If you’ve been fortunate enough to encounter no issues with your horses grazing on your lush pastures, you may skip ahead. However, if your horse is among the numerous experiencing any of the following problems or similar variations, then this is essential reading.
Problems Caused by Lush Pasture
- Hoof problems
- Equine Metabolic Syndrome (EMS)
- Laminitis
- Anxiety
- Spookiness
- Explosiveness
- Separation Anxiety
- Muscular tension
- Hollow posture
- Bunny-hopping
- Difficulty with canter transitions
- Head shaking or flicking
- Polysaccharide Storage Myopathy (PSSM)
- Locking Stifles
- Stringhalt
- Allergies
- Hormonal imbalances
- Aggression
- Gastric ulcers
- Audible gastrointestinal noises
- Fecal Water Syndrome
- Mud Fever
- Sunburn
- Staggers
- Respiratory issues
- Various forms of colic
If any of these issues resonate with you, please read on…
The notion that allowing horses to freely roam lush meadows, selecting vegetation to balance their diet instinctively by day’s end is ideal, is far from reality. In our experience, such thinking often contributes significantly to the aforementioned list of issues. Conversely, managing a horse’s forage differently proves effective in resolving them.
Horses thrive in some of the harshest environments globally—dry rather than wet, sometimes at high altitudes, where soils have comparatively low organic matter and nitrogen content.
They evolved where clover doesn’t grow, thus their digestive system differs markedly from ruminants like cattle and lacks the mechanisms to process excess nitrogen, particularly nitrates. Less than 10% of wild or feral horse diets comprise anything other than grasses, bushy shrubs, and sedges.
Yet, some advocate sowing various clovers and legumes to enhance soil health and provide dietary variety, overlooking crucial points:
The “sparse” aspect: Horses possess “thrifty genes” and are designed to derive modest nutrition from numerous mouthfuls, unlike ruminants, which extract significant nutrition from each mouthful.
Horses would naturally cover extensive distances daily, expending considerable energy, whereas grazing lush fields requires minimal effort.
Clovers and similar plants may have lower sugar content than grasses, but their crude protein/nitrogen and potassium levels exceed what equine metabolism can handle. Even a small fraction of such seeds in a mix can lead to dominance by plants like plantain, observed on multiple occasions.
Placing horses with any of the aforementioned issues on lush pastures, especially rich in legumes, typically exacerbates their conditions rather than serving as a remedy. Avoiding such forage can aid in their recovery.
Given that humans have relocated horses to environments divergent from their natural habitat, resulting in the aforementioned consequences, creating desert-like environments such as Tracks/Dry Lots and providing grass as hay, along with longer grazing rotations for mature grass, proves the most practical approach to benefit the horse.
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References:
*Janis, c. 1976. “The Evolutionary Strategy of the Equidae and the Origins of Rumen and Caecal Digestion.” Evolution 757:754
**Ransom, Jason I., and Petra Kaczensky. “Wild Equids – Ecology Management and Conservation.” Multiple observational studies indicate that grass species constitute 83%-91% of the feral horse diet in all seasons, with shrubs (about 8%) and herbaceous plants (1%) playing a limited role, primarily in winter.
