Talk:Mares of Diomedes

Is this really possible? Can a horse subsist on a diet of meat? Drutt (talk) 05:47, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

YesPeter Napkin Dance Party (talk) 23:43, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes with caveats; horses are far less specialised (and less efficient) herbivores than say cows, they have short guts a small single stomach, canine teeth (albeit relatively small ones)and produce enzymes capable of digesting animal protein. Horses are relatively recently descended from a smaller omnivorous ancestors and have there are "carnivorous horses" in the fossil record, although they looked more like giant hoofed hyenas. I've seen modern references to horses killing and eating small animals. I should imagine a full meat diet would not work very well at all but a conventional diet with a meat supplement would work. My horse once stole half my bacon lettuce & tomato sandwich, he ate the bacon and bread and spat out all the salad but then again he's a dustbin. Bigyaks (talk) 17:22, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I knew a horse who ate hamburgers, but have you ever noticed how much filler is in the average hamburger? LOL! Actually, can you source your above comment? It's rather interesting, I'm skeptical, but open to evidence from reliable sources. Killing, yes, eating, not so much (though I also know of a horse who ate the goldfish placed in a stock tank to keep down the algae!) (grin) Keep in mind that humans eat dirt too. Montanabw^(talk) 22:03, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

"Horses can metabolize proteins of animal origins, a capacity that seems interesting from an evolutionary perspective. Indeed, feeding horses with flesh is not uncommon, for example, fish is given to racing horses in California, blood from pigs to horses in Tibet, and chickens to horses in Valouchistan (Devereux,1975)". Quote from Horse madness (hippomania) and hippophobia, Yiannis G. Papakostas, Michael D. Daras, Ioannis A. Liappas and Manolis Markianos, History of Psychiatry 2005; 16; 467. Ref is a bit lame as it is a Psychatry Journal. Horses can have canines, see Horse teeth. Toby's fondness for bacon stands as original research! Bigyaks (talk) 10:57, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

This is a fun discussion! The contradictory information includes the fact that horses have no gall bladder and do a poor job of digesting fat, bile is produced on a near-continuous basis, necessitating a forage diet. There is an outside limit on how much fat a horse can digest in a day, and vegetable sources seem to be metabolized better than animal ones. Thus, I do not believe the evidence supports the notion that horses could live exclusively on meat -- things like fish meal are added as supplements to boost protein, but there is debate over their efficacy. (That said, my grandpa fed eggs to his horses, believing it would give them glossy coats) Also, though horses technically have canines, they are only common in males, and they are a blunted, almost useless tooth, sometimes thought to exist primarily for fighting (see the skull photo in horse teeth where they are shown) You can add corn oil to a horse's diet to boost fat, and recently they have figured out how to stabilize flaxseed and rice bran in feeds, but the thing of feeding animal parts to horses the way they do for cows is quite problematic (for both) and generally not as effective as a vegetable source. Montanabw^(talk) 23:29, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

If it's not fun then what's the point! Agreed a "wholly meat" diet seems unlikely to be successful, as I said above. However horses are Monogastric, a trait they share with dogs, pigs and humans and are less efficient at digesting plant matter than ruminents "...for example, the horse digests the fibre of average quality grass hay with about 2/3 of the efficiency of the cow (Hintz, 1969)." . In the same paper Hintz also notes that horses may not be able to synthesise all the proteins they require when given a poor quality diet and in such cases protein supliments can aid growth. The ability to digest animal protein and the presence of canines are probably "fossils" inherited from their omnivorous ancestors (Hyracotherium) rather than modern adaptations(with canines probably having a "Sexual Selection" function given their higher occurrence in males?). However horses have very "plastic" behaviour, I can see that the ability/inclination to take small game when opportunity presents as a supplement a poor diet could be an advantage (Pandas do this for example). A google of "carnivorous horses" throws up a few reports of horses being seen to eat small animals but nothing cite-able. If it helps Toby shows a preference for meat flavoured crisps over both "cheese and onion" and "salt and vinegar" flavour, his particular favourite being "roast chicken". Bigyaks (talk) 11:46, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Also of interest in your observation that horses are poorly equipped to digest fat is that the "fish, blood and chicken" that Devereux is reported as saying are fed to horses are all low in fat, high in protein. Bigyaks (talk) 11:46, 18 November 2011 (UTC)