Barn/Pasture Layouts

[Fikey]

I know I am going to open a can of worms, but I need some input. Every time I move and build my barns, run in sheds and pastures, I learn a little. I am about to embark on building a new facility and need some thoughts. My questions are two:

1. I have always run my horses in a herd in the pasture. I horse trainer friend doesn’t believe in this mainly because it does lead to “herd bound” and them acting up more when separated. She actually keeps them individually in runs and claims they are happy to see her and have interaction when she goes to work them. Then there is the middle ground of keeping them in smaller groups. I understand they are “herd” animals, but i choose to make them ride out alone and can’t stand one that fights leaving. ???
2. I have always had a fairly large pasture in which the horses can roam/graze. Where I now reside, the grazing value is negligible (due to the poor soil and long winters). Invariably, when I want to ride, they are at the furthest end of the pasture. In the past, I was able to train my horse to come to a yell and feed. Due to the size and shape, they cannot hear me (or a bell), so that doesn’t work. One of the strategies would be to feed them some grain first thing in the morning and pen them up in a small area for the entire day and then turn them out at night. Obviously another idea is just don’t have a large pasture and feed all hay.
   I know there are no “absolute right way” to these questions, but value what other have found successful.

[2DogsFarm]

Wow, your “fairly large” must be humongous!
Horses have very keen hearing & sight so unless you are talking 100s of acres I can’t imagine they can’t hear or see you (or a bell - great idea).

I can only address the herd question & that from my very small - 3 - herd standpoint.
I have never (now on 3rd set of geldings) had an issue with horses avoiding me in favor of their pasturemates.
Okay, maybe the rotten little Hackney Pony who plays CATCH ME!, but even he will occasionally “volunteer” for work.
Meaning when I bring in the horse to ride, pony will come into a stall & wait to see if he’s next.
Riding horse is good about getting haltered in pasture too.
My mini is the World’s Easiest catch - he comes to me no matter what.

All 3 are loose 24/7/365 in my “large” (2ac+) field or the smaller (.5ac) one - free access to stalls.
They will also come in when they see me, hoping for a snack of hay or handful of grain.

[Bluey]

We spent over a century keeping horses in herds.
The past years I have been wondering how smart that was.
We put horses in a situation where they can’t really choose their herd mates and can’t get away from those they don’t like or don’t like them or like them too much and won’t leave them alone.

Studies lately in Switzerland, as I remember reported in The Horse magazine, are also now starting to figure that domesticated horses kept in, for horses, relatively small areas are just as happy kept individually.
They are still trying to figure ways to permit horses to live in a herd situation safely, by adding walls and half walls here and there for horses to have places to keep moving if they need to find relief from others.
They have found that horses are perfectly happy in individual confinement, as long as there are other horses around, especially if they can touch them, but still have their own space where no one will bother them.

I am starting to agree, since I had to keep old horses alone, as they were being bothered by other horses trying to interact with them more than the oldsters felt like doing, some times to the point of injuries happening from that shuffling around.

The past several years we have kept a few horses only and some by themselves with horses across the fence and they seem to be just as happy, some more, none less than when we were keeping them in a herd and having to cope with herd dynamics.

I would say, if you can manage horses that are congenial and stay that way thru bad weather and feeding times and in general, why not?
If you have horses coming and going and needing to arrange and rearrange groups and handle injuries from that, maybe having more and then maybe necessarily smaller areas for your horses, even that costing more fencing, just makes for a more peaceful total experience for you and your horses.

I itch to turn my horses together, is what we always did and thought we were doing what is best for them!
I know that maybe in some ways we were after all missing that there were also ways that horses were stressed and we made them cope, that individual pens may after all, seems so for us the past years, an all around better solution to keeping horses.
I remember decades ago one vet mentioning that people insisting on keeping some horses together and the injuries that caused was job security.
He already then was against that for domestic horses in work.
Then, millions of horses were kept like that without mishap.
Still, keeping horses safe from other horses that may have a bad moment may not be such a bad idea either.

OP, make a list of the advantages and disadvantages either way for your horses.
Then study it and see what may work best for you, maybe a mixture of pastures for a few head and individual ones?

[Nestor]

If you have that much room, I’d do both. Run outs attached to each stall are the easiest to manage. You can have the run outs connect to a combined sacrifice area, which opens to the pasture(s). Divide your space as needed.

Horses in individual turnouts, but close together, tend to get less injuries. But then you’re feeding more hay. So they could be together on pasture 12-14 hours a day, and separated the rest of the day. Whether that 12-14 hours is overnight or during the day while you’re at work is up to you and maybe depends on your schedule. Having a set-up where half of the day they’re in one place, and half in another, means you can do all the work and set-up once per day, ideally.

[CPL713]

@Bluey interesting post. Nearly my entire life has been spent at show barns, where the horses were either turned out individually or with 1 buddy, and in some cases, the lesson horses lived in a slightly larger herd (max of 5 per paddock). Those lesson herds only included horses that were happy in that scenario. We also had several lesson horses who lived in a stall and got individual turnout like the show horses.

I almost think my current gelding is a case study in the individual vs. herd method, now that I’m thinking about it…I always say I WISH he had a turnout buddy, because I feel like it’s how things “should” be, but he seems just as happy (actually, happier) in his current turnout situation as he did in his former. And he has significantly fewer injuries so far.

Current: individual daytime turnout in either a dry lot with hay or a grass paddock. In both scenarios, he has horses next to him.
Former: group daytime turnout in a dry lot with a band of 5-6 geldings. He got kicked. A lot.

He still has his friends who he plays with over the fence or who he races up and down the fence line for a bit in the morning, but he can also get away from them if he wants (and he can’t instigate as much, which he is prone to doing).

OP, I like @Nestor’s suggestion the best, though I also think there is NOTHING wrong with individual turnout. I don’t necessarily think it will solve a situation where a horse is buddy sour, though – if they are in paddocks close to each other and have that tendency, they will still get attached

[beowulf]

I am curious about the study Bluey mentioned. It has not been my experience at all that solitary horses are as happy as horses in herd turnouts – what is required, however, is intelligently selecting their herdmates. Just like people in cubicles not everyone gets along with the guy sharing their office - same goes for horses, in my experience.

The drawbacks described here (“can’t get away from the other horses”) shows an inadequacy in the housing/management, not so much a major drawback in the design of horses sharing living space. The solution would be to find adequate housing; a paddock big enough that horses can get away from each other if turned out together, and designing the run-in in such a way the horse has easy egress…

Unfortunately, the reality is I see too many herd situations where there is inadequate space to properly house more than one horse on it. These horses are, IME, far more likely to hurt themselves than horses that are turned out in an ideal amount of space.

Regarding the herd bound behavior… that really is rooted more in my opinion to the horse’s individual temperament & training, over management. All of my horses have all been 24/7 horses. Every, single, one. From the countless OTTBs to the Hanoverian filly… and being out 24/7 or in a herd situation doesn’t, in my experience, automatically equate to the horse being more or less herd-bound. None of mine are herd-bound and I can take each one out on a whim, do whatever, and put them back out without it being a high-stress endeavor. I am not God’s Gift to horses when it comes to my training capabilities, but if I can install good basic manners in a horse I expect someone being paid to train ought to be able to, too.

In my experience I have seen horses more inclined to hurt themselves when they are solitary, and share a fence with a neighbor - it leads to resource guarding that wouldn’t happen if they were housed together, and I’ve seen plenty of kicks end up going through wood, and costing owners thousands. I am not convinced that housing them alone is any safer, and the majority of the catastrophic injuries I have dealt with have come from unsocialzed and isolated horses hurting themselves by their own design.

Re: paddock size and not being able to hear… are you certain? They can hear from quite far away. And they can see from far away too. One of mine comes to the gate when he sees/hears my car, and that is not something I directly trained in him, but it is a conditioned response because he expects grain and my car usually means grain-time.

[Bo]

How many horses are in the herd?

[betsyk]

If I had the option to start a facility from scratch, I’d create lots of options with the assumption that the horses I have now may not be the only horses I’ll have ever. The other benefit is the option of weather related changes to turnout and turnout buddies. The horses themselves will let you know pretty quickly if your assumptions about what they will like or dislike are accurate or not!

[BK6756]

If money/space are not an issue, I think individual or pair turnout is much safer and can sometimes help reduce her-bound behavior.

@beowulf

In my experience I have seen horses more inclined to hurt themselves when they are solitary, and share a fence with a neighbor - it leads to resource guarding that wouldn’t happen if they were housed together, and I’ve seen plenty of kicks end up going through wood, and costing owners thousands. I am not convinced that housing them alone is any safer, and the majority of the catastrophic injuries I have dealt with have come from unsocialzed and isolated horses hurting themselves by their own design.

I don’t understand why horses in individual turnout would be resource guarding unless you are placing their feed right next the fence with their neighbor??

[Bluey]

@BK6756

If money/space are not an issue, I think individual or pair turnout is much safer and can sometimes help reduce her-bound behavior.

I don’t understand why horses in individual turnout would be resource guarding unless you are placing their feed right next the fence with their neighbor??

I wonder if what was meant is barrier aggression, which happens some times even with good buddy horses when put across a fence from each other.
Even then, that kind of aggression doesn’t really cause injuries as direct aggression can.
Sure, one may kick at the fence bad enough to get hurt, but if they were together and do fight, well, the damage can be considerable worse without a fence stopping them somewhat.

I don’t think there is a perfect solution.
Best watch your horses and watch how they interact every time they do and keep trying to manage them so they will be the happiest and less stressed, whatever that may be for each horse.

That means, flexible options in turnout and pasture situations.

[moving_to_dc]

I am firmly in the camp of “it depends on the horse”.

IME, I have had some horses that thrive on having individual turnout, with shared fencelines. I have also had horses that QUICKLY deteriorated, both physically and mentally, when FORCED into “solitary confinement” with zero chance of interaction over a fence.

Herd sizes and members are definitely dependent on the size of the pasture AND sometimes more importantly, the size of the crowding/community areas. Having 100 acre pasture may be great, but if it bottlenecks into a narrow area by the water - shelter - feeding area - gate, etc., you may end up with issues.

I have had “herd-bound” horses remain just as herd-bound whether they are truly in a herd or kept individually. It made no difference to them, they still found a “buddy” somehow, even if that “buddy” never shared the dependency.

[beowulf]

@BK6756

I don’t understand why horses in individual turnout would be resource guarding unless you are placing their feed right next the fence with their neighbor??

They ‘resource-guard’ the fence-line. This is in reference to horses in standing paddocks directly adjacent to each other/sharing fence-line. Or as Bluey said, barrier aggression.

I’ve seen worse injuries in fence fights than just regular fights in a paddock. I don’t know if horses perceive the fence as something that can block incoming hits or protect them, or if they just don’t care, but I notice with many horses there is a bigger lack of self-preservation in fence fights than there is if they were having a dispute in a paddock together. I can say with confidence most of the in-paddock fights I’ve had to witness usually diffuse when one horse threatens to kick, but something about the fence tends to make horses more assertive, or insecure, about their space.

I’ve had to hold horses for more than my share of vet visits that didn’t get out of the way of a kick through the boards, or, a horse that impales/cuts itself somehow on the fencing when they come down. And what is worse is many times boarders don’t want to move/change the paddock situation, but that’s it’s own conversation for a different thread.

[Bluey]

@beowulf

They ‘resource-guard’ the fence-line. This is in reference to horses in standing paddocks directly adjacent to each other/sharing fence-line. Or as Bluey said, barrier aggression.

I’ve seen worse injuries in fence fights than just regular fights in a paddock. I don’t know if horses perceive the fence as something that can block incoming hits or protect them, or if they just don’t care, but I notice with many horses there is a bigger lack of self-preservation in fence fights than there is if they were having a dispute in a paddock together. I can say with confidence most of the in-paddock fights I’ve had to witness usually diffuse when one horse threatens to kick, but something about the fence tends to make horses more assertive, or insecure, about their space.

I’ve had to hold horses for more than my share of vet visits that didn’t get out of the way of a kick through the boards, or, a horse that impales/cuts itself somehow on the fencing when they come down. And what is worse is many times boarders don’t want to move/change the paddock situation, but that’s it’s own conversation for a different thread.

I have heard of horses doing damage to fences between them, have heard of a couple injured in that, but in decades of having horses across a fence, we ourselves never had any one damage a fence or themselves when they did any play, normal or serious fighting, rare because we were careful who we put across from each other, maybe.

Now, I also have heard of plenty more horses injured by herdmates, some seriously, one 18 year old had it’s shoulder broken by a playful kick of another horse, my own best ranch horse pulled a chip off his stifle in a little scuffle with a youngster.

Injuries are going to happen any way we manage horses.
In my experience, horses in a herd, even if carefully chosen to get along most of the time, have a higher by far chance of being chewed on/kicked to seriously injured than across appropriate fences with suitable horses to be across each other.

There are many other, practically every horseman I know that will agree with that.
Surprised that some do think that horses across a fence are more prone to injury than in with each other.

I would say, that horses are as safe as possible may just depend on who is managing them so they stay as safe as possible, with a bit of good luck thrown in, as much as how they are managed, if across safe fences or in a suitable herd.

[Guilherme]

As in so many things, “it depends.” I’ve presently got four but have run as many as 30+ in times past. Some were loners, some liked small groups, some liked large groups, and sometimes large groups would break into smaller groups in a large pasture by breed! So, it depends.

My gelding goes through periods where he will be a bit “herd bound” and other times where I could ride him to Nashville and he would not care. His primary herd buddy, a mare, is similar. So I just watch him and see what his “routine” is from day to day. I’ve found that even if he gets a little “herd bound” a few minutes on the longe line often solves the problem. I don’t “run him 'till he’s exhausted” but do make him pay attention to me by frequent gait and direction changes. That seems to “break” his concentration on his pasture mates as he puts his focus on ME. So far that’s working out.

G.

[zakkandtoto]

I had my gelding at a barn years ago - he was out with a dozen other geldings in a 20 acre field. I pulled up one day, walked up to the gate and yelled his name. I heard him coming a few seconds later, just like always. Couldn’t see him because of the tree line, but I could hear him.

Anyway, I gave him a cookie, grazed him, groomed him, jumped on him, put him back and walked back to my car. The trainer stopped me and said that all day he’d been watching women chasing their horses around that big field. He asked me what my secret was. I told him the truth: He knows I have cookies.

At another barn they had individual turnout. My guy stood in the same spot in the paddock for hours. He likes to mingle.

Anyway, life’s too short to chase horses. I have a treat pouch.

[clanter]

In the past, I was able to train my horse to come to a yell and feed. Due to the size and shape, they cannot hear me (or a bell), so that doesn’t work.

might have their hearing checked, our horses can hear a peppermint being unwrapped at 1,000 feet

We have seven head here, they long ago divided into three groups, the only truly “herd” bound one is the TB mare who worships the ground the lead gelding stands upon (and he does not care about her, but tolerates the unending worship)

[jawa]

I have 3 stalls on the back side of the barn. Those stalls have dutch doors leading to the outside. There is a 12’X36’ lean to on that side of the barn. The lean to has mats. I had a 36’X50’ area graded to drain well and had 4 " of rock dust added. One of the stalls has a fenced area off of it that is 12’x 28’. That stall is currently housing my 32 year old pony. He gets a lot of food to eat and he takes what seems like forever to eat it all. I have a rope at the end of the run that allows him to come and go as he likes, but doesn’t allow the horses to enter. The 36’x50’ rock dust area is within a larger sacrifice area that in total is 200’x36’. The sacrifice paddock has 2 gates that allow me to rotate the horses between a .5 acre paddock and a 1.5 acre paddock. If I need to I can use electric fencing to cross fence the larger paddock to allow for more rotational grazing.

At present, horses are brought in to be feed in the am. Once the horses are finished, they are kicked out of their stalls. They have access to the run-in which has ceiling fans. I give them 2 flakes of hay each. They are able to stay under the run in as long as they’d like or go graze. Once the horse flies are gone, I won’t put any hay out for them until the grass goes dormant.

At this point, due to the flies, it is easy to get a horse to ride, groom, etc because they are usually in the lean to. Once the flies are gone and if I know I will have time to ride at some point that day, I will close the gates to the paddocks from 7am-10am or noon. As long as the sacrifice area still has grass, I won’t throw hay. Once the grass has been depleted, I will provide hay for the time they are confined.

I have been in my new barn since the middle of August. I am so happy with how the set up is working for me and my herd of 3. Cleaning up the run in has been a breeze so far, even with poo that has been churned into fine bits. I have been using a grading rake. One side has teeth and the other has a flat bit that projects an inch. If its large bits, I use the teeth end. If the bits are tiny, I use the flat, smooth side and make a pile. I then use the manure fork to deposit it in the wheel barrow. Feeding, haying, checking water, cleaning the run in and turn out are taking me 20 minutes tops. I go back mid day to clean the run-in a second time, which usually takes 5 minutes.

[fledermaus]

In the high prairie West, horse herds are often kept on acreage so large that it is common to call them in with a truck horn (airhorn).