Fatty Paddock Advice olease

[pistolpete]

I have my lardy warmblood in a sectioned off bit off field. He can see the other horses and get shelter. The problem is he paces and chops the ground up. Not my land so am moving posts every two weeks to save the field. It's getting boring now. Would I be better off making it much bigger or doing two one resting one in use? Help needed please. Thanks in advance, gin and slimline tonic for replies!

 

[thermidor08]

I find with mine the smaller the paddock the more churned up it gets :-( One of mine will pace badly and I have constant fence lines, I had to give in and open up the field but muzzle him to reduce grass intake! Good luck

 

[Enfys]

Crikey, I sound like an advert for this at the moment :

http://paddockparadise.com/

Perhaps a track would give him somewhere to walk, circuits rather than up and down, up and down (irritating, my stallion does it) A bit of a pain to set up but it may help.

 

[PandorasJar]

If he's pacing then the size won't make an odds, the edges will still get churned. Is there a companion you can put in with him? Ours are patched side by side, or together dependent on how they react away from the herd.

 

[ester]

one of ours will pace if there is electric fencing between her and the yard particularly in winter. I think she knows that eleccy fencing has the power to move (we do strip graze) because she doesn't do it with the post and rail. It depends what you can do without it being your land really. In winter with her if we need them in the farthest bit of the field then we fence a shute down the edge of the field back to the yard gate, she is happy standing and waiting then if it gets dark before they come in.

We now have a paddock paradise system set up, all with eleccy fence with 4 metal (moveable) corner posts.

 

[MillionDollar]

If he were mine I would either put another horse/pony in with him, or turn him out with the other horses with a muzzle.

I hate seeing horses pace, it's not only really bad for the ground, it's also really bad for the horse....stress = ulcers, and the wear on the legs/feet is not good, especially when it's deep or really hard.