From time to time, I come across articles that truly resonate with me, and I love the opportunity to share them with our customers. For an animal designed to consume fibre and forage for 16 to 18 hours a day, it cannot be overstated how significant this is, both physiologically and emotionally for the horse.
This was one of the key inspirations behind my decision to begin making and selling slow feed hay nets. During my previous career as a trimmer, I was deeply saddened to see horses and ponies confined to stables or small yards and given only a single biscuit (flakes) of hay once or twice a day. Without a net, this would be eaten in a matter of minutes; with a slow feed net, it would last significantly longer.
Slow feed hay nets work best when they always have hay in them, sourcing the correct hay type to enable this can however be a real struggle both physically and financially for many horse owners. For those of us with metabolically challenged horses, this can be even harder to find high quality, but low sugar hay.
Due to the large range of hay net hole sizes we have, you are able to control the rate of eating to suit your individual animals and therefore provide them with the correct amount of forage and fibre they require to be happy and healthy.
I hope you enjoy this article and perhaps a different perspective on this topic…
Food Anxiety: The Chronic Stress We Often Overlook
There is a form of chronic stress in horses that has become so normalised into conventional management, that it often goes unnoticed until you see what happens when it is removed.
Horses evolved as trickle feeders, grazing animals designed to consume small amounts of forage for up to 16 to 18 hours a day. Their entire physiology reflects this evolutionary reality. Horses have a relatively small stomach, approximately 8 to 15 litres (270 - 507 onces), that produces gastric acid continuously whether food is present or not. Their hindgut fermentation system depends on a steady flow of fibre to maintain microbial balance. Their nervous system evolved to interpret consistent, adequate access to forage as a signal of safety.
This is not about preference or convenience, it is survival. For most of equine evolutionary history, a horse without reliable access to forage was a horse at risk. Scarcity meant danger, the nervous system adapted accordingly.
When modern management creates inconsistent or inadequate access to appropriate forage through poor quality grazing, insufficient hay, long gaps between feeding, or competition at feeding points, the horse’s body does not experience this as a logistical issue. It experiences it as threat.
From a physiological perspective, the consequences are well documented. The equine stomach produces large volumes of hydrochloric acid daily. Without continuous buffering from forage, this acid damages the stomach lining. Research consistently shows significantly higher rates of equine gastric ulcer syndrome in horses fed intermittently, even when meals are provided multiple times per day, compared to horses with ad-lib access to forage.
The hindgut relies on steady fibre intake to maintain microbial stability. Interruptions to forage flow can lead to hindgut dysbiosis, acidosis, inflammation, and discomfort. All of these influence behaviour, emotional regulation, and in some horses contribute to stress-related metabolic strain over time.
Acute cortisol release is normal and adaptive, it allows the body to respond to a challenge. Chronic activation of the stress response creates a different picture. Prolonged food insecurity can alter HPA axis regulation, disrupt normal cortisol rhythms, increase inflammatory load, and reduce the system’s capacity to return to baseline. This is not about a horse being stressed all the time. It is about a nervous system that never fully stands down.
Food anxiety often shows up in ways we mislabel, including:
- Fixation or hypervigilance around feeding times
- Food guarding, defensiveness, or aggression
- Stereotypic behaviours such as cribbing, weaving, or box walking
- Pacing, restlessness, or an inability to settle
- Heightened reactivity to otherwise minor stimuli
- Difficulty focusing, learning, or softening
These are not training problems or personality traits. They are adaptive responses to an environment the nervous system does not experience as secure.
Quantity alone does not create safety, forage must be adequate in quality as well as availability. A paddock may look green while offering little nutritional value. Weedy, overgrazed, or depleted grazing does not meet the same physiological or regulatory needs as well-managed pasture. Horses are selective grazers; they know when what is available does not meet their needs.
Hay quality matters just as deeply, dusty, mouldy, stem heavy, or nutrient poor hay may fill the stomach without satisfying the body. The nervous system does not settle simply because something is present, it settles when needs are met. Variety also plays a role, access to different forage types allows horses to self select for micronutrients and plant compounds that support both physical health and emotional balance.
When horses move from food insecurity to genuine forage sufficiency, consistent access to appropriate, good quality forage, the changes can be striking. In many cases these shifts begin within days and continue to deepen over weeks. Breathing patterns change, muscle tone softens, particularly through the jaw, neck, and topline and digestive sounds normalise, dtereotypic behaviours often diminish or resolve, emotional reactivity reduces and the horse begins to rest. Not just pause, but rest.
This is not anthropomorphism, it is observable, repeatable, and grounded in measurable physiological change. Not every environment offers ideal grazing or unlimited pasture. But understanding food through a nervous system lens allows us to mitigate scarcity wherever possible, through consistency, quality, distribution, and access. Awareness alone changes how we manage, observe, and interpret behaviour.
We cannot meaningfully address behaviour, training, connection, or performance without acknowledging this foundation. A nervous system that is monitoring, anticipating, or competing for resources does not have the bandwidth for learning or trust. Regulation must come first.
This is not about judgement, many people have inherited feeding practices without ever being taught to view forage through a nervous system lens. But once you see it, you cannot unsee it. Food is not merely fuel, it is predictability, it is adequacy, it is safety. And it belongs at the centre of every conversation about horse welfare, behaviour, and training.
Please Note: This article was written by The Whole Horse Journey and is shared here with permission. We’d like to thank the original author for allowing us to re-share this piece and for contributing their knowledge and experience to help educate horse owners.
