What if your horse doesn't have access to pasture?

In the Netherlands, space is limited. Therefore, it is not always possible to provide your horse with pasture access. How do you deal with this? What should you keep in mind when your horse doesn't have pasture access?

In the wild, a horse spends many hours and kilometers per day foraging for food alongside herd mates. Even our modern horses are still designed for this "grazing-walking" lifestyle. To keep your horse healthy, you want to mimic this way of life as much as possible, even if it requires some creativity.

Free movement and social interaction

Free movement is essential for the physical and mental well-being of your horse. The joints, tendons, ligaments, and muscles of horses stay in better condition if they spend many hours or even 24/7 outside. In addition, social interaction is crucial. Horses are herd animals and enjoy standing, playing, and grooming with their buddies. This reduces stress and improves the mental resilience of your horse. Even if you don't have pasture, your horse still needs free movement, preferably with friends, in a paddock or a paddock paradise, for example. It is important to ensure that your horse doesn't stand without roughage for too long, as this can lead to stomach problems, boredom, and eating sand. Additionally, it is beneficial to provide other activities in the paddock, such as playing with a ball, walking on different surfaces, or nibbling on a natural fence made of edible shrubs and trees.

You can't beat grass pasture

Except for very robust breeds, a pasture with herb-rich and fibrous horse grass is actually the ideal food supply for most horses. Especially if there are also bushes and trees along the edges where they can take a bite occasionally. A pasture fertilized with sea minerals from the Bering Sea contains grass that provides the vitamins, minerals, and trace elements your horse needs. For example, fresh grass provides enough vitamin E for muscles, fertility, and the nervous system, and plants like nettle and willow provide minerals including magnesium and silicon. In short, a good horse pasture is hard to beat. If your horse doesn't have access to pasture at all, you need to pay close attention to the diet. Many vitamins degrade if hay is stored for a long time. For example, there is almost no vitamin E and vitamin C left in hay in the spring. Roughage from poorer soils is quite low in minerals.

Supplementing minerals and vitamins

The easiest way to supplement your horse's hay is with a special balancer. To know exactly what your horse needs, you can have the hay tested. Then you will know what it contains and can supplement any deficiencies. In most cases, you will need to supplement vitamin E, especially for breeding animals and sport horses. Make sure to feed vitamin E in a form that is easily absorbed by horses. The best forms of vitamin E for horses are d-α-tocopherol and RRR-α-tocopherol. These forms are also known as natural or 'nature-identical' vitamin E. Artificial vitamin E is much less well absorbed by horses, but is often cheaper. However, you need to feed (a lot) more of it to achieve the same effect. A good vitamin E supplement is liquid and contains some fatty acids. Grape seed oil, a powerful antioxidant, enhances the effects of a vitamin E supplement. Selenium is often added to vitamin E supplements, but if your horse has a high need for vitamin E, this can be a risk. Selenium can be toxic in moderate amounts. Silicon is also essential for young horses and sport horses, helping to build strong bones, tendons, muscles, and ligaments. The best way to provide this mineral is in the form of hydrolyzed, liquid silicon.

Let your horse choose

To allow your horse to supplement any deficiencies itself, you can offer a mineral buffet in your paddock. This is a row of buckets with water and different additions, such as rosehip (rich in vitamin C), nettle (mild detoxification), and a mineral supplement from herbs. Always provide fresh, additive-free water. Your horse can then choose what it needs.

To learn more about the nutritional values in grass and hay, click here.

To find out more about the mineral buffet, click here.

For more information on optimizing your paddock, click here.