No Grazing - What do i do?

[joy70]

O.K. folks need your good advice!

i spose this is pretty much the scenario all round the UK with the exception of Wales (its always so green there, lucky devils)

We have absolutely no grazing in our fields whatsoever :eek: and its only October - we cannot put our horses/ponies hay out in the fields as there are 26 of them, and not all liveries would agree to it! so im considering fetching him in at nights, as much as i really don;t want to, but i think its the only way he's going to have enough fuel to keep him going this year

He will be clipped, trace or chaser clip and rugged, when i find someone to do it, as he will still be in work!

what would you do???

[nat17]

joy, i have the same thing going on at the moment but i am not bringing them in yet so for now,
I bring my two into one of the empty fields and give them two slices each, it takes them about an hour and a bit to eat but dont mind hanging around till they have eaten it. Saves me bringing them in for a hour as i cant lead them both at same time. If i am in a rush them i put a bale out in the field for all of them!

But now one of the other owners wants to put hay out in the field, so i put out a bale at night between 6 horses. I know its not alot but its something. I put loads of small piles everywhere so if they get kicky there is always another pile away from them.;)

Could he cope with an hour or two of hay a night? Instead of staying in all night?

[Piaffe]

Hi Joy,

mines been in all night for about a month now - have the same problem, very little grazing. He doesn't live out in winter anyway - only summer.

Have you got a paddock area or something similar where you could move him of a night time with a couple of his friends, so you can just hay a few of them?

If he's happy enough at the moment, I wouldn't worry - its when they start waiting by the gate at 4pm or earlier that I know they need to come in.

The other thing you could do is bring him in for a few hours during the daytime if poss, for a haynet.

[joy70]

Nat17

dunno? would 2 hours hay be enough to keep him going overnight & the next day???

i have a friend at the yard, who would be willing to turn em back out, or turn em out in the morning - what were doing at the moment is fetching them in for about 1 - 1.5 hours for hay and feed, and then theyre going back out again. Im wondering if this would be o.k. for the next few months, and then review the situation at Xmas time?

[HAYLEY GITTOES]

We also have the same problem, we have 2 horses at our yard, my horse has 1 spare field, which i have put the fence back as she has no grass, and the other horse has his whole field, and we have 1 spare patch with a little grazing, the amount of grass we have is not going to last us all winter, we have a good supply of hay and we are going to fetch another 40 bales, my Molly would much prefer grass to hay though, she only really picks at it!

And the other horse at our yard has no bottom teeth, so its hard for him to eat grass when its very short, which it will be soon.

I think that the only thing we are lacking is rain!! Bacause sometimes i forget and leave the hosepipe running (as i forget to turn it off once ive filled the water buckets up) the grass around that area is so lush and green!!

[nat17]

Joy,

I think he would be fine, are you feeding high fibre feed as well as hay when he comes in? I would carry on as you are till xmas and review it like you said then , just keep an eye on his condition as you go. Although there is no grass in our field there are brambles and trees and thisltes etc which mine love so there is something to keep them going. ;) Min needs to lose weight anyway so this period gives me opertunaity to help her on her way to new rider slimmer of the year!:D

[AJB]

Hi Joy-we have the same problem I guess, we are on summer grazing-well dust-for another week till we worm and then go into winter pairs in the winter field-however we got round the hay problem by using big bales-they are cheap in our area at 15 each . We have 6 horses in the field and get 2 bales a time to prevent kicking etc and it works out £5 each and two bales lasts them just over a week!!-alternatively could you not look at spliting the field into more manageable groups so that you could feed-a few hours hay a night aint going to keep weight and condition on if hes out for the other 22 and its below zero.....in our yard the YO insists that once the weather turns (last year end Oct hopefully this year a bit later and into mid Nov) all liveries are in at night and then we do what we want during the day-so we have no choice....I think however in your shoes I would start cominig in so that he has hay and a feed if theres no way you can feed hay in the field....

[nat17]

Sorry forgot to ask! Is he rugged ? What sort of doer is he? And how did you keep him last year?

[Bebe]

Same problem here, or at least I will have soon. Ours have only just gone on the winter grazing and whilst the grass is very short, the field is twice the size of the one they've been on all summer, so they think Christmas has come already!

Last year I was able to keep Bebe out 24/7 with just an hour or two with hay every evening up until the end of December. After that she started to drop weight and refused to leave her stable (had to drag her out to the field) so she came in overnight then.

I suppose it really depends on how good a doer your guy is. If he has weight to lose and is a good doer anyway, you'll probably get away with it so long as you feed high-fibre feeds as bucket feeds. If he's not got any extra weight, or needs more feed to hold his weight, then you'll probably find that he needs to be brought in overnight at some point.

I'd try giving him an hour or two with hay every night first and see how you get on that way before making a decision as to bringing in.

[joy70]

they've eaten most of the trees already:eek: which is a concern, as they escaped the other week!!

he gets coarse mix & mollichop (big 2 girly handfuls at the mo) and im off this weekend for his sugar beet to fill him up

[joy70]

nat17

sorry cross posted there!

he was rugged, clipped and out 24/7 last year and was fine, the only concern is lack of grazing here!

we cannot split them into other fields, plus another livery whos horse supposedly has ring worm, is in our other winter grazing field :mad: which no one is very happy about, but what can you say when shes living with the yard owners son!!! :rolleyes:

[nat17]

bad toddy! Who does he think he is minnie!:D
I would change his feed personally if the grazing is poor, depending on his good/poor doer situation. I would feed hi-fi or good doer with high fibre pencils and sugar beet
See how he goes, not sure if he needs to lose any weight but get a weight tape and monitor him.

Is the yard owners son good looking:D See if he wants two girlfriends and then you can get toddy preferantial treatment:D :D :o

[cvb]

we just brought ours in - actually we have too much grass so maybe we should export some !

But they had been getting hay outside before they came in - and its now noticeable that the old guy (31) takes a long while to eat us so was probably not getting his fair share when outside. And thats only with one other horse at hay time !

We're lucky that we've also got some oat straw they can have (and seem to really like).

May seem odd given we have too much grass - but one of them is a ex-laminits sufferer so has to be restricted - but still needs some bulk in his gut to keep it all going.

The old guy gets to go out on the long grass cos he hasn't the teeth to get much out of the short grass. You can almost see him thumbing his nose at the other two ! (Third one being my fat Appy mare - who is not laminitic but certainly does not need more food. She got fed her hay separately as she's the new kid on the block and a bit energetic for the others.)

[virtuallyhorses]

So are all 26 horses in the same paddocks\fields? Wow that's a big mob. If you can't organise hay, how does it work with worming and rotating the paddocks? What do the people who 'don't agree' do?

Here everyone feeds in the paddock, so you just have to sort yourselves out - both with buying hay and sorting out a schedule to feed out. With 26 horses each person would only have to feed out once a month! :D but you'd need a tractor for all the hay...