Although it is natural to keep a horse at grass this is not always practical depending on the horse and its use. A horse may need to be kept stabled due to its inability to maintain condition sufficiently with being kept out all year, due to illness, for convenience or a variety of other reasons.
A stabled horse has the advantage of being readily available for riding and needing minimal grooming before riding. If possible it is best to allow a horse to graze on pasture for at least part of each day as this will provide natural exercise and natural grazing.
Horses kept stabled for long periods can become bored resulting in the horse developing annoying habits (stable vices). Therefore it is important to maintain as far as possible a natural environment for the horse and a stabled horse should ideally be stabled near other horses as they are herd animals and are comforted by the sight and sound of other horses nearby.
A horse's natural feeding habit is to graze throughout the day on grass that is necessary to keep the horse's digestive system functioning properly so a stabled horse should have access to hay when stabled to compensate for this.
A stabled horse should have constant access to water.
Each day the stable will need to be mucked out to avoid droppings building up, and periodically the stable will need to be disinfected.
