Good point about the individual behaviors. My horses always seem to stay within 100 feet of the shed if the grass is covered with snow. So I don’t feel bad about using a small-ish paddock during the winter.
It really depends on climate and grass species. OP, I am in a similar climate to you, though much drier in the summer. The grass grows ONCE, not all summer. And I count on winter snow cover for turn out.
My 5 acres is split into three pastures and a sacrifice area. I rotate between the three in the winter, so this winter is pasture 1- next winter is pasture 2, ect. They are locked in 100% March- June, then out in hourly increments in june. Only out 100% in winter. I’ll start the summer is a different pasture so pasture 1 can recover completely.
If it thaws any more, they will be locked in until the ground freezes again 
I’m in the same boat. I was hoping the ground would freeze by now! And I was supposed to have my barn up this fall with a new all-weather sacrifice paddock, but I got screwed over by the barn company so I have neither stalls or new paddock.
I have a 3/4 acre paddock that is the sacrifice area for now. Half is a deep muddy mess but there are a few high spots that stay reasonably dry, and a run in. If I were to turn my three out on the 2 acre pasture I have it would be a mud pit by spring and would not regrow properly so I don’t turn out on it unless it’s 100% frozen or snow covered. It’s also on a hill, so it gets churned up pretty fast when they come careening down the slope.
I have SO much to learn. Even though I’ve had horses since I was 14. But a limited acreage? ENTIRELY new language. It is frustrating me beyond belief that I cross fenced, and cultivated great grass and fed it and never? knew or understood? that in winter, horses would eat it to root and dirt. before they’d ever touch hay. Always boarded. Now? at ‘home’? our turnouts are basically the ‘front yards’ (not literally, but in location) and I do NOT want to lose them to destruction! But again, its ‘new’ to me that meant I had to use my MUCH smaller sacrifice area all winter just to not have the hard worked for grass to not be totally destroyed. ) not sure how I’ll handle it , but just so you know, I’d KILL for 6 acres. I’m dealing with maybe? 1.5 acres -2 of turnout.
WAAAAAAH. It is SO WET. The ground is squishy. The mats in the barn are soaked just from the humidity. And it’s going to RAIN tomorrow and Monday.
What is going on??? I did NOT expect this sort of winter! I’ve never wanted freezing temps so much in my life.
Spring is going to suck so bad
You’ll survive, the horses will survive, the farm will survive! I promise! :lol:
There’s no escaping mud in much of the US. You lay out your farm as best you can, then just deal with it.
THIS ! The sun will come up and the grass will grow AGAIN ~!
This !
The Sun will come up and the Grass will come up AGAIN ! 
[QUOTE=Texarkana;7907727]
You’ll survive, the horses will survive, the farm will survive! I promise! :lol:
There’s no escaping mud in much of the US. You lay out your farm as best you can, then just deal with it.[/QUOTE]
Graveled areas are a Godsend. Even the darned driveway in a pinch.
What a wet, miserable day. I should have just left the horses in. My sacrifice area is a bog. I turned them out on grass and they totally tore up the first 1/4 or so of the field. I anticipated damage, but they really exceeded all expectations.
It’s SO foggy and grey. The inside of my barn looks like it rained inside–and it didn’t even rain today. (It’s not raining condensation in the barn or anything…it’s just that wet here.) I had to totally strip Blush’s stall because the bedding was just so wet.
I expected it to be wet and gross and muddy in spring, but I didn’t sign up for this in December I’m just going to leave the horses in until it freezes again–should be solid again on Tuesday. Tomorrow I’ll make sure the biggest ruts are smoothed out in the sacrifice area so it’s not all pock marked.
This sucks :sigh:
Does anyone have a white paper or professional step by step on creating an all weather surface? We have a guy who does all sorts of earthwork down the street that I think would be a good guy to work with on the most-awesome-sacrifice-area-to-be, but he looked at me like I had two heads when I started talking about using a geotextile or cow carpet earlier this year. If there’s something out that that walks through exactly what needs to be done, including what sort of materials to use, that would probably be really helpful.
Or should I just tell him to recreate my driveway behind my barn…? He does do roadwork, so that might be a common language. ReSomething, I took your words to heart and thought about using step ins and some extra electrobraid to fence off my driveway today. It’s pretty long–I think it would make a nice turnout.
Simke- extension should have a lot of details on what you want. Your tax dollars at work, experts, etc. This is an site links to a lot of other sites (scroll down)
http://www.uri.edu/ce/healthylandscapes/livestock/livestock_topics.htm
right now I’m grateful that my cooler head prevailed and I went with a mini for a companion to my old mare. He doesn’t do near the damage a horse would do. And our space is so, so small. Maybe half - 3/4 acre total fenced in. But you can imagine what hooves did to the high traffic half of that space.
We’re dry right now, despite it being warmish and wet and fog yesterday. Sounds like we have less bog-like conditions than you do simkie. I have given up on trying to preserve any grass and am just doing my best to keep all organic material off the ground as people here have advised, and then just remember how much boarding sucked and how much better she’s doing here at home, despite the conditions.
I hope you get a nice solid freeze soon!! I’m afraid to look at the weather website for fear of seeing high temps and rain this week…
Simkie, I have 6 acres of muddy, fragile pasture in New England that is driving me crazy, too. We made ours much, much worse by having a prefab barn installed last week and the heavy equipment for the site work and delivery were very destructive on our old dirt roads and in front of the barn site – my one nice little pasture. Sigh.
Where the mud got very deep on the dirt road, at the bottom of a hill, on a curve, the excavators put down about 100’ of geotextile and covered it with tailings – fist sized rocks – and then 3/4" gravel, and in a few places, some stone dust on top. They threw it down, tamped it with a bulldozer, and proceeded to drive 10 wheel dumptrucks and other enormous things up and down it for another week. It’s still in great shape – the only thing that is! This was a fast and dirty emergency-solution job and it still totally solved the problem. I think the key to success is to scrape down below the mud and use a ton of rock on top of the geotex. When my wallet recovers, I am totally going to build a drylot for the ponies!
I haven’t had that much mud until today. It’s been raining for 24 hours on and off now. The misty crap was fine with my group (pain to wipe the dogs feet constantly), but the rain is tough since the ground is frozen. What saves me is just one horse and that my dry lot is very sloped–it has three tiers. I think you will want to ultimately remove the topsoil, geotextile, and rock like mentioned. Think of how grateful you will be after living through this! 
As far as turnout, I let them out Saturday when it was warm 55 and sunny for awhile. Everyone was quite happy. https://www.facebook.com/laura.blankenship.90/media_set?set=a.10204610940507231.1073741834.1646226472&type=1&pnref=story
If it is wet I don’t turn out. I’m really running out of grass (only 2.5 acres fenced so far), so I’m only turning out once or twice a week in the afternoon now. Once we freeze and if we ever get snow I look forward to letting them out again. Looks like I may only get 1-3 inches out of this storm. I’m about 60 miles too far south for good snow it seems like.
Glad you were not here to gasp as our young filly got her running time done in the wet dirt today! Lots of sliding, galloping, circles, as she played out in the field with her friend. Filly just got home from the Trainer, where she had a nice paddock, daily work in the indoor arena but no pasture time. Guess it just wasn’t the same as having a field to run in, because she was ecstatic with the space. They ran, trotted, did canter circles for over an hour when they were turned outside this morning. Both had sweat marks from drying hair, good thing it IS so warm here, they won’t be chilled. Also lots of rolling, mud caked on, which will be “fun” to groom off tonight. NOT!
Always fun to bring them back home, watch the activity! This was her first time away, gone from home for three months. Now she needs to think on what she learned, get worked a bit as the cold allows. Sure is nice to have all the stalls full again, everyone home. Will be rotating each of the other horses in with her, a new one each day to pasture with filly, then we can do any mix for turnout groups again.
I am GLAD to have this nice weather break!! I can FIX any muddy messes next spring. So MUCH easier to work outside without wearing ALL my winter clothing this year! The grass will come again and be lovely next summer.
OP, I feel your pain. I have to preserve my 2 ac. of pasture, and the rain in MD has been ridiculous this year. My 50x120 sacrifice area, which is nicely sloped and usually stays quite dry is a mudpit. We finally had 4-5 days of dry, and I still have some boggy spots. Put rubber mats down in a roughly 4x8 area to give them a dry place stand and eat hay. We will be bringing in a dump truck load of cr-6/dust Christmas week.
On really rainy days - They’re allowed out in the sacrifice area, but hay is in nets in their stalls to encourage them to munch and stay out of the mud.
I have been trying to keep them in the sacrifice area since the wet weather started, with an hour a day of grass turnout when its not too soft. It gives them a little time to graze and be happy every day and helps them mentally deal with being stuck in the sacrifice area.
I’m really looking forward to getting the stone in - The base is clay/gravel already, and the paddock has a nice slope, so we’re just going to level lower spots and pack it in. Worked wonders on the other side of the barn, which used to be my sacrifice area - we’ve only had to replenish once in 10 years. New sacrfice paddock is on the south side of the barn. If it were totally up to me, I would do the proper, high end rehab with geo, but DH won’t hear of it.
[QUOTE=Simkie;7904589]
Do you keep your horses off the dormant grass all winter, or allow them restricted access?[/QUOTE]
We keep them off the grass all winter long. Once the ground gets wet and saturated, their feet would destroy the grass and root systems.
The answer is to invest in all-weather paddocks and/or tall rubber boots.
David
Why would I gasp, goodhors? What do you think my horses were doing yesterday? This should give you some idea. I dislike keeping my horses off the grass, but I like having grass. The damage they caused to that field in a single day is impressive and sad
Horses stayed in today, and I researched geotextile. We’ll definitely do the runs to the east and west, and some or all of the sacrifice area that the east runs attach to. Will probably try to swing the gates between the fields, too. Once that’s done, it will be SO MUCH BETTER. The east runs will be 60’ long, so lots of room for the horses if they DO have to stay in.
Mud is miserable. I hope it gets cold enough tonight to freeze my current sacrifice area so they can go out tomorrow.
Welcome to WI/MN! If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes. I know, this warm weather actually sucks. We didn’t even get any sun, just days of dense fog. I have a sacrifice paddock, and my run-in shed is in that. The three horses are in that from November until the pasture dries up in the spring. It’s a gross mess whenever we get these winter thaws, so I don’t look forward to them like everyone else. I pick manure 2x/day, although you can’t tell today. Manure tends to blend in with the mud.
Don’t worry, it will freeze and then you’ll have a different issue. Then it will snow 12", and you’ll have another issue. Just when you think you’ll go stark raving mad, you’ll hear a decent weather report and hold out hope. That weather will never happen, and you’ll slip a little further over the edge.
I’m sorry, but I laughed at your photo. Your horse doesn’t seem perturbed in the least by the weather or the condition of the ground.
WTF is UP with this weather, cloudy?? Is this NORMAL??! I really didn’t expect rain in December. I expected it would get cold and stay cold and snow. Coming from Colorado, I know all about changing, unpredictable weather (I don’t think this area has anything on Colorado, honestly…weather men consider Colorado prime territory because it’s so interesting working there) but I didn’t think I’d have squishy ground this time of year. I’m cool with frozen ground and even with snow, but I wasn’t mentally prepped for this sort of mud until spring. I haven’t seen the sun in days…all fog here. (This is not improving my mood, btw, even on 5000IU of vit d/day.) It cleared a bit today with the rain during the day, but bad again tonight.
And yes, the horses sure didn’t care. They were thrilled. Fun watching them play around. Sad looking at the aftermath.
Do you have any sort of all weather surface in your sacrifice area? Any tips there? Thankfully our property slopes nicely and gradually to the south, so there is some movement of water if I can manage the rutting. How big is your sacrifice, for how many horses?
[QUOTE=Simkie;7910581]
WTF is UP with this weather, cloudy?? Is this NORMAL??! I really didn’t expect rain in December. I expected it would get cold and stay cold and snow. but I didn’t think I’d have squishy ground this time of year. I’m cool with frozen ground and even with snow, but I wasn’t mentally prepped for this sort of mud until spring. I haven’t seen the sun in days…all fog here. (This is not improving my mood, btw, even on 5000IU of vit d/day.) It cleared a bit today with the rain during the day, but bad again tonight.[/QUOTE]
Yes, this is “normal” for the Great Lakes, upper Midwest States. Depending on the year, it can be like last year, much snow, deep cold. Other years it stays dampish, eventually getting frozen ground, skiffs of snow. Sometimes the snow comes, stays, then has a long patch of bare ground with cold. I remember a Christmas that was almost 60F, rainy, mud dirt.
ALL the variations are “normal” for us, which is why we just enjoy what we have! As my FIL said, “Could be worse”. Been there, done that, not so fun!
Last winter was notable for so MUCH sunshine! Seemed sunny almost every day it wasn’t snowing. Maybe one of those special lights that give more “rays” to folks who need sunshine, would help you. Does look like a year for SAD to be very noticeable. Here is a link to inform you on it, if you don’t know about the grey day, depression issue.
I only meant my comment about filly running here, to be a gentle poke. Not meant to be unkind, you don’t CARE if my field gets torn up with my horses have more fun than they should! Maybe as you get a bit of time on your fields, the roots will get deeper and horse play will affect the plants less. Not sure how much you garden, but sometimes “being mean” to plants makes them BETTER plants, with terrific roots that withstand much abuse. Kind of hard to think that way, but TRULY it works in the long run for better gardens and fields to graze in.
