Would you change how to you feed your horse to protect the environment? A study from the Netherlands has found that many owners there are willing to adopt more sustainable feeding practices.

“Sustainability” is defined by the United Nations as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” In horse keeping, the term is usually applied to management practices that reduce pollution, support recycling or are otherwise environmentally friendly.

Sustainable feed practices

To learn more about the willingness of horse owners to adopt more sustainable feeding practices, senior researcher Gulsah Kaya Karasu, Dr.Vet.Med., surveyed 338 horse owners across the Netherlands. Karasu is based at Van Hall Larenstein University of Applied Sciences,

In addition, the survey asked whether respondents would be willing to try six specific proposals on their own properties.

Plastic-free packaging

The most popular option—using products that had plastic-free packaging—drew a positive response from 60.5 percent of horse owners. A majority of respondents (56.6 percent) also indicated willingness to feed organic grain and feed or-ganic roughage (53.3 percent).

Half of the respondents were willing to consider avoiding soy feed products. Slightly less (49.7 percent) were open to using sustainable hay rather than bagged haylage.

The researchers call for future studies to “investigate how the scale and economic considerations of the equestrian business influence its capacity and willingness to adopt more sustainable feeding practices.”

Reference: “Preliminary examination of the perceptions of sustainable horse feeding practices in the Netherlands.” Journal of Equine Veterinary Science, January 2024. SIA Agency, part of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), helped finance this research.