Quality pasture management is fundamental to horse welfare, providing nutrition, exercise, and natural grazing behavior opportunities.
Pasture management is central to horse welfare because horses are physiologically and behaviorally adapted to continuous grazing movement. Restricting grazing time leads to long periods without forage, increasing gastric acid production and ulcer risk. Simultaneously, access to over-rich improved pastures in spring can trigger laminitis in susceptible ponies and horses, causing severe, chronic foot pain. Effective management involves providing sufficient turnout, managing grass quality through grazing rotation and strip grazing, and providing hay or haylage to supplement periods of restricted grazing without leaving horses entirely without forage.