Grazing Management

[Serenity087]

I'm curious, and I'm studying grazing management, would those of you who own your own land be interested in a service which managed all your grazing?

IE you pay and they'll turn up with tractors and perform a variety of activities, ranging from completely re-seeding the pasture (with a horse friendly mix!) to fertilising and applying pesticides if that was also required. Could also cut, turn and bale hay/haylage if there was enough land!

Also could do chain harrowing and rolling.

That I'm aware, contracting in such a way is widly available to farmers, but I've never heard of it being more equine specific, ranging from the seed mixes, to the timing of applications and the size of bales of haylage/hay. I'm curious to know if YO's or those who own their own land would be interested in having such a service?

And if so, what sort of land do you have? Large or small fields?

 

[kerilli]

God, yes please. sounds excellent.
i have small turnout paddocks and a couple of larger fields, 7 acres in total. i remembered to have fields fertilised for the first time ever, this year...!
sometimes i see horse paddocks in such a poor way and feel really sorry for the horses. if you did a weekly muck-hoovering/muck-sweeping service i think you'd be welcomed with open arms by the horsey fraternity!

 

[OWLIE185]

I own 60 acres of grassland divided in to 10 fields which vary from a very small hospital paddock to 20 acres in size.

I use local contractors the first specialise in equine field maintenance from ploughing, drilling and seeding, harrowing, cut and collecting, fertilizing, weed killing, harrowing, chopping up fallen trees, removing and turning the horse manure etc. I have another one that does the hay and another that specialises in fencing and installing water troughs.

 

[jrp204]

We've been ag contractors for 20 years and tbh the small 'horsey' jobs were usually a pain in the b/side as the fields are often small and had narrower gateways, most of our kit was 3m wide. If we'd concentrated on purely horse stuff it would never be cost effective and we would have to charge huge amounts to do the work. Apart from poo picking most grassland work is done only once or twice a year (fert, spray, haylage etc) & reseeding maybe 5yrs or more and the acreages are generally small, so to set up a business to do purely equine would not be economical, especially with diesal, fert prices.

 

[Tia]

I have to say, I wouldn't be interested in doing horse-jobs either. There often wouldn't be enough profit when you take into account the time and energy used. I think the problem often is that horse people don't really take into account of having large machinery/equipment managing their tiny fields, when they plan out their habitats for horses.

It's so much easier taking your machinery into large areas of 50 or 100 acres, than trying to negotiate gateways and buildings within 3 or 4 acre paddocks.

 

[Donkeymad]

The idea is good but I fear, as already said, that the practicalities would make it a very impractible thing to do.I think to overcome the difficulties the operator would need to charge rates higher than the majority of horse owners would be willing or able to pay.

So when you starting - me first please