Sometimes the simplest equine enrichment is the best, and you can get a surprising amount of mileage out of basic household materials. The Astroturf texture mat for horses is low effort but high behavior value, and super versatile. In this easy DIY, we’ll walk through repurposing a faux-turf doormat into a multi-functional feeding enrichment for your horse.
What is the Astroturf Texture Mat for Horses?
This easy enrichment item is made from an Astroturf doormat. It’s the kind with coarse bristles good for scraping mud off shoes – but you’ll repurpose it for equine enrichment.
Enrichment for horses isn’t just about colorful toys and jolly balls (we do love those though!). Enrichment is anything that we do that encourages horses’ natural behaviors.
Promoting healthy behaviors throughout the day is the best form of boredom relief, because it gives your horse options, allows them to them take care of their own bodies, and gives them choice and control over how they spend their time. In other words, enrichment isn’t just fun and games – it’s a fundamental part of horse care, with lots of benefits.
This AstroTurf textured feeding experience is a great example of an enrichment that isn’t really a toy but offers a lot of boredom relief and sensory stimulation.
Why the Astroturf Texture Mat is Great Horse Enrichment
This simple enrichment item encourages a variety of feeding behaviors and mental activity.
Compared to eating from a bucket, feeding from a textured flat surface has a lot of perks. It’s more comfortable for your horse, which can lead to calmer, slower eating.
The texture of the mat is coarse and food falls in between the “grass.” Finding the food gives your horse the opportunity to use their senses, like smell and touch. Sensory enrichment is high value for horses, especially horses confined to a stall.
Picking the food out of the mat’s texture requires good fine motor skills. It takes time and encourages your horse to think about how to use their lips and teeth to get the goodies – compared to just stuffing face in a bucket.
The Benefits of Food Puzzles
It might seem like working on the Astroturf mat is a lot of work. Would your horse prefer a big pan of feed instead?
Easier isn’t always better, especially when it comes to food. Studies consistently show that using natural behavior to acquire food – in other words, doing a little work for the meal – is what animals prefer.
This is called contrafreeloading, and it’s such an interesting concept that we have a whole article on it if you want to take a deeper dive.
In addition to encouraging contrafreeloading, the texture mat is great for simply slowing down the rate of feeding and encouraging natural feeding posture, compared to an elevated bucket. The turf also keeps the food in one spot and, unlike a bucket, can’t be easily tipped over and dumped.
Why the Astroturf Feeding Mat is Great Enrichment…For You
This easy DIY enrichment for your horse has lots of benefits on your end, too. You can use it as a daily feeder for your horse’s normal meals, creating enrichment without any extra steps (or treats).
It’s also versatile. There are many ways to present food on an Astroturf mat, in terms of location, size, and texture. This means you can get a lot of enrichment mileage out of one item. If your horse needs a lot of enrichment each day due to stall confinement, it’s a great option for variety.
Lastly, this item is quick and easy to use, and can be used over and over. The mats aren’t expensive to buy new, but if the budget is tight, you can repurpose a used mat from your home (just wash it first).
If you’re on the hunt for more wallet-friendly enrichment items, this article on low-budget enrichment is another great reference.
Using the Astroturf Feeding Mat
You’ll need one coarse-textured faux turf mat for this enrichment item. You can find the original Astroturf mat, pictured in this article, here on Amazon.
The original Astroturf material is what you want for this basic feeding enrichment. It’s easy for the horse to tell what’s edible and what’s not, and treats don’t get lost in the coarse material.
To use the feeding mat, spread your choice of feed, treats, or other edible goodies across the surface of the mat.
Blending different feeds, or creating sections of different items for the horse to choose from, is a simple way to create more variety. You can change the way you present the enrichment foods each time you use the mat.
Feed and Treats for the Astroturf Texture Mat
Dry pelleted feed works great here. I’ve also used it with textured senior feed, hay pellets, and other dry processed feeds depending on the horse’s needs.
Mixing and matching textures is a great way to introduce more variety and sensory value to this equine enrichment item. You can use other foods as well – any of these make great additions to the mat, with or without pelleted products:
- Diced carrots
- Celery slices
- Bits of apple
- Shredded carrot, squash, or sweet potato
- Cheerios and other small dry cereal
- Peanuts, loose or in the shell
Best for Veggies, Fruit, and Unsoaked Feed
The Astroturf feeding mat works best with dry or minimally-soaked feeds, or chunked/diced treats.
Soupy or very fine textured feeds tend to get lost in the material, leading to waste and mess. It can also cause frustration if your horse isn’t able to access all the food.
If your horse’s normal feed is soaked due to choke risk, it’s worth noting that small amounts of less-wet feed on a textured mat may be safe, because the rate of eating is lower. This is the case for my own horse, who can’t eat a pan of dry pelleted feed but happily picks pellets from the Astroturf mat.
However, safety is crucial and choke is nothing to mess around with. Always use caution, know your horse’s behavior, and don’t hesitate to consult a vet when introducing any type of enrichment.
If your horse does eat soupy feed, textured feeders are still on the table! This DIY rubber feed mat is a great alternative.
Related Enrichment
The Astroturf textured feeder is a great little DIY enrichment item that encourages slow feeding. For similar ideas, check out:
Stall Mat Slow Feeder – uses repurposed stall mats
Floor Mat Slow Feeder – another really simple repurpose project