How big are your fatty paddocks

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starry94

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Setting up my horses 'fatty paddock' tomorrow for him to go in at night. He's only out with one other and his paddock will be within their field but will only be mine using it. How big are your paddocks as I'm not sure how big/small to make it
 
My Section A is a fatty but her current field is about 3 acres and she is out 24/7. It only works though as it was heavily grazed all Winter and there is still very little grass and no goodness in what there is.

She will be coming home to a very lush paddock soon so will be in a very small patch to start with, not much bigger then 12x14ft to start with and it will gradually be increased. She will be in during the day and out muzzled at night.
 
Mine is about 2/3 acre, I have two that size. And I find that it works pretty well perfectly at that size, it is big enough for pony(14"2) to run around and work off calories, and yet small enough that she is licking Velcro in terms of grass.

NB I know strip grazing or track is more ideal, but unfortunately the diet she had to be on following lami has led her to be suicidally food fixated and she will make her face bleed getting muzzles off and crash through even mains electric to get at more grass so we have had to go for skinny paddocks, we have fenced them with 4 foot high horsemesh.
 
Yikes, mine seems really small by comparison!

Kes is on a paddock that I would guesstimate is around 60 metres by 30 so 180 metres squared. It's pretty small! Probably around the size of a large arena. The actual paddock is a little more than double this, but I have split it in half. On the whole paddock he would do too well, IMO. It really is bare keep and he begs to go on the other bit, but I do try and stick to my guns.

He also gets about 3 slices of hay a day, that's it.

I am planning to post a photo later to ask opinions on his condition, but I think he is spot on. I do worry about physically getting enough fibre through his system though. That's where I tend to feed a little more hay through the summer, but soak it.

Do bear in mind that the size of paddock will depend on the drainage. Kes is on well drained land, so we can get away with smaller paddocks without too much poaching.
 
Supplementary feed will affect the size, mine doesn't get any extra hay or anything if she's in at night where she will get hay then, and there's no snow on the ground.

I just like to have it big enough for there to exercise, she's good at doing that and being lami prone the movement is very important which a smaller paddock wouldn't do. If there's too much grass in there when I put her in then the sheep go in first for a couple of days (no more tho as otherwise their poo will fertilise the grass!)
 
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