Special characteristics of a horse may be better understood by briefly studying the horses’ zoological classification. The following table starts with the species (Equus caballus) and opens to the animal kingdom.
SOME LEARNINGS FROM THE TABLE:
- The horse is an animal species with a central nerve cord (protected by the spinal column). Having the spine as the reference point, the left and right sides of the animal look alike.
- Horses have big, flat premolars and molars adequate for chewing roughage. They are mono-gastric (one stomach) with a large cecum (the first portion of the large intestine) that allow them to use roughage as their source of nutrients.
- Because equine graze about 17 hours a day and the feed intake rate is slow (which matches with having a small stomach), they should be fed small frequent amounts, instead of big amounts few times a day.
- Their medium-long neck allows the mouth to reach the grass from the ground level.
- Each of the four long legs of a horse end on a foot that consists of one toe covered by a hoof (a hard, keratinized structure).
- The female horse (called ‘mare’) develops placenta for the fetus during pregnancy and lactates the offspring after birth.