Yes, my thought is training and handling every day makes such a difference. My plan is to build an obstacle course (the bridge is first and about to be put together) and also get my truck and trailer in the indoor and get self-loading going for my mare who came to me with issues. I also like ground tying and teaching “You stay.” They’re always either improving or moving towards feral!
I appreciate hearing others can’t take the stares and feel guilty!
Same here… The dry lot opens to a 3 field setup, the (small) center one connects to the other two so I can rest either of the two bigger ones. Right now I lock them in the dry lot during the day and open it up at night and they still spend most of the day and night in the dry lot with the hay hut. The fields look crappy, but they are going to look crappy regardless. Also I seed with annual rye in addition to fescue in the fall and while it doesn’t look like much right now as soon as the weather warmer about in 60 days it will take off, look fantastic and provide some cover for the fescue.
It’s been interesting to watch my horses’ winter behavior more now that I’m working from home. Last night I actually did close them in the dry lot because we got another 3/4" of rain this weekend and it was cool, cloudy, and oh so muddy. One night doesn’t sound like much time for the paddock to rest but the puddles that were visible in the afternoon had drained by morning. There was a lot of manure near the gate this morning so they were definitely standing there wistfully overnight waiting for it to magically open. Before I opened it I refilled their hay feeder though, and they were so interested in the hay that they didn’t go out into the paddock at all for a couple of hours.
Later they wandered around the paddock a bit and then took their midday nap. They much prefer to nap out in the paddock than in the dry lot, I assume because the ground is softer and it gets better sun. Now they’re back in the dry lot eating hay. Even when they spend most of their day at the Hay Hut they seem much happier when they can go out in the paddock to nap (and to pee–they really don’t like peeing in the dry lot). And their happiness makes me happy so…
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I think there is a lot to be said for giving horses options. Setting up circumstances where the horse can choose for himself. Surely it has mental health benefits
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I have 2 two acre pastures and I live in a wet area. I sacrifice one of those pastures during wet weather to let the horses have space. After spring dry-up I take a lawn roller to the pasture and let it sit for a month or so. Been doing this for several years and I don’t see a decrease in grass quality. I hate the way the field looks when it’s torn up but the horses are moving more and eating less than they did when I used to keep them in a dry lot.
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I too feel this pain, when they’re staring longingly at the fields. But, I stay strong. I want nice pastures in late spring, so this is the sacrifice. I think about what life would be like at a boarding facility, and realize that being out 24-7 on a smaller dry lot paddock is a better situation than less time on a bigger field. Feeding more hay to keep them occupied helps too! When the weather is below freezing for a day or so, I let them out on it so that they don’t damage the field as much.
I hear all of you who stay strong. If my fields take too much of a beating this year then I will stay strong next winter. Until then…weak. I do see brutal cold temps coming for much of the US in a few weeks
so you’ll all get a chance to use those fields once frozen.
I have small paddocks attached to my barn, but the horses still spend pretty much 24/7 in the turnout fields with a run-in and a round bale. They get pushy and antsy when they’re in for more than a day.
I usually have 1 field that I allow to be the “winter field” that gets torn up and then I let it rest in the spring to recover, and I’m always amazed at how well that field bounces back even after looking terrible all winter long. I alternate my 2 main areas year-to-year. This year I have to keep the pony separate because she doesn’t play nice so both fields are being used, but she isn’t hard on the side she’s in because she’s so small and doesn’t rip around since she’s alone. And really, even though the horses have all of that space to move they spend the majority of their time in the run-in, around the round bale, or near the gate. They follow the same path out to the round bale and leave the rest of the field mostly untouched. So anyway, point being that depending on what area you’re in (I’m in the mid-Atlantic area), once your fields are established you might be surprised how well they recover given a bit of time to rest in the spring.
That’s a good point, mine also tend to either congregate near the gate and water trough, or by the round bale. The only area that is muddy is by the gate, I still have grass everywhere else. So, your damaged areas may be minimal and will easily bounce back with rest in the spring.
My last property only had 1/2 acre grass paddocks, one of which I used all winter for two horses. It looked the exact same as my other paddocks once summer rolled around.
And if they can get to the dry lot, and that’s where the hay and water is, that will pretty much eliminate that muddy gate effect.
I have figured out that “over” using my upper field in winter works best. They tend to not hang out in that one when grazing is crappy, but the lower field is close to the dry lot, so they go back and forth a lot more. I’m also using that fields in the winter to drive in so I want to protect it more.
It works out really well since the rye takes off in April and can handle the grazing, the driving season is over, and I can rest the upper field for 2 months. That sets it up for the lower field getting a rest, and since it is along a flood plain, it bounces back really fast. At that point I can rotate with plenty of grazing until winter.
People keep replying and I have 2 questions for all of them:
- How big is your “field?” In some areas of the country a paddock is 20x20, barely bigger than a stall, and “field” is 60x100. In other areas, a field is an acre. And still in others, their dry lots are 1/2 acre and fields are 5 acres. That space, and how many horses you have on it, and your soil type and location, are huge factors in how well your land will rebound in the spring to winter turnout.
- How long have you been doing that? If you’ve been doing that for 3 years of course it is working great. If you’ve been doing it for 20, then yes I’d like to know more about what you are doing.
Why can’t I get boarding barns to rotate fields and plant? They all seem to scratch their heads after 10 years when there’s no grass left after zero rotation and say, what happened to all the grass? Ummm… they ate it?
Our horse traps are about 10-20 acres and pastures 110 acres or so.
We do rotate them.
Here standard average stocking rate is 30 acres per horse, on short grass native prairies.
No sowing, fertilizing, mowing those.
Our average yearly rain is 18 1/2" and may get it in two or three rains a year mostly.
2020 we ended up with 10 1/2" for the whole year.
We don’t have a mud or manure disposal problem in our “fields” when few horses roam our many acres per horse, less even where we have some sand in our clay soils
Is very interesting how everyone manages, so different in every region.
My pastures are 4-5 acres each, and I have two 50x100 dry lots. 2-3 horses here at a time. New property, so I can’t speak to how this system will hold up over the years, but will say my last property was MUCH smaller with two 1/2 acre “pastures” and 2 50x100 dry lots. Dry lots were connected to pastures, so in winter I gave horses access to one of the pastures and the dry lots. I would aerate and seed that pasture each March and let it rest a month or so while giving them a few hours per day in the other pasture. Pasture came back beautifully every year. Did this for 5 years until we moved.
Top field is about 3 acres middle is about .5 (connects upper/lower, never used as a standalone), lower is about 2 acres. I’ve been doing it this way for about 5 years. That said, it’s property I lease, and it had three things going against it. First, the upper field was annihilated with overgrazing before I took it over, second it has a lot of trees and third, it is not mowed with a bush hog, so while it’s mowed close to 4", it really needs to be allowed to grow more.
In spite of not being properly mowed, and more importantly, reseeded through no till drill instead of my drop spreader, it works for my two horses. Barely, but it works. So I imagine that if it had been properly managed it would be far better than it is, possibly sustainable for 3 horses.
What is your strategy on when to use the roller? Is the ground soft? How soft? I like the idea.
I only have 3 acres of turnout and the lowest acre gets too soft in spring to be usable, despite expensive French drains. I have had anywhere from two to five equines here (two to three horses, zero to two donkeys). I always use the top acre in winter. Some winters I’ve had to use the top two when I had horses that didn’t get along, but that’s really really not my preference. Regardless of how much I let them use the top acre in winter (24/7 the past two winters, ~8 hours a day in previous winters with the nights spent locked in the 7,000 sq ft dry lot), I have always had more grass than they can possibly eat in the spring. Summer and fall grazing seems to be more dependent on how much rain we get than what I do over the winter. In the spring, summer, and fall I rotate, drag, and mow. I’ve had my farm for 6 years now and plan to move in another 11-13 years.
Because rotation requires barns not to fill every field with a horse, and that reduces any chance of profitability. There is a large, expensive barn near me that does rotate to some extent and has a pasture management plan devised with help of the Soil Conservation District, but board is $1,000/month and their paddocks still don’t look as good as mine. If they rested their paddocks as much as I can, board would probably be $2,000/month and nobody would pay that.
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In my area barns are proud to tell new customers that they rotate and rest their fields. What this means in practice is that they rest the grass for a portion of the day by stalling or mud lotting horses. The idea that a perfectly good grass paddock would go more than 24 hrs (bar straight up flooding) without a horse on it would be laughed down.
Like you said, the barns can’t afford the space.
It was sort of a rhetorical question. I know that’s why. But, board around here is already 1K a month. It’s more a question of why do BOs not realize that this will happen? I’ve run into more than one that are puzzled that the field is now full of weeds and almost no grass after 10 years of constant turnout and minimal mowing. And scratching their heads that the tiny paddocks that had firm footing and grass 5 years ago are now mudpits they call “dry lots.” Uh, no, that’s not a dry lot. That’s a mud lot. For it to be a dry lot, you’d have to pull out the muddy loam on top that’s filled with the manure and hay you’ve left on it for 5 years and put in footing.
I roll when the ground is still slightly soft so I can push the lumps of turf and mud down but not leave tire ruts. I started out just driving the truck around and around without a roller. That works well too, just takes more time. I was concerned that the soil would become too compacted and therefore a less healthy environment for the grass, but the grass still looks great. I haven’t tested the soil or anything because my herd is all tubby and doesn’t really need a ton of grass. I feed a pelletized supplement to be sure. The field looks great after a few weeks of recovery.
