Proper nutrition is fundamental to working horse welfare — inadequate energy supply causes muscle loss, poor performance, and increased injury risk.
Nutritional welfare problems in working horses range from subtle underfeeding to severe emaciation, and are often driven by economic constraints and owner knowledge gaps. In international development contexts, draft horses in South Asia and Africa frequently work with body condition scores indicating moderate to severe undernutrition. The welfare impact includes muscle wasting, skeletal pain from reduced body fat over bony prominences, impaired immune function, and reduced thermoregulation. Brooke, World Horse Welfare, and SPANA work in these regions providing nutritional education and emergency feed support. For performance horses in developed countries, gastric ulceration from high-grain diets and restricted forage access is a significant welfare issue.