Supporting sustainability of the equine sector: Development of a digestion model to predict nutrient utilization and excretion

Lead Applicant: Jennifer Ellis

Research Priority: Competitive Production Systems 

Program Type: Tier 1

Funding Cycle: 2023/2024

Research Centre: NA

Research Summary: Nutrition modelling is essential to modern feed formulation and diet optimization across livestock production sectors. Mechanistic models of nutrient digestion, absorption, metabolism, and growth are implemented in industry as ‘decision support systems’, and in academia to summarize and examine our cumulative biological knowledge, identify knowledge gaps and test/evaluate hypothesis. However, comparatively less progress in this field has been made in the equine sector. This limits the ability of the equine sector to address complex challenges that span nutrition, management, health, welfare, and the environmental impact of the sector. Therefore, this project aims to develop a mechanistic model of nutrient digestion kinetics of mature horses to (1) facilitate the prediction and estimation of the environmental impact of equine feeding practices, (2) support improved diet formulation, and (3) increase our understanding of nutrient dynamics within horses in order to guide future research by identifying and filling knowledge gaps.