Comparative ingestive mastication in domestic horses and cattle: a pilot investigation |
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| Authors: | C M Janis E C Constable K A Houpt W J Streich M Clauss |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA;2. Currently Emily Pershing, Cumberland, ME, USA;3. Department of Clinical Science, College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA;4. Leibniz Institute of Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) Berlin, Berling, Germany;5. Clinic of Zoo Animals, Exotic Pets and Wildlife, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland |
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| Abstract: | It is often assumed that horses chew food more intensively during ingestion than cattle, which ‐ as ruminants ‐ complete part of the mastication during rumination. This has been proposed as a reason for more robust mandibles, larger masseter insertion areas and larger masseter muscles in horses as compared to cattle and other grazing ruminants. In this study, we evaluate results of comparative feeding trials with three horses (338–629 kg) and three cows (404–786 kg), on four different roughages. Ingestion time (s/g dry matter) and chewing intensity (chews/g dry matter) differed among animals within a species, indicating an influence of body mass, and differed significantly between different forages. However, although numerical differences clearly suggest that horses have longer ingestion times and higher chewing intensities on high‐fibre roughage than do cattle, this could not be proven in this dataset, most likely because of the small number of individuals sampled. Further studies are required to corroborate the suspected ingestive behaviour difference between equids and ruminants. |
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| Keywords: | craniodental anatomy chewing intensity equids ingestion mastication ruminants |
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