Simple Changes for Happier Horses
Small Changes That Can Make a Big Difference
Horse owners spend a lot of time searching for the next thing that might help their horse feel or perform better. However, some of the biggest improvements come from consistently supporting the basics. It's easier to do than you might think!
Whether your horse is a competitive athlete, trusted trail partner, or retired pasture companion, his body is designed to function best when his daily routine closely resembles the way horses naturally evolved to live. While modern management has allowed horses to live longer, healthier lives than ever before, it has also introduced new challenges that can affect everything from digestion to behavior.
That might sound like a lot of bad news, but there is good news. Small adjustments like tweaks to feeding, turnout, and daily management can go a long way toward supporting your horse's long-term health.
Continue reading to find some of our favorite places to start, and remember, this isn't a list of everything you have to do right now, it's a list of things you could do when you and your horse's living situation allow for it. Keep doing what you can, when you can, and know that we're here for you every step of the way!
1. Build a Strong Foundation with Forage
Feed Enough Forage
Forage is sometimes considered just another part of your horse's diet, but we should really be considering it as the foundation of where your horse's feeding should begin and end every day. To put it in perspective, most horses should consume 1.5–2% of their body weight in forage every day, and for a 1,000-pound horse, that's approximately 15–20 pounds of hay or pasture daily.
Feeding enough forage supports healthy digestion, encourages natural chewing behavior, helps buffer stomach acid, and promotes a healthier gastrointestinal tract from beginning to end, all of which are essential parts of what keeps your horse comfortable and healthy.
Learn More about Forage: Focus On Forage
Weigh Your Hay
One of the biggest mistakes horse owners make is measuring hay by flakes instead of weight. It's so common, we've probably all done it before, but we now better understand that the size and density of hay flakes vary tremendously between cuttings and even between bales from the same field. This variation in weight can result in a large fluctuation in how much your horse is fed, which can result in stomach discomfort as their bodies have to continually adjust to the amount of food they're receiving.
For best practice, we recommend weighing several flakes from multiple bales whenever you get a new shipment of hay. From there, use a hanging scale and calculate an average. Knowing how much your horse is actually eating, and keeping it as consistent as possible, makes it much easier to manage weight, monitor health, and ensure they're getting enough forage.
Let Horses Eat Like Horses
Wild horses spend 10–17 hours each day grazing, it's how they're designed to live. Because of that, all horses' stomachs continuously produce acid, whether they're eating or not. So when domesticated horses go long periods without forage (due to lack of pasture, infrequent hay feedings, travel, or a myriad of other reasons), the sensitive upper portion of their stomach is exposed to acid, increasing the risk of gastric ulcers.
Whenever possible, provide continuous access to pasture or hay. If free-choice forage isn't practical, slow-feed hay nets can help extend eating time and better mimic natural grazing.
Make Pasture Work for Your Horse
Fresh pasture provides forage, movement, and mental enrichment all at once.
If your horse is an easy keeper or you're managing metabolic concerns, turnout doesn't necessarily have to disappear. Grazing muzzles can help many horses safely enjoy pasture while limiting excess grass intake. You can also manage your horse's turnout times to allow them on pasture during portions of the day when the grass is more appropriate to their metabolic needs.
Learn More About Metabolic Health: Equine Metabolic Syndrome
2. Feed Smarter, Not Just More
Know What's in the Feed Tub
Not every horse feed serves the same purpose, and not every horse needs to be fed the same grain at the same amount. You wouldn't feed senior food to every young horse in the barn, just like you wouldn't feed a calorie-dense feed to a horse that's prone to getting overweight easily. Understanding whether your horse is eating a ration balancer, fortified grain, or complete feed helps ensure you're feeding the correct amount and getting the nutrition you expect.
If you're ever unsure, check the recommended feeding rate on the bag or talk with your veterinarian or equine nutritionist.
Learn More About Grain: Ask The Vet - How Do I Decide What To Feed My Horse
Don't Leave Nutritional Gaps
Many horses don't eat enough fortified grain to receive all of the vitamins and minerals it was designed to provide.
If your horse eats less than the recommended serving because of weight management or energy concerns, they may benefit from a vitamin and mineral supplement to help fill those nutritional gaps.
Focus on Protein Quality
Protein isn't just about percentages or a number on a bag. Essential amino acids including lysine, methionine, and threonine are responsible for supporting healthy muscle, strong topline, connective tissue, skin, and hoof health.
While every horse needs a certain amount of protein in their diet, feeding quality protein becomes especially important for growing horses, senior horses, breeding animals, and horses in training.
Support Healthy Fat Intake
Adding fat to the diet can support healthy skin and coat, but not all fat sources are created equal. Many common feeds and oils contain much higher levels of omega-6 fatty acids than omega-3s, potentially promoting inflammation when the balance becomes too heavily skewed. While it's unlikely we'll all stop feeding grain meals entirely, supplementing our horse's meals with flaxseed and marine-derived omega-3 sources can help support a healthier fatty acid profile while promoting skin, coat, and overall wellness.
Reward Wisely
Many riders (us included!) love rewarding our horses for a job well done, for being brave, or for just looking particularly cute. Whether it's the 'sugar tax' from the mounting block or a few bite sized snacks in their feed bucket before you closeup for the night, choosing wholesome, simple treats with lower sugar and straightforward ingredients lets you reward good behavior while keeping nutrition in mind.
3. Support Daily Digestive Health
Your horse's digestive tract works around the clock, which means their support should, too. Digestive health is so important and can be extremely delicate, so we always recommend focusing on risk management now (instead of problem-solving later).
Learn More about Digestive Health: Horse GI Tract Articles
Feed Smaller Grain Meals
Large grain meals allow excess starch to reach the hindgut, disrupting the microbial population responsible for digesting fiber. As acidity increases, beneficial bacteria begin to die, releasing endotoxins that have been associated with colic and laminitis. However, not every horse benefits from less grain or no grain at all. Some horses need it as a part of their diet, but that doesn't mean we have to give up on making small changes to help support a healthier version of large quantities of grain.
Working with your barn management (or setting a schedule if you keep horses at home) to offer smaller meals throughout the day can help maintain a healthier digestive environment without changing the overall diet structure that works for your horse!
Think Beyond the Stomach
Stress from training, travel, competition, or stall confinement can all increase the likelihood of gastric irritation. One of the best ways to help support gastric health is by providing a daily gastric supplement. We recommend looking for ingredients that are backed by science such as:
- Calcium or magnesium carbonate to help buffer stomach acid
- L-glutamine and licorice to support healthy stomach tissue
- Soluble fiber to help maintain gastric pH
- Aloe vera, sea buckthorn, pectin, and lecithin to help horses better cope with everyday stress
Don't Forget the Hindgut
While the stomach often gets most of the attention, the hindgut is where fiber digestion happens.
Supporting the hindgut with prebiotics, probiotics, digestive enzymes, and proper forage intake helps maintain the beneficial microbial population responsible for extracting nutrients from forage. (And if you're already feeding a high quality digestive support like SmartDigest Ultra, check out ColiCare for added peace of mind!)
Manage Sand Before It Becomes a Problem
Horses grazing sandy paddocks or eating hay directly from sandy ground can accidentally consume sand. Fed in small daily amounts, psyllium functions as a prebiotic to nourish beneficial gut bacteria. Fed in larger amounts over several consecutive days each month, it may help promote sand clearance from the digestive tract.
4. Create a Healthier Daily Routine
Make Turnout a Priority
Movement is one of the best things you can provide your horse. Whenever possible, aim for 8–12 hours of turnout each day. Turnout encourages movement, supports digestion, reduces boredom, and promotes mental well-being.
If that amount of turnout isn't available to you, consider spending time hand walking or grazing your horse, doing arena-turnout at barns that allow it, using hot walkers for an appropriate amount of time, or even nice long under saddle walks around your horse's barn or pasture.
Learn More about Turnout: Ask the Vet - Pros and Cons of All Day Turnout
Give Your Horse a Friend
Horses evolved to live in herds. Compatible pasture companions help reduce stress, encourage natural behaviors, and improve overall welfare. Even being able to see or touch another horse over a paddock fence line can help a horse feel more comfortable and relaxed.
Protect True Downtime
Even when your horse isn't working, his environment may still be stressful. Travel, competitions, noisy barns, and frequent routine changes all place demands on the body. Whenever possible, balance busy periods with quiet turnout and opportunities to relax.
Keep an Eye on the Big Picture
Rather than focusing on any one management practice, step back and evaluate your horse's overall lifestyle.
Ask yourself:
- Is he getting enough turnout?
- Is he eating enough forage?
- Is he spending long periods without hay?
- Is his workload appropriate?
- Is he maintaining a healthy body condition?
Improving your horse's health doesn't have to be an endless checklist to stress about. Making small changes to daily routines can have big benefits!
5. Don't Overlook the Basics
Monitor Body Condition
Body condition scoring is one of the easiest ways to track your horse's health over time.
Regularly evaluating fat coverage helps identify weight changes before they become serious and allows you to adjust feeding accordingly.
Learn More about Body Condition: Horse Body Condition Scoring System
Make Salt a Daily Habit
Your horse cannot produce sodium or chloride on his own, yet these minerals are essential for:
- Hydration
- Electrolyte balance
- Muscle function
- Nerve transmission
- Healthy digestion
- Maintaining blood pH
Despite its importance, surveys suggest that more than 60% of horses don't consume enough sodium. Provide free-choice salt whenever possible and increase supplementation appropriately for horses in work or hot climates.
Improve Hay Quality
Even high-quality hay naturally contains dust, mold spores, bacteria, and other respirable irritants.
High-temperature hay steaming has been shown to dramatically reduce these contaminants while preserving nutrients and improving palatability, making it a valuable management tool for horses with respiratory concerns or sensitive digestive systems.
6. Do Your Best!
Modern horse management will never perfectly replicate life in the wild, but the closer we can come, the better.
Every horse is one of a kind, but they all share the same biological blueprint. Supporting that blueprint through thoughtful nutrition, consistent forage, movement, turnout, companionship, and daily management gives your horse the best opportunity to thrive.