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The equine dairy chain is renewing the interest toward horse and donkey breeding for the production of milk with potential health promoting properties. The dairy equine chain for human consumption could contribute to the rural eco-sustainable development for the micro-economies of those areas threatened by marginalization. As a part of the whole equine industry, and its possible impact in the modern and future society, the main traits of the equine dairy enterprise are reviewed with a special focus on management of animals and milk. Equine milk compositional and nutritional peculiarities are described as also related to milk hygiene and health issues. Scientific and technical aspects of the feeding management are considered in the frame of the emerging dairy equine enterprise, where pasture is an essential element that allows to match production goals for horses and donkeys, biodiversity preservation, as well as landscape safeguard.

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Commercially mixed feeds for light horse feeding are being used more and more and, in recent times, a particular role has been played by mixed feeds characterized by high fibre percentages together with pre-biotic or pro-biotic supplements.Consequently, more data about these new feeds are required. The apparent digestibility of a commercially mixed feed containing about 14% crude fibre (CF) as a feed and 1% lactulose was determined by means of 3 in vivo digestibility trials each performed on 4 saddle horses weighting about 550 kg over a 6 day faeces total collection period with a previous 14 day adaptation period. The diets were based on first cut meadow hay -whose digestibility was estimated in the first trial -and a mixed feed at a feeding level close to maintenance. The forage to concentrate ratios were 100 : 0, 75 : 25 and 50 : 50, respectively, in the three trials. The apparent digestibility of the dry matter, organic matter, gross energy, crude protein, NDF, ADF and CF were measured by the ingesta/excreta procedure. The data was processed using ANOVA. Significant differences were only found for the concentrate in the apparent digestibility coefficients of the dry matter ( P = 0.021), gross energy ( P = 0.023), ADF ( P = 0.041), NDF ( P = 0.006) and cellulose ( P = 0.031).