Horses evolved as continuous grazers, spending up to 18 hours per day foraging. Restricting grazing time and access has significant welfare implications that management approaches must address.
Horse grazing welfare is about the fundamental mismatch between what horses evolved to do - graze continuously, move widely, maintain social bonds in fluid groups - and what modern management often provides: restricted turnout, scheduled feeding, and individual stabling. This mismatch drives many of the most prevalent welfare problems in the equine industry: gastric ulcers from acid secretion without continuous buffering, stereotypies from frustrated foraging drives, and social isolation from individual housing. The welfare-centered management approach works with horses' behavioral ecology: maximizing turnout time, providing slow feeders to extend foraging behavior during any stabled periods, maintaining social groups, and managing grazing quality without eliminating access.