How's everyone's grass doing?

Grass here was growing like mad last week when it warmed up. It's gone colder now, so less obvious, but I moved mine onto a rested field (since October/November) and they've been happily grazing without hay. Summer field has some spectacular growth on it from last autumn and the warm spell. Even the paddock they came off a couple of weeks ago is looking rather green now.
 
The north downs in surrey is usually a few weeks behind lowland surrey but the horses are finding grass .I rolled all the fields of the local riding school last week.Looks so much better. Have been looking into liquid fertiliser .Sprayed on ,the horses can be back out there almost immediately .Down side os that ,being a foliar feed ,it is in the leaf that they are eating. My hunch is that its ok as the nitrates will make the grass bitter and they will eat more hay but let the grass grow. Liquid fertiliser sprayed on is a game changer.You need so much less !
 
Looking a little brown but there must be something growing because her poo is looking greener. She's still eating hay in the field, though. The summer field has been resting since Christmas but still looks quite bare but it's wildflower meadow so won't get going for a while yet.
 
In mid west Wales, my fields are drying nicely but my grass is on strike and not growing as it's so cold, my summer fields that have been rested since November haven't really grown as I think the grass has just drowned, my one sacrifice field is looking like a ploughed field but I don't want to stop using it until next month really.
 
I can't see much grass but have cut the lawn twice already so it must be growing.

I have 3 little paddocks. Rigsby's little one had moss killer a few weeks back, and is being rested. The moss has died, I have harrowed and now done some over-seeding. It can stay rested for a while longer.

The other two are being grazed up to 4 hours a day. They just look the same but horses are enjoying time out. I'll leave it a bit longer before seed is thrown down as I wasn't convinced it was late enough and have already thrown £100 down on Rigs' paddock.

As it is just over-seeding, the paddocks may not get time off. They will only have to do 4 - 6 hours a day until new grass has taken hold though.

I usually have the issue of too much grass, rather then too little. I've only seeded to get rid of gaps from where the moss has died so it won't grown back easily. The seed I've chosen is a lami friendly type.

I'm not worried: last year I had a load of drainage work done and this is the first year the fields have been useable pretty much all winter, other than a few days. The 3rd paddock was bare for a lot of it, as I had underground drains put in. The seed took really well for just a couple of months off. I presume that over sown grass doesn't need protecting to the same degree as the other grass will provide ground stability.
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Mine went out on long grass at the beginning of Nov - much earlier than normal but the summer fields were lakes. This is just a sea of dead stuff with a bit of green in places now. I'm putting hay on the rutted bits to see if they'll squish them down. But it is dry so I'm grateful for that!

The ponies are losing weight nicely but my Appy still looks like a whale.1000002685.jpg
 
It isn't growing yet here in NI
My two are coming in twice a day for what appears to be the horse equivalent of catnip - Cushcare Mash (they are literally going crazy for it)
It is dry though which is unusual for us at this time of year so the contractor is coming this week to look at the big field and decide what to do, it got nothing last year as between wet weather and contractors the windows to do anything were so short. I ended up with docks and not enough grass.
 
Terrible here. My lower fields are bare and the higher ones have been rested since November and won’t get any growth until late April. Hoping to move horses to higher fields in May but they’re fed up.
 
Over here in France my grass is doing really well, you can practically see it growing. We have been hitting 19°C some days though (and -3°C the next!). My main problem is that the ground is still so wet and it insists on raining any time I could get on with my fencing. I think I've spent more on hay this winter, but then they didn't need any hay at all all summer, so swings and roundabouts cost wise. The forecast is announcing rain for about two weeks from Friday, so that will be more set backs and juggling where the horses go out.
 
Grass was growing over the last week up here in the North, now completely frosty, rock solid with even the taps frozen again 🫣
 
Red-1 said:
I can't see much grass but have cut the lawn twice already so it must be growing.

I have 3 little paddocks. Rigsby's little one had moss killer a few weeks back, and is being rested. The moss has died, I have harrowed and now done some over-seeding. It can stay rested for a while longer.

The other two are being grazed up to 4 hours a day. They just look the same but horses are enjoying time out. I'll leave it a bit longer before seed is thrown down as I wasn't convinced it was late enough and have already thrown £100 down on Rigs' paddock.

As it is just over-seeding, the paddocks may not get time off. They will only have to do 4 - 6 hours a day until new grass has taken hold though.

I usually have the issue of too much grass, rather then too little. I've only seeded to get rid of gaps from where the moss has died so it won't grown back easily. The seed I've chosen is a lami friendly type.

I'm not worried: last year I had a load of drainage work done and this is the first year the fields have been useable pretty much all winter, other than a few days. The 3rd paddock was bare for a lot of it, as I had underground drains put in. The seed took really well for just a couple of months off. I presume that over sown grass doesn't need protecting to the same degree as the other grass will provide ground stability.
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I would be interested to know what drainage work you had done. We are on heavy clay and in winter the fields are really boggy. We have a lot of acreage but not much in useable in winter
 
myheartinahoofbeat said:
I would be interested to know what drainage work you had done. We are on heavy clay and in winter the fields are really boggy. We have a lot of acreage but not much in useable in winter
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The ditches re-dug to very deep, some large bore pipes fitted underground, but also some French drains. Some is ridge and furrow and we improved that with hard core and sandy soil imported, as opposed to our clay.

It was done to a budget but is looking so much better than previous years.
 
scats said:
A FB memory popped up of this time last year and my paddocks were green. They are really bare this year.
But, for the owner of 3 good doers and one of which has extremely severe EMS, it’s actually not a bad thing for me.
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This, yard are harrowing and rolling next week. But the horses on the yard arent loosing weight and have green poos so its there, just full.of sugar and going right through
 
My paddock was rolled couple days ago and it's looking very smart. Photos showing both halves. The grass is definitely coming through now hence the strip grazing.

Third photo is the demarcation line when he has fresh grass! I usually give him a couple of feet a night but there's plenty already there.
 

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Gloi said:
Shivering in the cold and not growing much yet but everywhere is pretty dry which is amazing. People have been driving tractors on the land spreading muck this week.
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Likewise, it's been -2 overnight for the last few nights, but dried up beautifully (yay, yay, yay). We have very rough grass, so there's still longer, scrubby yellow bits for them to pick at but the new stuff doesn't seem to be growing at all. Mine are both very good doers and I can still see ribs (which is good!) so there really can't be much out there that's calorific.

My next job is going to be mowing off the sycamore seedlings. Fortunately they're all at the top end where the ground is flattest and the grass shortest, so I may be able to fire up the ride on mower and tackle them that way.
 
It's been my first winter at my new place and my fields look pretty bare but horses and piggy ponies are all grazing and not just eating the hay so I'm guessing some grass must be growing. I've moved horses into the big field and left the ponies in the small one so they don't eat the everything as soon as it pokes it head up!

I'm really pleased with the ponies weight as it's the first year I've not been worried that they were too fat going into Spring for a few years...previous livery yard wouldn't allow us to restrict grazing.
 
East Anglia. Two weeks ago …. Thick mud. Now it’s like concrete. Winter paddocks are rock hard. Zero grass. Summer paddocks are looking pretty rubbish. Need some regular light rain. My hay man was worrying as he said his spring cut will be low.
 
Ours is definitely growing, but it’s deceptive. It doesn’t look like much in the field, and they’re still eating hay as well, but their droppings have started to go green!

We stopped stabling the ridden two on the first weekend of March, as lambing is due to start in April, and both the farmer and I had different weeks in March away. So it meant the tractor could get in to clean out the deep litter and let lambing pens get set up, and less hassle when we were each away.

But because four are now out 24/7, I do think it’s made the grass growth deceptive - the field doesn’t look greener at all but it must be coming from somewhere! I’ve cut back Mary’s hard feed in response and upped the chaff content, as she’s looking pretty good right now and last summer I didn’t cut back quickly enough and she got very fat!

Edited to add: we’re in the Scottish Borders and normally would be later than down south for grass growth, but we’ve had such good weather here recently with warm sunny days and cold nights.
 
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Growing slowly.
Winter field is drying up fast so going to be forced to move out of there so I can tackle the ruts then rest it but I haven’t got anywhere near as much grass as I’d like.

I hate to say it but I could do with some rain to soften the rutty bits of my winter paddocks so they could stay in there a bit longer! But not really any forecast.
 
harrowed my other fields, which they were on all winter....nothing doing yet, we really need some rain and warmth.....still feeding copious amounts of hay at home with them
 
I've closed one side of my field off now to rest a while and you can definitely see the difference in colour. There doesn't seem to be any growth in height or length of grass but definitely greener than the side the horse are still on.
 
I've moved mine to summer track system today.
There isn't much grass in there, but I figured they could eat it as it grows around them.

No grass growth here just yet but we're still seeing minus temps overnight.

Winter fields have had muck spread and been aerated, just waiting for lime to be delivered 🙄 and we can get that on too.

I won't overseed until next month when we should have more reliable temperatures.
 
We're turning around some of the horses tonight Lari included, so he will have between 12- 15 hours out at grass overnight. Think it will suit him better.
 
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