Field management? (V long sorry)

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shellonabeach

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Sorry to post about a subject, which has been covered several times, but with the search facility gone I cannot find many of the posts which could help me!

I have taken on the 7 acre field I posted about previously and a friend is sharing with me. Things are progressing & we hope to move in mid November when the field shelters are up.

One thing we have yet to discuss is how we will manage the grazing – for one 15hh cob, one LW-MW 14.2 & a Shetland. The horses will be out 365/24/7 & graze a 3.5 acre paddock. The 2nd field is to be kept for hay (unless required for grazing!)

We have horrible clay soil unfortunately in this area. I have always kept my boy on livery where fields are grazed & then rested. Winter paddocks are rested for longer so that the grass thickens up and “binds the soil together” to prevent it becoming very muddy. My friend on the other hand has always rented fields and strip grazes – where the area the horses are allowed gradually increases and is not rested (rather than move them from strip to strip). In her current field the main grazing area seems to have been damaged by this system – the grass is very short, does not hold water very well and a few months ago had buttercups growing (which I have read is a sign of a waterlogged & overgrazed paddock). The whole appearance is very different to that of the other half of the field.

The new field was cut for hay in early August & grazed by horses for 6 weeks after, it has now had 3 weeks rest. The strip grazing approach is not something I really want to do on the new field. I worry it may damage the quality grazing we have been given (not to mention break our tenancy agreement that the pasture is to be properly maintained & not overgrazed), but I appreciate her need to restrict her horses grazing. Mine is the 14.2 and whilst he has no weight problems he has had concussive laminitis so obviously it will not hurt him to be grazed as the others. An additional concern about keeping them on very short grass is that this will not be suitable for a laminitic due to the fact the grass will be “stressed”.

My laymans idea (and what I would do if it were my horse only) is to allow the horses access to all of their 3.5 acre field for mid Nov to April: the logic being that with the large area poaching will hopefully be less likely. The grass will have largely stopped growing so should provide bulk rather than nutritional value. As for April – Nov dividing the field into 4 and graze & rotate once the grass starts to get short – although I’m not sure if this is suitable for “fatties”. An additional idea was to make a small starvation paddock for daytime for May / Sept when the grass has it’s growth spurt (which can easily be reseeded) & then allow access to grass at night when sugars are lower.

Obviously my friend and I have different ideas of field management so any advice would be gratefully received!!!

Many thanks in advance x
 
sorry but clay soil is NOT suitable for 24x7x365 turnout - you run the risk of shoes being sucked off and also tendon strains.

once clay is poached you are stuffed as when it dries out it will be rutted and equally if not more dangerous.

I know it's not what you want to hear but I wouldn't touch with a barge pole tbh so I hope you are only renting and not buying !!

my farmer friend has a farm on clay and he reckons there are about 6 days in spring and 6 in autumn when that soil is completely right for tractor use - the rest of the year it is either too wet or too dry.

I was at a yard with one horse on clay - it had an imitation hickstead devils dyke and in the winter the dyke was literally full of water from nov. to march - a winter duck pond

and NO turnout was allowed from end sept. to 1st may - i.e. only 5 months a year was the land fit for turnout - and that was only 'cos it wasn't used and poached in the winter - so no horrible dried in ruts in the summer.

I think your friend is wrong in her strip grazing on any ground/soil and you are right to be worried

I'd make arrangements for stabling tbh and write off the all day turnout in the winter or you'll end up with rubbish grazing within 1
 
Sorry to disagree, but I have strip grazed my fields for years, they are not over grazed & full of weeds or damaged in any way, there is a bit of an art to it, in that you need to move the fence sufficiently to prevent the over grazing, weeds etc etc. One of my ponies is a chronic laminitic & this approach, summer & winter combined with a grazing muzzle keeps her safe & sound. I don't think this would work on clay though, as it would surely get very poached, lucky for me my fields are well drained, & I have the use of summer & winter grazing. My friend has clay soil, it is a complete nightmare, years of turnout in wet weather & not being able to get a tractor on have left it poached beyond repair, I cannot walk across it, its covered in deep holes, & I am afraid of re-breaking my ankle, let alone the horses legs, though I think hers are used to it!!
 
Sorry but totally disagree with above post...I have a two and a half acre field of grass on pure clay for my horse and yes...it needs careful management, but I have managed fine with it for the last 4 years with careful maintenance and appropriate rest. I have my field harrowed, rolled and cut to fit in with the farmers schedule and have no problems there either.
I do agree that it gets rutted if cut up by hooves but you just need to ensure it is harrowed and rolled at the right time of year and my horse has never ever pulled a tendon or hurt himself through this type of ground.
I do strip graze in the summer months because I have a native so he has very limited grass during these months but it soon grows back again once rested. I have great growth on my fields helped by topping once per year.
You really need to rest bits to recover during early spring. I tend to allow my horse more of the field over the period from October through to March at the latest so he will end up having all of it for a month or so and then I section a small area off by his shelter to recover from March for a month and he goes on that and is strip grazed from then on with hay. The field is then harrowed etc and left to grow for a hay cut. By August I have the cut done and then leave it to grow for a couple of months and this serves as his winter food again. So you might want to section off or split off areas from early spring for summer grazing and the same in summer for autumn etc.
The main problems come from putting horses on areas where there is no grass left and feeding hay because it just gets muddied up...but if they are on longer grass it provides some support and keeps them quiet and eating!!
 
Sounds like you've done really well with your clay ground, I've never had to manage it myself, & because of the state of my friend's fields, assumed that the strip grazing/resting thing just wouldn't work. Her fields haven't seen the sniff of a tractor for years, though they are all on slopes & do lie very wet indeed, no part of them get rested even in the worst weather, hence the mess. I think it's really down to finding a system which suits your horses & fields needs.
 
I have had 7 acres and three horses, so a little similar. I used the whole land and bought in hay and that way I could rotate and manage the land very well as it was a flat field and could be prone to mud.

I think 3.5 acres for 3, 24/7 could ruin quite quickly and I would be very tempted not to section any off and let them have the entire run of the land, this way it self manages.

I appreciate we all have experiences and ideas on land management and I do think its an individual trial and error thing to get it right, each field and the horses in are different.

I personally would not scarifice any land to grow hay, this summer and the difficulities for example. For some I am sure the whole hay growing exercise would have been a nightmare and to give up a large parcel of land for such a long time, I would rather pay that little bit extra, but assured of being able to go and pick out a top quality crop from the local farmers and let them have the work and risk envolved in producing it.

I wondered if the field had been grown for hay before, has it been of a good enough quality. If you dont know this, I would want to know the type of grass that is growing in your paddock and speak to a "local expert/farmer" to see what their opinion of using the land for hay would be.

I think under your situation I would look into this area first and the cost implications etc before you decide on how the horses/paddocks are to be managed. It may well throw you some more options.

When I seeded my paddocks, I did a lot of research into the different grass seeds and had someone come and inspect the ground and give me advise. Because my grass was "young" in years and not that well established I was advised to keep it short and put down additional grass seeds once a year to make it thicker. It sounds like, if you have clay soil the entire plant/roots are going to be damaged and it would be interesting to know if the area you plan to grow has suffered damage in the past, it can take some repairing for good quality grass to come through.

Good luck, hope I have been a little bit helpful. I hope there are some folks that reply to you that are proper grass experts, unlike me that has picked bits and bobs of information up over the years.
 
Thanks for the replies so far.

Kizzywiz - my experience of strip grazing is limited only to where my friend is now & the observation that the ground IMHO looks ruined - I will be interested to see if it recovers when rested. The last time she moved the fenceline about 10 feet was 10 weeks ago, so maybe it's just not being moved enough. The grazed areas have not been rested for over a year now.

Pottamus yours seems to be a system which would possibly work, being a mixture of strip grazing but resting also.

filly190 - the field has been cut once a year and then grazed for a couple of months afterwards for years and years. That is all the farmer who leased the field before us used it for. I can only assume he made enough money on the hay to cover the lease & cutting costs. The field has been grass for well over 30 years so is well established. I had never thought 3 horses would need the run of all 7 acres so really value your experience - we are in the fens so flat here too. Grazing is the top priority, as you say we can easily buy in hay like we have this year.
 
Sounds to me like your friend isn't moving her fencing often enough, 10 weeks is a really long time, & if the grazed parts have not been rested for a year, I don't think this would give it time to recover. I am lucky enough to have 2 quite big (sorry rubbish on sizes) paddocks for my 2 natives, I use one from Nov/Dec to April/May, the other for the rest of the time. In the summer paddock which is larger, I start them in a small square, & move the fence back gradually, either daily or every other day, until I reach half way. Then I rest the front half & continue the process until the second half is eaten, then move them back to the front & repeat. If the grass goes right back, then towards the end they have the whole paddock. Winter time, the paddock is smaller so I just start them in a small bit & gradually make it bigger until they are in the whole thing with short grass all over. Hope that helps, the disadvantage of this system is that you are constantly fiddling with bits of fencing, at this time of the year in the dark! However they don't poach the ground, & the grass grows back really well.
 
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