Managing micro farm/farmette paddocks

[Pehsness]

Whatever you want to call it.

I have 1.5 acres and 3 connected paddocks. 4 if you count the area off their run in that is also gated.

It’s an inverted U basically. Run in, alleyway to gate, 60x120 sacrifice paddock, left turn through a gate to a smaller treed paddock (long and narrow), left turn through a gate to the “pasture”. Largest of the paddocks and grass.

Snow just left (literally yesterday) so I’ve started the annual process of hand raking a winters worth of hay and manure. I do it every year. I’ve closed off the “pasture” so they don’t destroy it.

This is my second year with that front bit fenced and I want to try to ensure grass from May to October.

I shut the gate at night, so they can only access it half the time in season.

Should I seed it now? After I’ve raked it? Should I try to spread composted manure on it?

I’m in SW Ontario in prime cash crop country so soil is well drained, somewhat loamy. I have excellent compost, but no spreader so it would all be manual (which is fine with small paddocks).

And i recognize it’s not much land but I love how I have it set up and it works really well for my 1.5 horses. I’ve embraced it completely. I don’t have the luxury of rotating pastures but I feel like there’s a way to manage them without that. I regularly clean them of manure (when there isn’t waist deep snow).

[Pico_Banana]

I have three grass paddocks and one dry lot. I let them on the grass until Feb/March time frame - whenever you start seeing green reappear. Then I pull them off the grass and stick them in the dry lot until the grass is tall enough to graze. Which means of course that I have to wean them onto the grass, but it’s worth it to let the grass really get established before grazing begins.

You’re going to have difficulty seeding it this spring and getting it sufficiently established so that the horses can start grazing in May, but it’s probably worth it if you think there’s not enough grass to just fill in without seeding. I’d definitely do a light layer of the compost first, just to give the seed something to take root in that’s not as compacted as the ground.

It’s best to seed when air temp is at least 55F/12C. Then the key is water! You’ll want to water twice a day for 2-3 weeks, for 10-20 min at a time, until the seed really germinates. Then you cut back to once a day and water longer to encourage deeper root growth.

Best practice is to keep horses off new grass for 6 months, but obviously that won’t work for you. With such a short window, I’d be prepared to get the seed in as soon as it’s warm enough, and then really baby it. The test for whether it’s robust enough for grazing is to reach down and pull on the new grass with your hand. If it breaks off, it’s good for grazing. If you pull the grass out of the dirt with the root, it’s not yet ready and the horses will destroy it if you let them graze too early.

I always try to play the long game with my grass so err on the side of waiting longer to put them on it.

I completely reseeded one of my paddocks last fall so am going to be interested to see how it goes this year. It’s already starting to green up.

Good luck!

[Pico_Banana]

I should add that dragging hoses and sprinklers around for those first few weeks was a total time suck. It also meant I was walking on new grass seed. So I bought a bunch of hoses and sprinklers and created an above ground irrigation system. Put it on a timer so that all of the watering happened with zero effort. Probably cost me around $250 for all of the equipment, but totally worth it.

[Pehsness]

Thanks! In hindsight I should have overseesed in the fall, or even February when there was still snow.

There is grass in there already, and if I just keep them off of it it will grow in, I just want really thick super established grass.

I like your idea about a watering system… I am going to dig in to that. It would also be useful in the garden (centre of the U). The garden can also be used as a sacrifice area in the winter if I could trust them not to eat the trees in the orchard, but they’ve girdled some maple saplings in the past so I’m not sure that will work.

[LCDR]

Check into pricing for an in-ground irrigation system. It may be less than you think. I played the thousand feet of garden hoses and tripod sprinklers game for years. An irrigation system covering two acres was installed in one work day by two guys and a ditch witch, complete with a Rain Bird control box that I can that program and adjust in minutes using my phone.

I had over seeded year after year, but not allowing seed to dry out is key, and the hose routine just didn’t do that well.

[Montanas_Girl]

How many horses? If more than 2, you are really just going to be managing multiple dry lots on a property that small.

[Pehsness]

A horse and a mini but I disagree. Grass even comes back in the sacrifice paddock. Not sure if you’re in Montana or if that’s just your name, but if not overgrazed grass grows thick and strong here. We’re on A1 farm land that’s never been cropped.

It’s definitely small and I wish we had more, but without 4 million to drop on 100 acres, we’re out of luck.

They can’t graze 24/7, but they can have access to it 8 -10 hours a day and not destroy it. I think I’ve learned the key is going to be over seeding and irrigation along with diligent manure pick up. And remembering to close the gate religiously every night.

[Montanas_Girl]

I am in TN, not Montana.

1.5 acres for a horse and a mini, carefully managed, should provide grazing most of the growing season in your area. Your situation would be different with full-sized horses.

There is a difference between a bit of green covering the ground and sufficient forage to sustain a horse without supplemental hay.

[Pehsness]

Oh yes, I’m not trying to sustain them on grass. This is just to maintain a) an aesthetically attractive green space and b) give them grazing. I still hang hay nets 24/7, even in the pasture. They just last longer in the summer months.

[Live_Wire]

I have three horses on just over two acres and I haven’t managed it as much as I would like because we are always under some sort of site construction/two of the horses are my MIL and we have different opinions on management practices. We also have crap, clay heavy soil, so that’s a challenge. I keep them turned out more than people would tell me I can and I still usually sustain them on grass May-September. Good grass, too. Rich and lush. When it starts to look stressed, I might throw some hay out and normally I will pull the horses in for 8 - 10 hours for a week or so to give it a chance to get a head a bit (i know that’s not how it works, but it still seems to work). I plant in fall and right around now. At the end of April/early May I will broadcast a warm season grass, too. So fall - I’ll make a run at an overseed/heavy rye (realistically I still just broadcast these) and then I frost seed a pasture mix. In the spring I broadcast more pasture mix.

[Pehsness]

That’s encouraging. Someday, if I decide to keep playing at this horse thing, I’ll need to add another when my current needs to be fully retired.

But maybe by then I’ll have just decided to turn it all in to gardens, who knows.

[Aussie_2020]

@Pehsness I have watched a few of the Clever Cowgirl videos, she’s in Mt and has quite a few horses. I’m not sure how many acres goes along with the barn she’s renting. She is diligent about manure removal and she has a small drag set up for her gator or 4-wheeler to maintain the grazing pastures and the arena.

I think you might be better off waiting until fall to reseed. Let fall and winter weather do your watering. Your place sounds well designed, you’ve got a lot going on in a small space.