There are many plants in nature that are poisonous to horses. Horses usually avoid them, but sometimes their instinct fails and poisoning occurs. This most often occurs due to a lack of adequate forage in the pasture or contamination of the forage with poisonous plants. The quality of fodder is particularly influenced by the botanical composition of grass litter. In terms of botanical groups the plants in the grass rush are divided into grasses, buttercups, herbs and grass-like plants. Toxic substances in plants are mainly represented by many secondary metabolites. The role of toxic metabolites is to protect plants from herbivores, diseases, pests and other hostile plants. In literature that was studied, alkaloids, glycosides, alcohols and acids, proteins and amino acids and terpenes are most often mentioned as toxic secondary metabolites in horse poisoning. The content of toxic substances in a plant depends on genetic and environmental factors. The content of toxic substances can be influenced by plant production technologies and feed processing. After processing, these can remain in the same concentrations, be reduced or converted and thus no longer toxic. Horse poisoning manifests itself as colic, diarrhea, convulsions and many other problems that can be life-threatening for the horse.
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