The digestive system of the horse

The horse's digestive system consists of those organs concerned with digestion, or the turning of complex food material such as hay, grass and corn etc, into simple substances such as carbohydrate, protein (amino acids), fatty acids, etc, which can be used by the body for energy, storage or body building processes. The organs consist of alimentary tract which is the tube extending from the mouth to the anus and know also as the gut, intestines …

…the omentum. The anatomical peculiarities of the horse's digestive system compared with other mammals are: (i) that the greatest volume of the tract is in the hind end, namely the caecum, and colon, where the major process of digesting fibre occurs by bacterial fermentation (ii) the relatively small stomach (iii) the absence of a gall bladder (probably associated with the need for a continual supply of bile in an animal which is a continuous feeder)