Perhaps you've never thought about why your horse's grain looks the way it does, whether it's a molasses-bathed mix of cracked corn and crimped oats, alfalfa-enriched pellets, or chunky nuggets. If you're like most modern humans, you're accustomed to buying prepared and processed foods for yourself–from fast food meals on the fly to the pre-made soups and sauces on your grocer's shelves.

But while these human foods are typically geared toward saving time, most processing in the horse feed industry has a more fundamental purpose–ensuring that your horse gets the maximum health benefits from the grain he consumes. In this article, we'll look at the main processing techniques used on equine feed, so you'll not only better understand why that grain looks the way it does, but also know what that means to your horse's well-being.

Digestive Primer

To best understand feed-processing techniques and their importance, it helps to understand a bit about the equine digestive system. As you know, the horse is designed to simply graze the day away. So, the equine gastrointestinal tract–small intestine, large intestine, and cecum–is adept at processing a near-continuous stream of high-fiber forage. But it's not good at handling low-fiber, high-carb meals; in other words, grain in its natural state