Eat here, eat there

Horses prefer to fossick about for their food - even in their stables. That's what Dr Debbie Goodwin found in her study of horse eating habits.

Most stabled horses are given hay in only one place, she points out. This limits their natural patch-grazing behavior.

How would they behave if they had a choice of locations, she wondered?

Dr Goodwin and colleagues conducted a small series of trials to evaluate what stabled horses did if given the chance to choose between two locations - one providing a single forage source and the other multiple forage sources.

The horses tended to spend more time in the stable with the multiple forages, some moving between the stables several times.

The trial was repeated, this time using the horses' favourite forage as the single offering in one stable. Even though their favourite was available, horses still moved from one stable to the other.

The researchers suggest that this may indicate horses are motivated to move between foraging locations regardless of the tastiness of what's on offer. They decided it may be beneficial for horses to offer them a variety of forages in different places.

There you have it: the way to make your horse happy is to provide a full buffet service.