How are your fields doing?

spotty_pony2

spotty_pony2

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Much better than last year here! The gateways are a bit muddy and my other fields are quite wet but this is my driest field currently - and it seems to be growing grass still in the grazed areas! They have been rotated in different parts of it throughout the winter and I still school in it too. Second photo is the bottom of the field where they are currently turned out. The negative is that it’s my furthest away field typically but I’m happy to walk a bit further for the better ground. 😊
 

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I'm jealous!

I have some mud around gateways and very little grass. But unfortunately do have 3 on 3 acres at the moment as the remaining 3 acres are incredibly wet and they were sinking and leaving 6" holes which would have been a challenge to get rid of 🙈
 
Wet! Well…most are now shut before they cannot recover without a complete reseed. I have one well draining one on a hill at home and the youngster’s field is doing fine. We have kept them good enough to come back strongly as soon as the warm weather comes, and are rotating on the hard standing.

Ponies are as fed up of winter as us though - I turned two out for a holiday last week as it was dry and they had both worked really hard. Brought them back up to the yard and you can’t get one of them out of her stable now 🤣! Apparently, despite ad lib hay, a nice dry field and her best friend, winter holidays are NOT ok if there is no stable! That’s me told then.
 
I appear to have sprung a spring!

In the summer I was happy about this as my driest field had a deep green stretch all down it, now that stretch is muddy but the rest is kind of ok, the gate way is ok.
I’ve split it into two and Alf the big horse stands at the bottom gateway which is now a bit muddy. Other than that it’s fine for the ponies.
 
Ours held up pretty well until the last storm and now's it's a muddy hay mess so the ponies have been dispatched to a far away spare field for a little holiday before the grass comes in.
 
Varying. I’m on a bit of a hill, bottom third is pretty wet and muddy but from there up and across the top is fine.

I did make the mistake of taking my truck up the hill last weekend to collect the logs that I’d had chopped up from a tree that came down in the storms. It’s at the top of my wettest field and I JUST got away with it, for a moment I did think I was going to have to ring for a tractor tow.
 
poiuytrewq said:
I appear to have sprung a spring!

In the summer I was happy about this as my driest field had a deep green stretch all down it, now that stretch is muddy but the rest is kind of ok, the gate way is ok.
I’ve split it into two and Alf the big horse stands at the bottom gateway which is now a bit muddy. Other than that it’s fine for the ponies.
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My wet field has a spring in it - as the rainfall rises I can’t use it because it’s just too deep in places and also on quite a steep hill.
 
My top fields that I use in summer have an underground spring that feeds the well. Very much overground right now.

My 3 are in tonight after yet more rain. They'd prefer to be out but I need 6 more weeks at least out of the winter field. There's nothing out there but it's holding up OK except for my gateways which are grim.

January was about 300 days and Feb feels like it's been 500 already
 
My two paddocks have dried up considerably. Little muddy in gateways but nothing awful. I’m popping a bit of hay out every morning to try and stop fence leaning to the verges. I’m letting another livery use my second paddock as I don’t want rested grass come spring.

We have a field that has had 4 big horses on all winter from morning til night and that’s a bit trashed but they’ll move off that in a few weeks.
We have a large field on the yard we can’t use in winter
as it has a natural spring in it, so that looks amazing and will be super spring grazing for those who need grass (absolutely not my three!)

The ground is really starting to dry up now, but it never takes much rain to get it sodden again. I’ve got everything crossed for a dry end to winter.
 
The field next to ours was used for barely for the second year and it seems to have encouraged the water to drain into our field so we’ve got a few really muddy bits we haven’t had before.
I think we’ll have to look at putting drainage in this summer.

We have very little grass but it seems to be growing at the minute which isn’t usual at this time of year.
 
Erm... Better than last year! The lane and "yard" part is a muddy mess, but I think that's more to do with the fact the ground didn't have time to settle and establish after all the machinery from clearing rather than the horses alone. Can see we have some remedial works to do come spring though
 
We have 2 herds. The 3 that have to live out have trashed theirs, its slippery at the front and not much fun to poo pick. Got a 1/6 of the field left to strip graze them into.
The other 4 come onto hardstanding or their stables overnight, and I do also leave them in to mooch on the hardstanding on really wet weather days. This has saved their field so far with just some mud at the gateway which is to be expected. We don't strip graze this field as works better to have them out in the daytime over the bigger area.
Roll on spring :)
 
My current field has no mud and is solid underfoot. It's a delight. It's small though and I need to move them off it soon.

Their other fields are growing grass, which is crazy for this time of year. Two of them are looking extraordinarily well covered, but they're the wetter fields, so won't move onto them until spring. The field they'll be on by next week is likely to develop some mud once they're down there, but I probably won't keep them on it long.
 
Holding up better than last year! Mine were out in 6 acres of hay fields until this weekend, the gateway was muddy and the track down was wet (thank god for mud mats!) but the fields look ok and holding well underfoot. We're now back in a smaller paddock so the hay fields can get going for this years crop. I've moved my mats to make a hay station, as although it has good grass and footing now I think three horses will eat it off and churn it up before too long unless it miraculously stays dry for the next few months 😂.
 
Its not often the south east is wetter than the rest of the country but my fields are much, much worse than last year and I nearly cried after last night's rain.

I think getting 2 months worth of rain in 48 hours back in September just filled up the ground water capacity and every rain storm since has just sat on the surface - which is now mainly 2.5 acres of mud
 
No grass in my field - just moss, dead thistles and mud now! Im sectioning off the most poached areas as my horse creates them (he's a die-hard fence walker/pacer) so his paddock is getting smaller and smaller every week!
 
I moved my horses for the second time at the beginning of December because the fields they were in were already horrendously muddy and both had developed mud fever. Their fields now are pretty good with just mud around the gateways and water trough. Both dry up really quickly too with a dry day or two.
 
My shelter is boggy and mud comes over my short boot.
Ponies are in the top field hoping the bottom shelter dries out.
I'm putting chuckles down so I can raise stable mats for somewhere dry. Hoping this works.
I'm aware I'm not as bad as some though.
 
SEL said:
Its not often the south east is wetter than the rest of the country but my fields are much, much worse than last year and I nearly cried after last night's rain.

I think getting 2 months worth of rain in 48 hours back in September just filled up the ground water capacity and every rain storm since has just sat on the surface - which is now mainly 2.5 acres of mud
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Yes, very much same here. We have quite a few horses living out, and those fields are noticeably much worse. I am very thankful my horse is largely sensible and goes slowly. He doesn't want to walk through it much either though.
 
Surbie said:
Yes, very much same here. We have quite a few horses living out, and those fields are noticeably much worse. I am very thankful my horse is largely sensible and goes slowly. He doesn't want to walk through it much either though.
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We're also struggling. My neighbour's field in front of her shelter looks like it's been ploughed. Everytime I get depressed about it I look over the fence and feel better! It's just very, very slippy. We need either hard frost or dry weather, but we seem to have perpetual drizzle or rain.
 
Fransurrey said:
We're also struggling. My neighbour's field in front of her shelter looks like it's been ploughed. Everytime I get depressed about it I look over the fence and feel better! It's just very, very slippy. We need either hard frost or dry weather, but we seem to have perpetual drizzle or rain.
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The inside of my shelter currently looks ploughed! It has flash flooded twice this winter and the ground water is now so high there are muddy puddles in there.

I assumed the horses were ignoring it then got Babycob in to ride yesterday and he'd laid down in there. Honestly I've never seen a tummy so plastered :rolleyes:

He'd been in overnight too so why he felt the need to have a snooze at midday in the mud I don't know - but boys....
 
After the last 20 hours of more or less continuous drizzle, mine are totally waterlogged. The turnout area is very muddy but at least it's only a few inches deep at worst, and they have access to the yard which is hardstanding. I'm pretty done with it now.
 
Slop 😞 I spoke to the farmer about 2 weeks ago and basically requested we stop turnout other than in a small paddock in shifts for at least a month and realistically it will be at least 2. We've got grass and they've been happy to stay out but it was being destroyed and we've only really got the one field so resting for now. I was going to have a walk over it last weekend but life got in the way so I'll look next weekend but it definitely needs a rest, and possibly dividing up somehow for future years to preserve it
 
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