Is “Natural” Better for Our Horses?

as intensive management grazing and disease conditions. The key to their greater survival under intensive management is their ability to store nutrients. The result of this is that they can provide energy in excess of what many horses need. Allowing horses to follow their natural tendency to eat these forages free choice can result in a higher calorie intake than that required for survival and health. Is grass forage a natural feed for horses? Absolutely. But nowadays the nutrient content of the forages we commonly offer our horses is far from that of the forages they ate while evolving.
Is it unnatural to adapt along with your horse to the feed sources available and to manage your horses feed intake? Determining a safe feed intake for your horses and following a plan to provide it falls once again under the heading of Good Husbandry. Yes we know that horses do better when they can forage according to their own schedules and desires but we also know that consumption of too much readily digestible high nutrient hay can cause health problems for them. To help them adapt to a more controlled forage intake we can offer them alternatives such as timed feedings as often as our schedules can accommodate as well as slow feeding devices sacrificial pastures where grazing is limited and the use of grazing muzzles. We can also provide devices and toys to keep them occupied if feed intake cannot be spread out enough to keep them content. This may not be the same natural feeding behaviour our horses ancestors evolved with but it is common sense and frankly it is good husbandry.
Are Grain and Supplements Natural for Horses? 
Natural selection in the wild determined which horses survived and which did not. The ones who survived lived on to reproduce and passed on their superior genetics to their offspring. In our modern world the horses that reproduce are the ones possessing the characteristics we prefer to see in them. Many of the horses we revere as performance horses might never have survived in the wild. The natural ability of our domestic horses is to adapt and our job is to assist them in doing that so they can be healthy successful horses in todays world. Sometimes that means supplements. Energy requirements for working horses can exceed what they can readily consume in forage and we therefore complement their forage intake
with concentrates when needed. We give them electrolytes and vitamin and mineral supplements to ensure they are getting what research has shown they need in order to do the jobs they were bred for. 
Is this natural for the horse? For the domesticated stabled horse in your barn it is essential for health and success not to mention an important part of good husbandry.