Drought creates acute welfare crises for horses dependent on pasture, with rapid nutritional decline requiring emergency feed management and often difficult decisions about destocking or euthanasia.
Drought welfare crises in horses develop insidiously. Pasture quality declines before quantity, meaning horses may appear to be grazing normally while losing condition from inadequate nutrition. By the time visible weight loss appears, significant muscle wasting may have occurred. Emaciated horses recover slowly and incompletely — muscle mass lost during starvation returns over months with adequate nutrition. The welfare arithmetic of drought management is often brutal: the cost of adequate supplementary feed may exceed what owners can afford, requiring difficult decisions about rehoming, sale, or euthanasia. Early intervention when body condition first begins declining is far more effective — practically and ethically — than waiting until crisis.