If you can do anything with your turnout

newforest

Well-Known Member
Mar 15, 2008
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What do you find you need that's made your life easier.
For twelve years mine has been in a group in a big field and you fitted in with how the herd was managed in terms of grazing. The only thing we did was dig up the ragwort.

We now have a section to ourselves. I have taped off a bit by the gate as that's ideal to leave jumps and poles.
I plan to split the field in half to rotate and maybe do a track around the edge.
So what's on your shopping list /to do list /would like to do list.....

My shopping list is two gate handle things for the electric tape.
I am not allowed to do anything permanent, so electric fence yes, wooden posts no.
 
put down more mud control mats would be a start. Plus ideally put in a proper track i.e not a grass track. And finally solve the drainage issues where the water from the field drains out under the road as that backs up.
 
Im on one.
Who said wooden posts are permanent. I use them for temporary fencing on corners if i need. They come out when i take the temporary fence out.
Id be more miffed if my livery compacted the ground with a track and cut the field up than a few wooden posts. Ill shut up now.

Back to answering the question.
Since having the boys home and rotating my boys around. As my tack room can be a 15 minute walk to get them in depending on which field or part of the field there in. I have one of those plastic storage boxes that i can put some feed bowls in. I wont leave them out for the badgers, foxes and birds to wee in. I have one or two buckets full of food with lids on in it for days i dont ride and dont get the boys in, and i can put the headcollars in for storage. I dont like leaving them hanging on gates which i see alot of horse owners do. It fits my plastic poly posts in too. Or if i take the rugs off the boys when its hot i bung them in there, not left on a gate to get wet or blow off, or for Billy to chew. Its lightweight enough that i can pick it up and move it to near whereever my temporary gateways are.

I also invested in 100 metres of blue water pipe which is laying surface across the field. We had a plastic water trough no longer used for the cattle so i can now move the trough anywhere to stop poaching or to any temporary paddock i put up. Has been a real plus as the only water source in our large field is a spring a the bottom of the field. Investing in the water pipe means i now have water at the top of the field.
 
I associated wooden posts with permanent as the owner doesn't want them put in.

I am another whose tack room is almost a hack away from her. :) I have a plastic little tub that I used to make sugar beet in years ago for the headcollar.

Mud control mats sound a good idea because the gateway doesn't have any grass.
 
Gracie's paddock is perfect for her and even though she is on individual grazing, she seems far happier than at the last yard. It's open, flat and drains well so she can see lots of other horses. It also gets nice and breezy if there's the slightest wind which is great at this time of year (but obvs really cold in winter!) The paddocks are arranged in long strips, either side of a solid gravelly track and fenced by high-tensile mains-electrified wire. G is terrified of leccy fencing. YO has provided me with some leccy rope, posts and two gate hooks so G is now in about a quarter of her actual paddock and I either enlarge or reduce the space available to her, depending on weather and grass growth. We work our way from the far end because that's where the troughs are. I guess the only thing I'd like is some sort of tree for shade for her but she comes in during the day anyway at the mo so gets to escape the heat and flies for a few hours anyway.

Also.... so far it seems to have the least amount of horse flies of yards we've been on in recent years!!

This is a screenshot showing her paddock and how I've sectioned it....

Screenshot_20200627-075148_Maps_copy_600x1233.jpg
 
Here, I hope, is a screenshot showing my field (on the left) and the field beside it . My entry path is top right, by the Google Maps marker. The woods at the top have mostly been removed, alas, and it's more lightly wooded now. You can see my shelter and my track with the long grass for winter grazing in the middle, and Ziggy at bottom left, talking to his friend Finn in the field next door *sniff*.

I now also have use of the top section of the field on the right, the pointy bit down to about the "n" in the middle "Littleford Ln". I have wooden corner posts in my own section but I'm only allowed temporary fencing in the new bit. I need loads of electric poles and good metal corner posts for the corners, plus a couple of energisers. Since our Mole Valley store closed I've bought stuff like that online from Voss Farming in Germany because they are good quality and a decent price.

I have a shelter, which you can see, with a little hand-built tack shed for storage and a hay shelter behind. There's a water trough half way up the field and I really want a long hose to bring water to the shelter, but it's more than 100m and hose is expensive so my water butts are very important.

I also have a ragwort fork and my new favourite tool, a spanish digging hoe or Azada, which makes short work of dock and nettles and is satisfying to wield.

ETA on the far right of the picture you can just see a little drive and the front gardens of a row of small houses. That's where I live :)

Screenshot 2020-06-27 17.28.43.png
 
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How lovely that Ziggy is immortalised on Google maps!! Looks like a lovely set up, Jane ?
 
I would keep that photo of the maps, they will update it.

Mine is shown in her old home still.

Just ordered a lovely storage lockable thing.
 
Its funny you made me look at google maps. My old yard the field is still plain to see where my two were stripe grazing 3 years ago. I even have my jumps up in a particular paddock. No menage at the yard. Yet google maps for my home shows the grazing patch that i was using last year. I can see the boys in it gazing too.

There is literally 400 metres between my old yard fields and my fields, yet google maps is some 3 years between there update.
 
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Its funny you made me look at google maps. My old yard the field is still plain to see where my two were stripe grazing 3 years ago. I even have my jumps up in a particular paddock. No menage at the yard. Yet google maps for my home shows the grazing patch that i was using last year. I can see the boys in it gazing too.

There is literally 400 metres between my old yard fields and my fields, yet google maps is some 3 years between there update.
So you can time travel.
:)
 
Oh yes boys have definitely time travelled.

Managed to screen shot it.
Bottom right brown patch near Go is a temporary paddock where they were grazing last year. You can see them in the corner of the area. To the left of that are a couple of lunge circles. To the left of that between the two bits of woodland there is a faded green bit. My jumps are layed out in the field there too. You cant really see them in the screen shot. But on maps enlarged they are definitely there.

You can also see the boys in the patch below the word hotels. That was back in at least 2017. You can see the circle where i lunged to the left of there field and just to the left of that in the long narrow strip are my jumps. Where the word chemists is theres now a menage not a green field.

The strippy field in the middle is my neighbours where we cut hay last week.

Screenshot_20200628-180614_Maps.jpg
 
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Top tip for the gates, don’t buy the ones that look like giant springs, fly swishing tails have a habit of getting tangled in them and you then have the horse tearing around with it attached, very frightened and destroying stuff in their panic. Electrify your fence, otherwise you’re effectively hoping a bit of string will contain them ?

My main thing is really looking at the land to make best use of it, for example splitting up the middle from the gate is generally the go to, but depending on where the shade and shelter is from trees/hedges, or where the company is, or water, you may be better splitting it a different way so they get to use them when in either paddock. Going from solid perimeter fence to the same the other side will let you get much better tension on it as you can’t put any wooden posts in.

A good water trough would be up there on my list too, I don’t want buckets as they get drunk and blow away and you have to refill them daily, I prefer a good size heavy tank that will last a few days to a week.

Storage is a good idea too, maybe get a rubber mat to put down in your tie up area so it stays mud less when you’re washing down too.
 
Top tip for the gates, don’t buy the ones that look like giant springs, fly swishing tails have a habit of getting tangled in them and you then have the horse tearing around with it attached, very frightened and destroying stuff in their panic. Electrify your fence, otherwise you’re effectively hoping a bit of string will contain them ?
Electric spring gates are not actually recommended for horses. For this reason. They are highly dangerous. We used them on a few of our fences, they stretch after a while anyway and if an animal gets pushed into them by another eek.
You can get ones like an elastic bungy cord now i believe, but i dont think they are any safer. Especially when you think about how a bungy cord can fly off. Ive been hit by the metal hook on the end. Could easily take your eye out or the horses.
 
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I am watching what she's doing and today's hooley had her come and get me and put herself back where she was. So I went to her and stayed with her. :) No wind whatsoever, so that's our grooming parlor.
I am going to split the field so she has access to this all year round.
The water situation is temporary I think. I don't mind filling it up daily, ask me in a months time and I will probably say something else!

My tie up is a ground tie, unless I use a tree.
 
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Your new field sounds lovely!

I'm feeling very lucky as genuinely, the only thing I'd change is that the YO wants us to leave headcollars/flymask/fly spray etc in a box and you can guarantee that whenever you turn up, they are the furthest point away on the track :D

Oh, the other minor gripe is that he's so hard to see on a wooded track! Being dark bay, he just blends in ;) This winter he's getting a brightly coloured turn out rug!
 
All your lovely fields surrounded by green. Here's mine, Ale has the top left 2 large rectangles. Yes that's a gypsy site to the left but don't get too many problems with them as the yard is rented from one who goes and sorts any trespassing with his baseball bat and shouting
102927

I'd suggest something fox proof to keep things in, they love to chew and poop on anything left out at mine.

I'd really love a shelter and a little more land for winter but round here I'm extremely lucky to have what I do.

Used to have to hand move all the water daily so automatic trough changed my life when that went in.
 
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