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Keeping horses off winter rain-soaked soils or frozen pasture plants is critical for maintaining the integrity of your pasture next summer. Soggy soils or dormant plants grazed below three or four inches simply cannot survive continuous wintertime grazing and trampling. Pounding hooves compact wet soils, which suffocate plant roots and create more mud. Overgrazing causes root resorption so grass plants no longer have long, healthy roots reaching deep into the soil to utilize moisture and nutrients.
The best alternative to degrading pastures is housing your horse in a mud-free confinement area. However, many horses in confinement develop physical or behavioral issues such as pacing, chewing, aggressiveness, or ulcers.
What is Equine Enrichment?
Equine enrichment is looking for ways to provide more stimulation in a horse’s environment to benefit their psychological and physical well-being. We all know that our horses are smart and scientific research confirms this. So when confining our horses, we also need to keep their personalities in mind.
Here are a few ideas for ways to incorporate enrichment opportunities into a confinement area.
Paddock Design
Design your confinement area to encourage interest. You might fence off a long, narrow paddock with feeding or water stations at either end. Perhaps your existing confinement area can double as a round pen for extra exercise, or you could create a track paddock for turnout. Check out Jaime Jackson’s book Paddock Paradise: A Guide to Natural Horse Boarding for more information.
Location
Locate your confinement area so your horse will have interaction with and stimulus from the world around them. Set it up so your horse is a part of your everyday life. Things like kids playing, people coming and going, summer-time lawn mowing and bicycles, snow shoveling in the winter, etc., all provide stimulus and give our horses something to look at and think about.
Companionship
Design paddocks and stalls so that your horse can safely interact with equine neighbors next door. He should at least be able to see others, but touching noses or mutual grooming provide even greater enrichment. If you don’t have another horse, other animal companions such as burros or goats can be helpful. Cats and dogs also often befriend horses, improving emotional well-being for each of them.
Food
Frequent, smaller meals are healthier for horses and mimic their natural lifestyle. Try feeding in different locations or stations so they do a bit of food seeking. Offer different food types in different areas, such as hay cubes or low-quality hay, for some extra “chew time.” Consider using a hay net or a slow feeder, which stretches eating time further.
Browsing
Occasionally give your horse small branches of an edible plant such as willow, cottonwood, bamboo, or blackberry vines. Weave a branch or vine into paddock fencing or incorporate a holder (such as an umbrella holder) into their paddocks for this purpose. NOTE: Many species of plants are poisonous to horses, including black walnut, yew, red maple, black locust, rhododendron, laurel, oak, and most fruit trees. Be sure to carefully research which plants in your area are safe and which are toxic. The ASPCA has a list of plants that are toxic and non-toxic to horses, or consult your veterinarian if you’re unsure.
Healthy Treats
More food related ideas include feeding occasional treats like watermelon, plums (without the pit), bananas (skin and all), grapes, celery, or cut up pieces of raw (orange) pumpkin. These, along with other types of low sugar treats available for purchase, can be fed in alternative locations to engage curiosity and food hunting behavior.
Toys may help
This is especially true for young horses. Studies show that adult horses are less motivated by toys unless they are associated with food, such as hay balls or different kinds of treat licks.
Scratching pads or brushes
This could be a large nylon brush or a worn-out broom head which is safely bolted to a wall or corner. You might also find a textured rubber door mat that can be screwed to a wall.
Rolling areas
Rolling is a natural activity that improves coat and skin condition and delivers comfort. It is also thought to increase a horse’s flexibility by stretching and engaging muscles in the back, neck, and barrel. If you have room, you could create a sand pile in your horse’s paddock for this purpose. Alternately, use a sand arena or round pen for regular turnout so they can roll.
Turn out
Turn out your horses by themselves or with others in an arena or round pen to give them a chance to play and interact.
Exercise
Even if you cannot ride, you can still groom and maintain good hoof care for your horse. You can also try hand walking, lunging, or doing liberty work with your horse, and on sunny, dry days, you could get out for a trail ride. Plan on exercising your horse a minimum of 30 minutes, three times per week.
Conclusion
Utilizing a confinement area decreases winter impacts on pastures and improves productivity for the next growing season, which means less money spent on supplemental feed and happier, healthier horses. But confinement areas can be stifling for some horses, who suffer from a lack of physical and emotional stimulus. Providing enrichment for horses in winter confinement doesn’t have to be expensive and can be as simple as adding turnout time with others, providing forage in a more natural way, feeding a new type of feed or occasional treat, or scheduling in a little extra one-on-one time with your horse. Think outside the box, mix things up, and have fun together—and rest assured that you are supporting your horse’s emotional well-being at the same time.
