Show me your fields.

[MrC]

As in title.

This has to be the worst in 5 winters that our herds field has ever been. It’s usually a great well draining field but with the weather last summer and this winter being what it’s been and the grass just not growing last autumn either the field is just trashed



The whole 9 acres is like this. Here are only four horses on it but it just didn’t grow last year at all.

I’m hoping that we get moved fields in spring to give this one a chance to rest and recover as I don’t think a roll and reducing the hooves on it is going to work this year

 

[domane]

Mares' field...



The boys are in 15 acres, but there are more geldings. I don't have a photo tonight.

 

[PePo]

This was the small flat section of the field by the gate - the rest is on a hill but the same grass wise. This was taken last week (so frosty) but looks the same now.

We are super lucky!

 

[HaloHoney]

All our fields are clay soil, which are all waterlogged.

Currently offering sacrifices to the gods of mud fever that Flash remains clear of it with his four white socks...

 

[Taffie]

Letting fields get badly poached like that wrecks the soil structure and will affect grass growth for years to come.
I am a grassland specialist with the Welsh Agriculture Dept, and livestock farms would be penalised for allowing land to get that badly poached. Most cattle are kept in over winter as farmers don’t want their fields wrecked and the runoff from the poached soil is very serious for our watercourses.
Equestrian holdings generally don’t look after the land well enough, mainly because the horse numbers per hectare are far too high. You need a much bigger area per horse - at least 1 hectare each; or stabling and a hard turnout area. At my yard we have exactly that. Horses do go out on the land if it is not waterlogged (we are on acid clay), but are stabled with turnout in the winter paddock or sometimes the manege. Our fields are looking more like @Pete's Mum ’s, which is fine. Most of your pics are not environmentally acceptable levels of poaching really; you need more land or more winter stabling.

 

[MrC]

Letting fields get badly poached like that wrecks the soil structure and will affect grass growth for years to come.
I am a grassland specialist with the Welsh Agriculture Dept, and livestock farms would be penalised for allowing land to get that badly poached. Most cattle are kept in over winter as farmers don’t want their fields wrecked and the runoff from the poached soil is very serious for our watercourses.
Equestrian holdings generally don’t look after the land well enough, mainly because the horse numbers per hectare are far too high. You need a much bigger area per horse - at least 1 hectare each; or stabling and a hard turnout area. At my yard we have exactly that. Horses do go out on the land if it is not waterlogged (we are on acid clay), but are stabled with turnout in the winter paddock or sometimes the manege. Our fields are looking more like @Pete's Mum ’s, which is fine. Most of your pics are not environmentally acceptable levels of poaching really; you need more land or more winter stabling.

Can I ask where you got the 1 hectare per horse calculation? Coming from a heavy farming background this is not the calculation we have used for years. This is a 9 acre field with 1 15.3hh horse on it 2 14.3hh horses on it and 1 13.2hh pony in it so it is not over grazed. 9 acres is 3.6 hectares so according to your calculations we are pretty close to it

I agree bad poaching can wreck soil and grass growth, if left poached and not allowed to rest, proper land management includes rolling, harrowing and seeding which is done as required. In five winters this field gets rolled as soon as it dries out, then rested but is normally great for grass as gets topped about three times a summer due to the amount of grass, It is also poo picked weekly by tractor and machine, so it’s treated fairly well and well looked after by our farmer

This is the field normally at this time of year very little poaching and grass all year round.



So thanks for your very technical and slightly judgemental post, food for thought but since I’ve been using his field for five winters now I think one bad year of weather doesn’t deserve your assessment

 

[chunky monkey]

Some horse people have no clue on field management. They do over stock there fields. Not everyone though. What one forgets is you have to take into consideration the land type. I went to Northampton in february a few years ago and wept as there grass was 3 inches heigh. Our fields had been empty for months yet the grass was non existent not due to poaching it's just the type of land and climate we have. We therefore can't go by the so many acres per animal.

When we started conservation grazing 15 years ago on the hill the office bods sat round the table said we've been researching and the land would support so many cattle. We immediately said you are wrong it will not. Even though we had been farming the adjacent land for 30 years they basically told us we knew nothing about farming. They even consulted other large scale farmers from other areas. We were told by the powers that be that we were vastly understocked and to up the numbers. Well that was until complaints started happening about pouching. Those office bods have had to concede that we were right. But sometimes you have to prove it. They have not apologised to us for not listening to us in the first place.
Farmer get penalised for poaching but equestrian don't. There is something drastically wrong with society.

 

[Star the Fell]

My field look like yours @MrC (if not worse) I have 5 horses on 5 acres, so nowhere near the recommended acreage per horse. But in Summer I have too much grass!!!
Fields are fertilised every couple of years, rolled if the farmer happens to be doing some other work at the time for me, and kept clear of weeds and poo picked daily. Horses are in over night and out during the day. Each paddock is rested over the growing season, but never for more than 4 weeks.
It’s done this way because I can’t afford to do it any other way! I would love the time, equipment and money necessary to keep the field in perfect condition but it’s never going to happen. So I leave them for Nature to look after and she does a great job.

 

[MrC]

CM Im afraid I can’t tell if you are agreeing with what I have put, justvin a slightly different way, Im just unsure of how to reply just considering that I come from a farming background (fathers side) or being slightly patronising. My post is about being shocked at what a crappy summer and winter can do to a perfectly well draining field that has for five winters been great.

Just incase the reason for my post was unclear

This is normally how the field is for grass from May to October/November when they come in at night for winter, so as you can see it’s not exactly a fable looked after field not over stocked for being in chalky/sandy soil

 

[Jessey]

They type of soil, location etc does make a huge difference, my field is 0.77 hectares, and I have 1.5 neds on it, that would be over stocked and where I used to live would have resulted in a very poached, wrecked field as it was on clay, but here it's holding up just fine (though friends up the road aren't being so lucky this winter, my field just seems to drain exceptionally well)
This is the grazed half of the field (last weekend)

And the half I haven't yet touched


I'm not bragging, this dry, sandy land will have its own problems in a couple of months, its more like a high plains desert and we will then struggle for grass growth, often all the grass is burnt off by the end of May, and the sand colic risks increase etc, so it is not without its down sides.

 

[Cortrasna]

I have to say despite having just one horse and two donkeys on 10 acres this winter my fields look even worse than MrCs - we too have had a few years of awful summer and winter weather - the land has hardly dried out now for the past two years, summer or winter. I would not call mine overstocked and that is rather a broad and non scientific statement to say every horse needs 1 hectare. Surely you can only say how much land each horse/cow/pig/donkey needs based on the soil structure, any land drainage in place and climatic area in the UK that you are referring to? I will post pics of the boglands I have here later today.

 

[Lemme]

we are on hill grazing and even the top of the hill is wetland status now, this is the worst we have had for a number of years, much like yours @MrC , we manage it to the best of our ability, they come off the winter grazing in April and do not go back on until December, in that time the farmer rolls,harrows, fertilizes and gets a crop of hay - and don't expect it will be any different this year. 3 acres is hardly overstocked for 6 months with 2 mid size ponies and a littlie.

 

[joellie]

I have a horse, pony and 8 ewes on 5 acres, well i suppose 4 as I have sheds and stables etc at the front, it is very wet this year, the worst I have seen it, it isn't too badly poached but I think if i even had one more horse on it that would make a big difference. This year hasn't been kind and I think most fields are looking worse for wear. I'm sorry but I wouldn't keep mine stabled and on hardcore turnout to save my field, It always comes back and like @Star the Fell I end up with too much grass in the summer months.
My fields this morning

 

[Trewsers]

Despite careful managing our winter paddocks are pretty rubbishy now and have been since November. There are nibbles of grass coming up but omg there is mud aplenty! We have a yard of hard standing and a few hard cored tracks which makes life easier, plus the two oldies are stabled in the byre overnight. I think even for up here, it has been a bad wet soggy winter. Lots of people are having the same muddy problems. I also think it does depend on what kind of land and drainage. Back at our old place we had 13 acres but only used about five for our two and that pretty quickly turned to sh*t during the winter. Whereas on here I've seen pics people post with two horses on a lot less and it looks pretty good.
I don't think there can be any hard and fast rules. The weather will do what it does in the uk ! And we just have to make the best of what we have.

 

[Tir]

The front 1/3rd of mine is horrific. Never been this bad, its just been so wet for so long. However, it was doing okish till early jan when a tree came down and took out the fence, so that required heavy tracked machinery to deal with. Land could NOT take that at all. I just try not to look at it for now!! Could have cried at the time.

Will deal with it when the horses go onto the spring grazing when it dries out a bit more.

 

[Kite_Rider]

Were are the same here, definitely the worst ive seen in the 4 years ive been on this yard.

 

[Prjsmk]

Mines water logged, clay soil at the bottom of a hill! Theres only my cob in the field its 5.5 acres, currently fenced him in the dryest area to stop the rest getting any worse. There are folk with fields that dont usually get water logged that have gotten water logged this year, lots of rain with very little drying out time in between! Even on days where it doesnt rain the airs still damp and it settles on the ground, yuck

 

[HaloHoney]

All of our fields slope. And they are just as trashed at the top as at the bottom. All the geldings are in one field at the moment while the other two fields they have are rested for use in the spring/summer.

The only field we had that was chalk soil, and therefore drained really nicely- is currently having houses built on it.

 

[newforest]

I knew I was meant to photograph something today. Sorry will try and remember tomorrow.

It's been a wet winter that's for sure. We didn't move into the winter field until November and today opened up the emergency paddocks.
Our land was a dairy farm forty years ago, the clue there is in the was. It might be because the land is clay and likes to slope in any direction sometimes two in one go! You can turn a vehicle over if you turn it wrong.

I don't think you can compare a cow to a horse. Not all cows are in over winter, it's dependent on climate, land and oh yeah beef cattle doing well on grass .
The farm next door has 500 acres and it doesnt have shod hooves that gallop around. Some liveries and note the word, some, do pack horses in like sardines and expect you to stable and maybe bring in like a you would a cow.

Ours rotate using 30 acres, mine gets fat because we have too much grass for her! It gets topped, it gets rolled. It gets rested for at least five months. Then the vet comes and says porky!

 

[Cortrasna]

Cant post my pics as apparently uploaded file is too big- absolutely no idea how to rectify that without teccy son here to help out - but please believe me the fields are all shite - even the summer 4 acre one that hasn't had a single animal on it since my little rescues went home last September. It still looks like a herd of elephants wallow around in it most every day. Joellie's is the closest to mine and looks more like mine than most of the others.