There are a number of ways to help prevent insulin resistance (IR) or associated conditions like laminitis in horses, but did you know that how you feed your horse could be one of them? According to recently published study results, feeding methods that slow horses’ feed consumption rate can also reduce their insulin and glucose responses directly after the meal.

“We wanted to see if there were other things an owner could do from a management standpoint to minimize glucose/insulin responses to feed … simply by altering how they deliver the feed to the horse,” explained researcher Shannon Pratt-Phillips, PhD, associate professor at North Carolina State University’s Department of Animal Science.

In the first of two experiments, Pratt-Phillips and colleagues investigated four different feed delivery methods’ effects on the glucose/ insulin responses of eight mature healthy horses of varying breeds