Changing fields

lisae

lisae

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Jun 15, 2000
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NY, USA
www.nyhaflinger.com
We have four horses on 2.5 acres, nowhere near enough and the field has turned into a "dam cattle feedlot" as my husband complains. We are pretty much resigned to moving them all to the main farm one mile around the corner, where we have lots of pasture/scrubland available. (But I won't be able to see my horsies :( out my door). Anyways, I'm not going to let them loose on the 40 acres, simply fence in a corner of the smoothest ground of around four - five acres. Still, this is far more grazing than they are used to, even if we start in March before the grass comes on.

Monday will have to have a grazing muzzle, she's fully adult at 8 and does not stop eating ever!

The other three will be 4,3 and 1 . Dare I simply turn them out and observe? I worry about founder - the 4 yr old is a pony, the younger ones Half-Arabs.

Muzzles for everyone? By May they will be in pretty lush stuff, although it's very weedy and all grass, no clover or alfalfa. Thanks, Lisa
 
No advice- sorry. Ours are turned out all the time but if you could manage to founder on central Texas grass then you probably could founder on tooth picks! ;)
Just wanted to say I wish I had a 40 acre main farm... :D
 
Are you thinking of still just having 1 paddock? I'm surprised that a 40acre farm doesn't already have fencing - or is this something I'm not understanding. Also don't understand the problem with cattle?? I take it you don't own this land - cross-grazing with cattle is ideal for horses. If you have 4 horses then you want 3-4 paddocks on 10 acres+ to rotate them around (at least that's how we'd do it here - I don't really understand the UK thing).

Have your ponies any history of founder? Are they fat? Rather than thinking muzzles for everyone, managing the pastures would work as well. Giving them larger (poorer) pastures is more like what horses have naturally - they have to work harder and exercise more for the grass they find. So if you have scrubland available (esp hilly) then this would be ideal provided that there are no toxic plants in there. Use electric tape to section off areas if you get too much lush grass during Spring and Autumn.
 
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I HATE it when I see horses turned out with cattle or in cattle pastures. 99% of the time the fencing is made for cattle and the horses are just thrown in there for convenience. I am sick and tired of horses getting hurt in that %$#@* barbed wire they use for cattle pastures.
 
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oh dear, *hides from KarinUS's anger*. lol

I heard turning out with cattle is good for the pasture. I understand what you mean about barbed wire though. I've seen so many horses hurt on it, poor things :( .

Ok, having finished hyjacking the thread. I'd say muzzle them in spring, for now they'll probably be OK until it gets lush again.

Steph x
 
Hi Lisae,
How's the ground? Meaning: are you ably to put in t posts for electric fencing? That would probably be your best bet for a short term solution.

When my inlaws severed off our lot (we have 6.75 acres off of 93 acres) in order to sell the remainder, we had to put up electric fencing. One spool (600 feet approx) can be handled by a little portable battery operated unit. It "nips" when touched, so just enough to get your attention.

My 2 mares are kept on one acre at a time (I rotate them so as not to damage the whole property) until we can properly fence the whole property.

I only have 3 acres of grazing area but I now have the luxery of bringing them to my neighbour's to graze off of 3 acres to give a breather.

I also was reluctant to move my mares because I like to keep a close eye on them (and it's such a comforting & pleasant sight) but their needs come first and ruining what little they have & end up with leg/hoof problems as well as wrecking the paddock (I get the same problem as you describe!) is really not worth it.

As well, you can make the enclosure any size you want & then gradually enlarge it or add another strip of grazing (imagine 2 rectangles side by side).

When I had to put a grazing muzzle on one of my mares, she was shocked at first, then would go between sulking & desparatly trying to get it off.

Good luck
 
Can you not fence off a couple of acres and put them in before the grass starts. They will then be used to having grass without the danger of it being too rich. Then as the grass starts to come in strip gaze them outwards so they're having a bit extra every day but not so much it will give them problems. I personally wouldn't restrict grazing with muzzles, especially the babies who need as much as they can to help with growth spurt. L
 
hey thanks for all the replies! I didn't explain it too well, here goes: we own a 240 acre farm, that is 200 acres of cropland, so not available; then, a forty acre rough pasture that we have 20 beef cattle on. This field is awful, it has bedrock only eight inches down and rock outcrops and strange hummocks of grasses that stick out, making the footing terrible (we lost a cow to a broken leg last year) with a deep creek that runs through it with some bad almost quicksand areas! Also, the fencing is electric wire but many years it was barbed wire, so more dangerous!

BUT there is one area that is slightly hilly, smooth and has a treeline for shade and windbreak, it's the only picturesque spot and that's what I am planning on taking over for the horses. Step in posts will work, T posts might not due to the bedrock, and I was planning on hooking to the bull fencer :eek: so they don't get out! so, I'm cornering off a 1/10 portion of the field for horses. I am going to look it over tomorrow, but wasn't planning the move until mid-March, since there is no shelter. Although I was thinking of putting up a lean-to or something to have them focus on as shelter, since I will need to be there twice a day for Gunner and Grace to get their grain, and to check on them of course.

Hopefully, once they are there we can let the current field next to our house dry out some, disk it down and re-seed, and bring them home again.

LMS's idea is good, I could section off my three acres, if they wear this down it doesn't matter, and then let them into the next plot.
 
cross posted with Laetitia, another good idea! I know Grace our three yr old won't keep a fly mask on, so a grazing muzzle would probably be off as soon as I drove away!
 
Err also on the cattle thing - no wasn't advising that horses necessarily be in either barbed wire fencing (which no one really likes) or necessarily that they be in the same paddock with cattle. Cross-grazing or rotational grazing with either cattle and\or sheep is excellent for horses because they vacuum up each others parasites (without being infested by them) and because the cattle\sheep will stop the paddocks getting horse-sick with their different grazing preferences.

Often you have a few steers go into a paddock before horses (they can't graze as low as horses) as this is good to get rid of the lush grass for any laminitic prone horses and then either include a few sheep with the horses or put them through the paddock afterwards - then let the place rest as they all rotate on to the next area. On a largish farm the cattle\sheep generally have their own pasture rotations and are just put into the horse areas for a few days to do the 'maintenance' and then go back to their own paddocks when the horses go on to the next fresh paddock.

Barbed wire is really not used here anymore - if it is still on some fences then you can simply put outriggers on the existing fenceline if the standards and strainers are in good condition to use with electric fencing or run electric fencing with pigtails (is that what you call 'step on'?) along the inside of it to ensure that the barbed wire isn't a problem (assuming that replacing it isn't a financial option)
 
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