Horses have to deal with more grit and dust in feed, which wears away at their teeth, than ruminants do, researchers said. | Photo: iStock

Don’t scarf down your food, Rusty. It’s not like you’re a cow and get to chew it a second time.

Fortunately, that’s not something we have to tell most horses. Recent study results show that horses are very efficient chewers with a rhythmic chewing pattern similar to that of cows.

Cows, camels, and many other herbivores are ruminants—meaning they chew food, swallow it, and then return the parts that still require chewing back to the mouth for further chewing and swallowing. Horses belong to a group of herbivore species that don’t do this. They chew, swallow, digest, and that’s it