Best time to turn-out?

bryngelenponies

bryngelenponies

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South Wales
www.biopharm-leeches.com
I'm trying to decide when is the best time to allow my fat pony to graze. I've read so many different things and they nearly all give different times of when it's best to turn out ponies. I want to let her graze at a time when there's the lowest levels of grass sugar, she has never had laminitis and I want to keep it that way. She's currently in a grazing muzzle for the majority of the day, which she copes with well, and she gets lunged once or twice a day if I can. Unfortunately stabling her isn't really an option because she's never really been stables (she was born on the mountains) and absolutely hates it- it gets her far too distressed. Any help would be really appreciated! :-)
 
Overnight is the best time hun though it can be risky to allow a porky native to have 24/7 access to grass. If you can't stable your pony I'm not sure why you're asking? I wouldn't put a grazing muzzle on her myself because (a) clever ponies can get them off in 5 minutes and (b) there's always the danger of injury or worse unless you are 100% certain it is a field-safe headcollar the muzzle is attached to. I'd strip graze her field using electric fencing. Only giver her a tiny slice of field to begin with and only move the fence a foot or two once the pony has eaten right down to Australia. In fact, you could keep her on the same strip of field with a haynet for ages but you'd need to poo pick very regularly and little ponies can be demons for getting out of any form of hedging or fencing known to man if the motivation is right! You're doing the right think to keep exercising her but do be careful about the risk of laminitis because god forbid if your pony did develop it, she sure would need to be stabled then, distressed or not.
 
Sorry I didn't explain it quite right, what I meant was when is the best time to take off her muzzle because I really don't like the idea of leaving it on 24/7 because it's not recommended and as you say there is a risk of injury. As for the grazing muzzle she has never tried to get it off (yet..) and she's quite happy munching with it on. The headcollar that the bucket is attached to is field safe, of course I couldn't say whether it was 100% or not because ponies do tend to find trouble :rolleyes:, but it's as safe as I could ask for. I bought electric fencing tape the other day and just need to buy the box so will definitely be using strip grazing. I know she would need to be in a stable and that's partially why I'm doing whatever I can to reduce her intake and increase her exercise regime- we do seem to be beating the flab though, she's losing weight and my tape measure proves it :-) Fingers crossed that we never have to deal with lami :-(
 
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