Feeding large haylage bales in Winter wrecking my field - ideas?

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TracyPostling

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Hi All

I need some guidance / ideas please!

My 4 horses are turned out 24/7 in a large 7 acre paddock on the Downs and we are suffering this year. The mud is the worst I have seen since living here and one of my boys has had a bad cough - leading to the vet telling me to get him off hay immediately. I used to wheelbarrow bales of hay up the field with great difficulty twice a day. As exhausting as it was it saved my paddock but now I'm getting 2 round bales of haylage delivered by tractor every 2 weeks and this is rapidly trashing my field. I'm moving the feeders around every visit so my poor ponies aren't standing in mud to eat but the more I do this the more the tractor changes direction to deliver and wrecks more of my field. The plus side is the ponies seem to appreciate more ad lib forage which they didn't have when I was barrowing hay up but I just don't know what I could do to try and save my field. The vet advised a hay steamer to keep them on hay but this would still involve a lot of time to steam the amount of hay I need per day and me struggling through my now wrecked field to get it up to them. I could switch to the small haylage bales and take up twice a day but then this gets costly and requires a lot of time and effort to get enough up to them, then I lose the ad lib benefit I now have from the large round bales. Am I missing anything obvious here that I could do? Help / suggestions really welcome as I'm lost!
 
Could you make a hard standing are for the bale. Just has to be big enough so there is enough around the bale to prevent the horses standing in mud.
 
can you have a round bale 25 mtrs from the field and then just barrow it the short distance to the field as you did the hay. Not ad lib but you could put slightly more in as an ad lib effect. Have each bale delivered to a different point of the field perimeter.
 
Not sure what you can do for the rest of this winter...it is nearly over. But is there anyway you could fence off an area near to your storage or entrance way and hard core it for next winter? My field and horse have bee so much better this year because I have opened up access to the yard for him and feed his hay on the hardstanding there. Other than the gateway to the field, the rest is pretty good and we are on thick clay. It also means my horse is not stood in mud and he has been happier for it as last year he was having to wade through mud and it set his arthritis off really badly. Might be worth a look for next year and you could get it done in the summer when it is dry.
 
Thanks for your comments! I think you are right pottamus, my solution has to be in place next Winter. I do have a yard linked to the field which has a hard standing - I was thinking about putting the haylage here and leaving them to wander up and down - my next dilemma was - would they fight as there will be 5 horses in a relatively small space and would the more meaker ones of the herd not come down as much for feed and then the herd leader and mares get all the food?! I also have a dilemma whereby they are all barefoot. I already had an issue this year whereby I kept my old boy on the yard with access to a stable as he struggles in the mud and he ended up wearing his hoof completely down on all 4 feet as he was pacing - even though my little Shetlands are there for company. I would hate to go back to putting shoes on them all and also for safety as the more prominent mate tends to kick out when around Food. Sometimes you don't know what to do for the best! The plan could be to make a hardcore patch in the field large enough for all 5 to get around to the 2 feeders without fighting and accessible to the tractor which comes to drop off the haylage without it going into the field.
 
For next winter I would rest the field from April until end of October, this is what I do, I have 3 on 5 acres....the grass grows really long and rough, never have to feed hay on the field and it doesn't get trashed ( only the gateway gets muddy )
 
I was planning to have my haylage supply for next winter stacked in the corner of field straight after its cut in the summer. Electric fence it off and then just feed from there as required in the winter.
 
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