What I find even more interesting is that we bred horses to be so big that they can't survive on grass (their natural food) alone.
>Now the small native ponies of the Steppe can subsist entirely off of grass, but the sort of horses available in the agrarian world are bred too big and strong to eat entirely grass. Their nutrition requirements are too high and so they require feed, at least some 4.5kg of it per day assuming local grass is available along with time to let the horses graze it (during which the wagon is, of course, stopped).
An old bug in Dwarf Fortress had large grazers unable to eat fast enough to not starve. It still amazes me Elephants, Rhinos, Hippos, and Giraffes can eat enough to survive in real life.
>Now the small native ponies of the Steppe can subsist entirely off of grass, but the sort of horses available in the agrarian world are bred too big and strong to eat entirely grass. Their nutrition requirements are too high and so they require feed, at least some 4.5kg of it per day assuming local grass is available along with time to let the horses graze it (during which the wagon is, of course, stopped).
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32239566