How is everyone's land holding up?

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AWinter

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We've only recently moved to 2 acres on clay, I shut the horses into our hardstanding area for the first time last night to try and save my field, I'm still strip grazing and I've already trashed a patch that I probably won't be able to use until the spring by leaving them out in the last storm.

I've got maybe a 10m x 15m space fenced in with a shelter that is mostly mud-matted with some sand and membrane also, the sand is completely water-logged this morning and we're forecast about 10 hours of heavy rain tonight. Thankfully my boys settled well being shut in and just tucked into their hay no bother so at least I know I can keep them off the land when I need to.

I have friends with no stables or hard-standing on clay who are really struggling already, it feels like its going to be a long, wet winter 😩

How is everyone else holding up?
 
We've only been on the rented 4 acres a few months and were warned that with the brook running parallel at the bottom and its low lying position making it pre-disposed to flooding. Up until a week ago it was holding up but this last 36 hours of rain (last night in particular was biblical) has turned it into a quagmire :( heading up there this afternoon on my half day to open up the hardstanding area and roll the round bale so they can get out of the mud for the next few days. Frantically hoping the forecast is correct and next week is colder and drier.
 
Our 2 fields that are in use have got really muddy at the gates. We are normally on well draining land but this amount of rain all at once after a drought summer means our fields are struggling. I was hoping not to have to bring into hard standing yet, but may have to.
 
Not holding up at all! Half the field is still fenced off as too much grass ( gassy colic last week when we gave a bit too much in 1 go), other half is a mud bath as it was bare before the rain and is too small to cope in the mud 😫
 
Same as CastlelackSportHorses the poor donkey's field is reverting back to bogland, thank goodness they at least have the hard standing this year. Their little tootsies are dry and they are well rugged, but they aren't at all impressed and winter hasn't really begun yet has it? 🙁
 
On sandy loam here, holding up than expected even though there’s been a lot of rain recently.

The prolonged dry spell in the summer had finally lowered the water table so that long term boggy areas dried up as the underground springs flooding them dried up. Horses still able to graze there now after those areas had to be fully fenced off year round for several years 🤞.

Not expecting that situation to last much longer, but ok for now.
 
Mrs. Jingle said:
Same as CastlelackSportHorses the poor donkey's field is reverting back to bogland, thank goodness they at least have the hard standing this year. Their little tootsies are dry and they are well rugged, but they aren't at all impressed and winter hasn't really begun yet has it? 🙁
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It's so depressing. It hasnt brightened up here in a week, its been so dark all day every day, and people wonder why winter makes people suicidal. :(
 
Fortunately we are on really well draining brash so the fields are holding up very well with only a minimal amount of mud in the gateway. Horses are out for 7 - 9 hours during the day and in at night. About a mile up the road is clay and the fields there are water logged.
 
I’m going to have to shift horses into the winter field for long term now. The summer field has a low lying gateway into the hardstanding that has turned into a bog this last week. Reckon I’ve done well to be able to use that bit until November anyway!
The majority of the winter field is above water table and brash so stays pretty good. The less good area is mud control matted.
 
also on clay but mine are in half the day all year round to minimise wear and tear on the land.

i am hoping to make it new year before they have to come on to the all weather pens and tracks
 
My 2 are out 24/7 still and are still in the summer paddocks, on a track which is a figure of 8 with 2 paddocks in the middle. I have started strip grazing the back paddock in the middle of the back track, once that is finished i will close that off and the back track. The boys will the have the front track only and i will start strip grazing the front paddock.

I'm hoping i wont need to use my winter field until December!
 
Clay-y loam here, sadly the gateways didn't get chance to recover in the spring so started off with muddy gates to begin with 🙄 have managed to fence just under an acre off and re seeded/fertilised which is coming up beautifully so hoping they can go on there early spring. Sadly 3 of mine need as much turnout as possible due to arthritis including my only ridden one, and one needs the healthy neglect over the winter to lose a lot of weight, leaving one Shetland that *could* come in but at this point what's the use 🤣

ETA they are all out 24/7 except the ridden one who is for 6/7 hours on ridden days
 
On sand, but I'm at the bottom of a hill so quite slippy in places but last year was 100 % worse. The main issue aside from shelter physically moving (!), is that there is no root structure to the grasses after the dry summer and they're pulling up the entire grass by the roots when they eat. Lots of bare patches, too, but again it was so much worse when I moved in last year. I'll be using the next cold dry snap to make adjustments to the mats and get another hay delivery in to minimise damage. Weather is quite nice, today. Shame I'm at work!!
 
My winter fields got 7 months rested so have plenty of grass but the rain is here for the foreseeable 😕.
I used to strip graze so by April they had the full field but this year I’m going to have to divide into small paddocks and let them trash a paddock and then move onto the next and let the trashed one rest.
 
Dopeydapple said:
Not holding up at all! Half the field is still fenced off as too much grass ( gassy colic last week when we gave a bit too much in 1 go), other half is a mud bath as it was bare before the rain and is too small to cope in the mud 😫
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It's this, if the grass wasn't insane I could open the whole field up and reduce the mud as there is a decent sward but I have one world's best doer and one sensitive to gassy colic in autumn. At the moment they are eating their strip and then churning it to mush. The field is definitely wetter than last year with a lot of surface water.
 
Cloball said:
It's this, if the grass wasn't insane I could open the whole field up and reduce the mud as there is a decent sward but I have one world's best doer and one sensitive to gassy colic in autumn. At the moment they are eating their strip and then churning it to mush. The field is definitely wetter than last year with a lot of surface water.
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Also this is the first year we don't have another field to move to so it's even more worrying.
 
Much better than last year when we had 2 months worth of rain in early Sept and it just didn't stop. Still on the summer field (3 on 3 acres) but if the 40mm promised for Friday turns up then the underground spring may make itself visible and that's my signal to think about moving them. The drought over the summer was so bad the water table was still low when we looked into the well last weekend.

My winter field is untouched and looking ok but the later they can go on it the better.

Very much appreciating my own land and just having 3 this year.
 
Still on summer paddocks. Saving winter ones. But we’ve had lots rain on clay ground so looking pretty rubbish. Friday in east Anglia is looking awful. Torrential rain from Thursday evening until Saturday. My winter paddocks have little grass as they hardly grew over the drought summer months and won’t last long. Hay supplier is warning of shortage already so going to be a grim winter if it’s too wet
 
2 out 24/7 on 3 acres that so far seems to be well draining, both still in muzzles. They get an hour or so a day out of the muzzles with a slice of hay to munch on. Small amount of mud around my field shelter.
Previous winters have been on a yard that didn't get muddy as such but was exceptionally wet, it was hard work!
 
Mine are in a herd on huge clay multi level pasture, some of which will flood soon enough. The gates are on the higher land and that's already trashed. The rest is OK but its near its limit already. Fortunately forecast dry for a fair while now.
 
There are horses just renting fields around us and they're not looking great already. Last year one had to build an island out of pallets and straw to try to get horses out of the water. I've been here forever and it seems worse every year, the ditches are no longer maintained and many trees have fallen so no longer suck up the water.

I feel we are doomed!
 
We are on clay and the past few days of rain have definitely not helped. Usually we'd try to leave them out when it's this mild as everyone has a field shelter but the gateways are already bogs.
Youngster came in with a tail full of mud last night, from watching the cameras I know she's not been pacing the fence line it's literally from wandering round the field grazing. It looked well covered when we moved onto winter fields but that was mainly weeds.
On the bright side I did reseed the naked patches in the spring and summer fields last week and those are already growing.
 
After an excellent dry summer we’ve had a lot of rain and so the wetter parts of the field is wet. The field is big so there’s plenty of drier bits but I was hoping it might hold up better this year.
 
All gateways here have been given mud control slabs = game changer. The loafing area which is 32m x 52m has mud control slabs along two sides now, these have changed it from hock/armpit deep mud (dependant on size of animal) to fetlock deep as they stick to the slabs when the ground is really bad. I try to add to my mc slab numbers every year, justifying the spend on resale price should I ever need to move.
 
I'm on clay, but it's not too bad at the moment. We've had a lot of rain, but it's drying out quickly, apart from in the section where it's always wet. That's also
their toilet area which is frustrating. Overall, I think it's dryer than this time last year.
 
Mine is doing much better than previous years 🤞
Gateways are all stoned now and I have a loafing area with a huge amount of grass mats.
I have a winter field off either side of the loafing area so I can rotate those 2 fields through winter.

I think mine will go onto the winter field this weekend- the summer fields have hung on for an extra month this year, compared to normal!
 
We've had heavy rain all night, my mud mat area is fine but everything else in my pen including my sand patch is just full of water. Let the horses out into the field for an hour now they're back in the pen and we're forecast more heavy rain for the next few hours. We're on such little acreage and on clay this is the only way I can keep the land usable for winter. We've still got plenty of grass so the field itself is doing okay as they haven't been churning it up all night.
 
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