Atrayu

I just watched an episode of Seinfeld the other day where Kramer gave a horse beefareeno, which then gave the horse really bad gas.

Can horses even eat meat? Is it true that it gives them gas? I'm just curious. lol.

Estelle

Let's face it, there are plenty of humans who cannot eat meat because it causes gas and other symptoms-it's a big trigger for IBS and we are omnivores. Horses are herbivores, and so their stomachs are just not designed for meat.

Atrayu

I assumed it was something along those lines. Especially because they're not omni/carni-vores.

Someone told me that that's where Mad Cow disease comes from. Because cows in england were given vitamin supplements that contained cow meat or something from cows. Anyone know if that's true?

SaddleSore

I'm ashamed to say (ashamed because I'm British and find the farming practise disgusting) that it is true. It wasn't supplements though-the practise was that animals that were slaughtered and not good enough for human food were fed to other animals. We turned them into cannibals, feeding them the worst of the animals too-the entrails and CNS which is where the highest concentration of rogue prion proteins are to be found.

Scrapie was a similar condition, spread in a similar way.

Snap

Yeah, mad cow disease and scrapie are spread from eating protein from infected animals. In cows it was from protein supplements, in sheep it was thought to be from eating each other's placentas. Kuru in humans was from canibalism.

CowboyJack

You need to take into consideration that the television character of Kramer was very far from being a sane individual.

Many episodes of Seinfeld showed him doing crazy,stupid, or insane acts and it was all part of his gimmick on the show.

That said, do NOT feed meat to your horse.

Hopefully you all knew that already