Appropriate pasture management is essential for horse welfare, providing grazing, social interaction, and movement opportunities. Overgrazed or poorly managed pastures compromise equine welfare significantly.
Horse pasture welfare encompasses nutritional, physical, and psychological dimensions. Horses kept on small, overgrazed pastures without supplementary hay suffer nutritional deprivation and increased parasite exposure. The psychological impact of inadequate grazing time is significant — horses deprived of forage develop stereotypic behaviors including crib-biting and weaving, reflecting severe frustration of the grazing drive. At the other extreme, unrestricted access to rich spring pastures causes laminitis, a painful, debilitating inflammatory condition of the hooves that can be career-ending or life-threatening. Good pasture management balances grazing access with horse health, using strip grazing, track systems, and hay supplementation to maintain both psychological wellbeing and physical health.