Przewalski's Horse (Equus ferus przewalskii) Fact Sheet: Diet & Feeding

Daily intake

• Estimated daily water intake
  • 2.4-8.3 liters per day
  • Significant individual variation.
• Estimated daily food intake
  • 5.5-7.0 kg of hay
• Feeding requirements are similar to those of domestic horses
• Water consumption lower than domestic horses

Diet composition

• Present-day diet
  • Grasses and forbs (Kaczensky et al. 2017)
    • No evidence of seasonal shifts in diet
• Historic (pre-1970s) diet
  • Broader than present-day diet (Kaczensky et al. 2017)
  • Mixed vegetation: browse and grasses (Kaczensky et al. 2017)
    • Kaczensky et al. (2017) attribute the seasonality in diet avoidance of human hunters
      • No longer hunted; attitudes toward this species have become positive since the 1990s

Digging

• Able to use sharp hooves to dig holes in ground to access water

Digestive microbes

• Intestinal microbiota studied by Li et al. (2019)
  • Varied by diet composition
    • High protein, mixed feed diet (managed care) vs. high fiber, low nutrition diet (reintroduced)
    • Other factors, such as age, body condition, or environmental factors, may have also influence diversity of microbes

Image credit: © San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. All rights reserved.

Boyd & Houpt (1994)
Scheibe et al. (1998)