yearling filly from Canada (to Virginia) to arrive soon. I will be transitioning her from her grain and hay to what vet suggests for her, My question is: how should I plan/transition her to our grass? I’ve spent the last couple months working on my small fields/turnouts with overseeding (quality pasture seed) start up fert, lime, Its taken quite well, and looking nice and plush, I’m assuming quite different make up of our soil, and richer spring grass would also mean transitioning her to this as well. I do have a small sacrifice area to utilize for this time with ample free choice hay. Suggestions for turn out on grass gradually appreciated. thanks all !
You can’t assume anything about the grass at her place of origin unless you’ve seen it, including species and growth stage. It’s June so most places in Canada that are horse friendly will have good grass, it’s not like she’s moving in January from snow to Florida. Where is she coming from?
Do you know if she’s been on pasture and if so.24/7 or just a few hours a day,?
I think you can’t go wrong with dialing it back to just a good grass hay for a few weeks, then adding pasture like you would any new horse a few hours a day working up to your desired amount. And getting her on a ration balancer for the vitamins and minerals. You don’t want this age over fed and getting bone problems.
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we have gotten two weanlings from North Dakota (one on 2018 and the other 2022) each was shipped with about six bales of the hay they were on to transition to our hay, (first was shipped in March the second we picked up October at a show) (And I sure wished we had a cheap way to get that hay here as the ranch sells really nice their small bales of alfalfa for $7. similar bales here are about $30, but we feed Teff hay)
We never experienced any difficulties with transitioning them to north Texas. (We do read the weather reports from North Dakota in the winter when its minus 30F there and ins 30 to 50 here )
All new horses are kept in a transition paddock depending upon their acceptance of this being their new home they may be in that paddock for two to four weeks.
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