Different sort of ears picture
- Thread starter Chrisnscully
- Start date
Our yard went on to winter turnout at the weekend. The horses are in two groups and are turned out on alternate days. On their in days Mac has some time in the horse walker in the morning and is ridden in the afternoon and this system works well for us. Last winter we did have four months of no turnout at all because of the amount of water in the fields and that was hard work making sure he had enough exercise but we got through it.
Gah I couldn't cope if my neddy had to stay in indefinitely, one of the reasons I'm on the yard I'm on, as no restrictions on turn out, we look after our own paddocks which are large so I can afford to sacrifice a bit over winter and luckily we don't get flooded.
Lucky you - our paddocks are not large at all and we are on clay with a badly maintained ditch (council) up the hill from us so the water just pours down and the fields have standing water after less than an inch of rain - let alone the over 2 inches we have had this month.
We also went to winter turnout this weekend 
Being honest mines was losing weight so was going to be bringing him in overnight for adlib hay anyway. The gate is muddy but the rest of the field seems to be doing well
Being honest mines was losing weight so was going to be bringing him in overnight for adlib hay anyway. The gate is muddy but the rest of the field seems to be doing well
Were on winter turnout to. Horses out 8am - 2. I need to start rriding on a night. We need to get over our fear of the dark
i split our field at the weekend. They have a strip that is about a third of the field. The gate way and around the ring feeder is starting to get churned up, and the field is really wet, but like kite-rider I can sacrifice a bit of it over winter so P and Cher can stay out. Just need to figure out how to get bales of hay in without the tractor coming in the field as that will really ruin the field!
We hand roll bales (5' rounds) out to our guys, I can just manage alone but it's easier with 2 people.
For the horses who live out, we rotate the fields all year round, so there's no "winter fields" as such. There's hardly been any rain yet so all the ground is holding up well at the moment. All the big fields are on hills anyway so it tends to just be the lower areas, and where the hay gets put out in winter, that get totally mushed up.
The paddocks on the yard, for the stabled horses, are currently wet and muddy by the gates but otherwise holding up fine. Not much grass left though! We use the paddocks all year round and turn out regardless of how wet they are, my boss refuses to deprive stabled horses of turnout just because of mud. They recover fine come the spring.
The paddocks on the yard, for the stabled horses, are currently wet and muddy by the gates but otherwise holding up fine. Not much grass left though! We use the paddocks all year round and turn out regardless of how wet they are, my boss refuses to deprive stabled horses of turnout just because of mud. They recover fine come the spring.
newrider.com