Why Turnout Is Important for Your Horse

Horses are healthiest and happiest outdoors in their pastures. There are a number of reasons why your horse should be outside as much as possible. Although many horses will clamor to come into a stable during nasty weather, it’s important that they live outdoors as much as possible.

Sometimes keeping your horse confined in a stall is necessary, such as when a veterinarian prescribes stall rest. Other than that, turnout is crucial to your horse’s health and well-being.What Is Turnout?

Turnout is the act of taking a horse from its stall to a dedicated pasture or field. Turning out your horses on a regular basis allows them to maintain their health through exercise, play, and social interaction with other horses.

Hoof Health

Blood circulation is essential for hoof health, and horses may not get enough exercise standing in a stall. Standing in bedding soiled with manure and urine can also lead to hoof problems like thrush and white line disease.1]]

Hoof growth and strength may be compromised if horses are left to stand in a stall for long periods of time, especially if the bedding is left damp. Exercise encourages natural hoof growth.

Leg Health

Horses standing in stalls may develop stocked up legs, which is a condition where the legs swell, usually below the knee joints.2 It's noticeable on all four legs and dissipates when the horse is allowed to move around (which is how to determine whether it's stocking or an injury causing the swelling).

Leg injuries occur when horses that are frustrated about staying in kick stall walls or hay feeders. Impatient horses can hurt their front legs by pawing and wear their hooves unevenly.

Boredom

Horses are intelligent herd animals and will grow restless and bored if confined individually indoors for long periods of time. A horse may entertain itself by chewing stall walls. Cribbing is a stereotypic behavior as a way to cope with stress in which a horse places its top incisors onto an upright object such as a fence post or stall door and arches its neck while inhaling.3 The horse may walk the perimeter of its enclosure, known as stall