Lynette's Beetpulp question

[terre <tobytrot@bigfoot.com>]

Lynette
	One of the vets will probably answer this better than me, but for what
it's worth, I do believe you are right about it being a 'digestion' thing,
and your racehorse friend is 'partially' right in her statement...
	Since the horse evolved as a grass-eating (as opposed to grain-eating)
animal, it has a huge intestine for the 'digestion' of grass (actually the
fermentation by microflora, and absorption by gut).  It has a relatively
small stomach, the true organ of 'digestion', since it's normal diet didn't
contain all that much grain, etc, compared to forage.
	The point is, if the horse eats its grain and supplements first, they are
pushed through the small stomach undigested and into the gut, where they
cannot be properly absorbed, by the large hay (or forage=beetpulp) mass
that follows and IS absorbed/digested there.  If you don't feed the grain
and supplements until after almost all the forage has been consumed, the
hay/beetpulp are in the most efficient place for utilization, and the grain
sits in the stomach longer for full breakdown so that it, too, can be
maximally utilized.  So what your racetrack friend says applies to all
forage, not just beetpulp--and is not a reason to discontinue its use.
	Did that make any sense?

Terre (I really MUST learn to write simpler sentences!)


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