Basic Needs

The horse adapted to survive in areas of wide-open terrain with sparse, largely low calorie vegetation. They travelled extensively and existed on a varied high fibre, forage diet.

In their ‘natural’ environment horses would graze for 16-18 hours a day.

This is why it is important to make sure horses have almost constant access to forage, as this helps to avoid health issues such as gastric ulcers.

However, health problems such as; obesity, laminitis and insulin resistance in horses have increased over recent years. These are considered in part at least to be the result of a diet of rich, higher calorie grasses.

These health problems can often lead to a change in management approach. For example, restricting access to grazing/forage and the replacing grazing with cereal-based feeds.

Sometimes a horse’s environment and management can trigger negative behaviours (stereotypies) in horses. Additionally, negative landscape impacts result from over-grazed and over-fenced ‘starvation’ paddocks along with the reliance upon more cereal-based feed.

This is why these pages focus upon grass and grassland management as not only is this so important for horse health, but it can also help to address other impacts upon the landscape.