Healthy pastures filled with dense, nutritive grasses can be excellent forage sources for horses. | Photo: iStock

Healthy pastures filled with dense, nutritive grasses can be excellent forage sources for horses. In fact, some horses can meet all their nutrient needs on good-quality pasture alone. The key to establishing good pasture, however, is planting the appropriate forage types.

During the University of Maryland (UMD) Extension’s healthy horse-keeping webinar series, pasture and forage specialist Amanda Grev, MS, PhD, described different forage types and how to select the best ones for your horse’s pasture.

First, make sure your pastures are well-managed. “No forage species will persist if continually overgrazed or mismanaged,” she said. “Good pasture requires good management, and that will be true no matter what forage species we have in our fields