The horse is a notoriously selective grazer and will choose many alternative forage species before consuming E+ tall fescue. Under low grazing pressures, many mares will spot-graze other species of forage and never exhibit any signs of fescue toxicosis. Changes in grazing pressure or lack of availability of alternative forages quickly can force E+ fescue consumption and generate the classical signs of fescue toxicosis. This partially explains why some horse owners appear to have little or no fescue toxicosis when a few mares are grazing a large acreage of mostly E+ fescue and other horse owners routinely have problems with mares grazing E+ fescue.

 

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