Grazing management support

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Bramblebear

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Hi Everyone,

I wanted to run a potential business idea past the people of the forum to get an idea on whether it is a viable idea and whether people think there is a need.

A friend who is an agricultural professional recently spoke to me about how in his eyes a lot of equine grazing is managed fairly poorly and does not give us the maximum nutritional and growth benefit that we could achieve through correct maintenance. I am aware hat larger yards have the machinery, time and skills to manage their grazing reasonably effectively, however smaller and private yards may find it difficult to commit to the overhead cost of owning their own tractors, harrows etc to perform paddock maintenance themselves and in some cases are not even sure what they should be doing with their grazing to get better outputs e.g. harrowing, topping, spraying, fertilising and rotation.

Do you think there is a gap in the market for a company to provide a maintenance service for these smaller/private yards to manage, ideally on a yearly contract with all maintenance covered depending on the needs of the client and the pasture. The contract could be paid monthly and they would also have access to a support line and education to help them manage their grazing etc. I am aware that some people enlist help from local farmers for this kind of work but doe this work well? Do the farmers have equine use in mind and provide advice on best management?

Any thoughts on the above are highly appreciated.

Many thanks
 
A local lad has set up specialising in small paddock care, he has a very small vintage tractor and equally small equipment that is ideal for getting into pony paddocks and awkward places, he is very busy and it is proving popular with a few local yards as well as smallholders. He does not do a contract plan but probably would if asked, there certainly is a market as most farmers/ contractors are too busy or have huge tractors which are not always suitable for smaller acreages, the only thing to bear in mind is that many horses and certainly ponies do not need the best grazing possible, I never fertilise my fields as it would be far too rich for mine to cope with, sometimes it looks poorly managed but is managed with equines in mind not cattle.
 
Suspect it would depend very much on location - you'd want to be setting this up somewhere with lost of small/private yards nearby as the costs of transporting the equipment around/time taken doing so could be large. For education and so forth you might need a larger customer base to make it worth your while so perhaps as a group of several different local professionals? No idea if possible but to get yourself linked to a vet surgery/feed store that could mention you when advising on nutrition and things might help...
 
I think there is but you should have a clear scale of charges, is it hour it rate/per acre. Are you providing the fertiliser or applying the customers own etc.
I have trouble in finding people to come and do mine and I have 14 acres. Just had my hedges flailed, a man and a huge tractor £45 hr.
Another chap does the spraying with quad and boom, with the spray alone is £150.
The cost may be a problem to some people, they are just not aware how much it costs to get insurance, kit and the right qualifications. So I would let them buy there own spray/fertiliser and charge them an hourly rate plus travel
 
I'd be interested in this but only if the service was very up with the latest thinking on natural management for horses. You mention fertilising and spraying - I would want soil and forage tested to tell me when treatment it needed to keep the land happy. Check this site out rather than chemicals
https://forageplus.co.uk/product-category/soil-analysis-horse-fields/

I'd also be interested in having haylage made for me.
 
Thank you everybody, these opinions are really valuable in our business planning - please keep them coming!

In addition if there are additional things at the yard that people struggle to manage and are interested getting help with e.g. fencing, hedge trimming, haymaking etc that is also really valuable to know.
 
Yes to fencing and hedge trimming, rolling, harrowing, toppingg, haylage making, renewing tracks - laying and compacting stone, muckheap removal?
 
TBH, I dont want my grass to be the very best it can be, I want it poor because then I dont end up with fat horses/Ponies.

Our field at home was fertilised about every 10 years, kept it perfect for the fat native ponies we had, meaning that we NEVER had a case of laminitus in the 25 years we had native ponies there and never had to restrict grazing. We had ponies who came to us with chronic lammi (look at a blade of grass, get lammi) and after the initial bout never suffered again.

Horses are not dairy cows, they do not need the massivly rich grass that dairy cows do, infact it is bad for them!
 
I think fertiliser has a place, you just have to know what you are putting on, and when. Lots of land is now intensively grazed and what with removing muck , little natural fertiliser is being put back in to the soil. I use low nitrogen fertiliser little and as required, in 30 years I have never had one with laminitis, but they are unrugged, allowed to lose weight in winter with rough hay and straw.
 
conniegirl said:
TBH, I dont want my grass to be the very best it can be, I want it poor because then I dont end up with fat horses/Ponies.

Our field at home was fertilised about every 10 years, kept it perfect for the fat native ponies we had, meaning that we NEVER had a case of laminitus in the 25 years we had native ponies there and never had to restrict grazing. We had ponies who came to us with chronic lammi (look at a blade of grass, get lammi) and after the initial bout never suffered again.

Horses are not dairy cows, they do not need the massivly rich grass that dairy cows do, infact it is bad for them!
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same - does the agricultural guy understand we don't want lush dairy pasture?
Weed free and not horse sick - yes.
Lush green grass - no.
 
honetpot said:
I think fertiliser has a place, you just have to know what you are putting on, and when. Lots of land is now intensively grazed and what with removing muck , little natural fertiliser is being put back in to the soil. I use low nitrogen fertiliser little and as required, in 30 years I have never had one with laminitis, but they are unrugged, allowed to lose weight in winter with rough hay and straw.
Click to expand...

Mine lived out in winter, clipped and well rugged they were all competed year round. Poo picking got done in summer only and then it wasnt that often, we never rotated grazing (it was the same field all year round) but did plonk a large bale of hay on a gravelled area in winter (and replaced regularly).
Sounds like a field management nightmare but 4 ponies on 4 acres and it worked beautifully. ponies were never sick or sorry, had extremely low worm counts (often 0), were fit, healthy and happy. The grazing was never bare, they alway had grass but the content of that grass was not rich or sugary.
 
Thank you again for your opinions. In response to everybody's comments about providing grazing that is too lush, the point of this business is to offer grazing management services specific to equine use, as opposed to people having to use local farmers and other contractors that do not have equine needs first of mind. I personally have a background in nutrition and own a lami prone horse so it is very much considered. However there are times where fertiliser has a real purpose to best preserve grazing and provide a variety of ground forage that are of benefit to a horses dietary needs. Before working with this friend I also had no idea that certain pasture management techniques can have a considerable effect on reducing poaching of the land. Something in sure many people would be interested in?
 
Bramblebear said:
Thank you again for your opinions. In response to everybody's comments about providing grazing that is too lush, the point of this business is to offer grazing management services specific to equine use, as opposed to people having to use local farmers and other contractors that do not have equine needs first of mind. I personally have a background in nutrition and own a lami prone horse so it is very much considered. However there are times where fertiliser has a real purpose to best preserve grazing and provide a variety of ground forage that are of benefit to a horses dietary needs. Before working with this friend I also had no idea that certain pasture management techniques can have a considerable effect on reducing poaching of the land. Something in sure many people would be interested in?
Click to expand...

I am assuming you are FACTS and BASIS registered as you will need to be to execute your business model effectively maybe you need to look up those cost( Many £k) before getting to far down the road
Then you still have the age old problem extracting pound notes from horse owners pockets!
 
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honetpot said:
I think there is but you should have a clear scale of charges, is it hour it rate/per acre. Are you providing the fertiliser or applying the customers own etc.
I have trouble in finding people to come and do mine and I have 14 acres. Just had my hedges flailed, a man and a huge tractor £45 hr.
Another chap does the spraying with quad and boom, with the spray alone is £150.
The cost may be a problem to some people, they are just not aware how much it costs to get insurance, kit and the right qualifications. So I would let them buy there own spray/fertiliser and charge them an hourly rate plus travel
Click to expand...

Indeed a tractor costs a minimum of £30/hr just on its own to run. They cant buy their own sprays now! You need certificates to get them.
 
We own nearly 9 acres, of which 4.5 is paddocks for 2 horses. One thing we have learned is that every year is different! We respond to the weather conditions and electric fencing is our best friend as I have one thoroughbred and one ID with differing nutritional needs.
This being the case, I wouldn't consider a monthly charge...possibly one off payments if they were competitive but most private yards probably already have arrangements with local farmers. I think that it's down to costs!
 
I can't see how you can do much that local paddock care people can't do - there are a couple round here, use quads with spray packs, harrows etc. Some larger jobs such as hedge cutting need mainstream contractors and there are plenty of those in most farming areas. And you need a sprayer licence to buy spray, so there is quite a big cost in the training. Liming is another specialised job, usually needing soil testing to decide application rates.
Your area would be confined to how far you can transport your equipment and that adds a cost. I have found that purely on the basis of convenience I much prefer having my own quad etc - I can do small areas as and when it suits, weather and rotation wise.
You might find a market in a semi rural area where there are mainly smallholdings and equiculture but in mainstream farming areas we've mostly got it covered.
 
I do not own any equipment and use a specialist grassland contractor for my 80 acres of grassland.
He has all the latest tractors and machinery such as hi-tech harrows, cut and collect equipment, rolls, sprayers, drills, hedge cutters etc. and the advantage is because he specialises in grassland he will always appear when I want him to.
His tractors are fitted with grass tyres so they cause the minimum damage to the grassland and drainage below them even in the wettest of conditions.
I imagine his investment in equipment is in excess of £300,000.
 
I live in an area where its full of big farms and that's the problem. Most contractors want to do a big acreage, not really interested in cash, really, even though they get paid on the day. My neighbour is a farmers son, failed a bit of hedge in his spare time for us but because he's working on the family farm could not take a day out to do the rest.
Under 4 acres and you can just about do a lot of jobs with a 4x4, harrow, a knapsack sprayer and if you can be bothered a couple of sheep.
If there are people making a living out of lawn care there should be a living in this once you have enough client base,
 
We have 4 acres and went down the route of buying our own equipment. The only thing we cannot do is muck removal and we pay a farmer who can make use of it to dispose of it.

We find neighbours want to borrow my husband plus his equipment quite frequently. He does odd jobs for them when in the mood. He likes the idea of doing it as a part time retirement job.

We went down that route partly as my husband is properly practical and he got some good bargains on the equipment and partly because the number of people willing to do odd jobs on an ad hoc basis when we wanted was minimal. I think there is a market but whether it is sufficiently lucrative and consistent is another matter.
 
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