Keeping horses in your garden?

[No_Angel]

I was doing my routine house search on the net yesterday and came across quite a few houses with 1/2 - 1 acre of garden with stables and a small paddock area, and part of me did wonder how they managed and they must keep the horses stabled for a large amount of time.
I then saw a house in a local village for sale with a large garden that could easily accommodate a couple of stables and a small paddock area.
Part of me wondered it would be possible to keep 2 of the girls there and keep the others in the rented land we have at the moment till we found some closer to the house (not exactly the smallholding we wanted though).
I was thinking about a track system and strip grazing the grass in the middle.
Has anyone ever kept a couple of horses in a garden or similar?

 

[tazzy-anne]

I think this is desperation to move talking. Hold out. You'd be gutted if you just moved into somewhere insubstantial that made everything awkward (i.e. horses in diff places etc) then the perfect one came up.

 

[happyhacker101]

Yep - tis poss and I know of a couple of people who have done it but personally, I would hold out until the right house comes along...

One woman I know had three horses and 1/2 acre paddock hence, they hardly ever got any turn out and spent a lot of time in their stables - not how i'd like to keep my horses. Ok, I don't have a huge amount of land but mine live out 24/7 are happy with it.

Another person I know brings her horse home every summer to live in 1/3 acre paddock in her garden but I think it's due to weight/lami issues as this person is a very knowledgeable local horse person - horse is very well cared for.

 

[notpoodle]

not 100% but i think you'd need some kind of permit to keep livestock in your garden if it's actually a garden rather than a smallholding or something?

 

[No_Angel]

It quite possibly is, but it would mean we could reduce our house price and actually sell it and we could stay in Shropshire.
My dad knows a local farmer to the house as well so it might be possible to buy/rent land near to it, but we would ask about that before doing anything about the house.

 

[tazzy-anne]

Well just take time to think about it for a while - no rash decisions! I know your au natural principles so you wouldn't do anything detrimental to the horses - just cause way more work for yourself

 

[newforest]

I kept Jack on one acre paddock, stable and feed come tack room. We had a borrowed shetland.
It worked for a few reasons, i split the paddock down the centre line. It was longer than wider. I had a good doer.
I also had hay out all year round, the grazing was not the best so again ideal for pony.
He had access to stable, didn't stable. I also had access to the driveway and used this to graze as well.
It can work if you need somewhere that you own something that requires less grass for health, weight reasons.
I would not personally choose this option unless i had to.

 

[KarinUS]

We are keeping our 3 horses in the back 3 acres. Does that count. It's Texas and the strip grazing was quickly depleted so their paddocks are mostly for running around, not for grazing.