digestion taking place in horse stomach

Question
hello, when horses start eating the feed, within how much time digestion starts taking place? how much time it takes for the digestion to get completed? give me an example of any fodder and forage and the quantity of it fed to horses and then tell me how much time it takes for the digestion to get completed.

Answer
Hello Caine,

Thank you for your question.  The overall digestive process of the horse is estimated to take approximately 30 hours: 20 minutes in the stomach, 45 minutes in the small intestine, 5 hours in the cecum and the remainder of the time in the large colon.  With these rates, grains should be digested within 1 to 1-1/2 hours, and forages fermented within the total 30 hours.

However, the rate of passage of feed through the digestive system can be influenced feeding rate, degree of feed processing, stress, exercise, etc so there is some variation in overall passage rate.

I hope that helps.

Thanks, Corlena