

Horses’ digestive systems have evolved to support slow grazing all day, so they do best when there is always a little bit of food going in.

Some horses may be able to slowly munch on a big pile of hay in their stall, but many will chow down quickly and then go hours without feeding,

This is not ideal.

Horses with access to a pasture overnight will even graze on grass through the night!

A horse’s digestive system is constantly working.

Their liver is constantly producing bile, but horses have no gallbladder so the bile goes straight to the small intestine.

Similarly, their stomachs are constantly producing acids and enzymes to digest foods.

If that bile and acid sits in their system without food to process a horse can develop ulcers or colic, which can be a serious, sometimes deadly, condition.

Do horses ever eat meat?

Horses will not choose to eat meat on their own, and their digestive systems are not designed to process meat.

You should not feed meat or products with meat to your horse; they just won’t do well with it.

There have been some limited circumstances where horses have had animal products added to their food, almost always because of the low availability of quality food and forage.

Icelandic horses are known to get dried fish in their winter diets to be sure they have enough protein.

Owners of Tibetan horses have mixed blood with their horse’s grain for similar reasons.

It can be very hard to rebuild a horse’s muscle, so it makes sense that owners in particularly harsh climates worked outside the box to keep weight on their horses when plant-based foods were scarce.

However, this should never be taken as the first solution for dietary shortcomings for today’s horses.

What plants should horses not eat?

There are a few plants that would cause issues or be dangerous for horses to eat.

For starters, and maybe the most surprising, horses should not eat grass or garden clippings, even if the grass is from the pasture they graze in.

Clipped grass can rot and ferment, which is very dangerous for the horse’s digestion.

They can also eat clipped grass more quickly, which can also cause problems.

There are some plants you will want to make sure are nowhere near your pastures, too.

Luckily, horses will typically avoid these plants because they just don’t taste good.

However, it is better to familiarize yourself with the poisonous plants that can grow in your area.

If you notice buttercups, ragwort, acorns, or walnuts in your horses’ pastures you will want to look into eradicating those plants for safety.