Individual Turn Out - Opinions and Size of Turn out area

Gingerwitch

Gingerwitch

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Me being nosey - one of my friends is leaving tomorrow for pastures new.... yard sounds fab BUT she is moving her horse from a field with 15 in - the field is HUGE to a yard that does individual turnout in a third of an acre.

The turn out area is post and rail and her horse will have other horses either side but her horse is always running round and playing with his mates (not the reason for leaving as he has only every had a couple of cuts and he has been at our yard for 5 years) in the field so i was just wondering what reaction he may give in such a small area.
 
Bloody lonely I'd imagine! Poor horse.

Mine wouldn't put up with that - one would jump the fence, the other would barge it down.

Sadly, after the first few days of screaming and running about he'll most likely settle down and be deemed to be 'fine' or even 'happy'.
 
Firstly I don't like individual turnout, and secondly do you mean 1/3 acre per horse? Not enough-horses should have 1-2 acres each...I wouldn't have my horse at a yard with individual turnout but I know some people prefer it?

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Seems fairly small for individual t/o to me. My boy is out by himself with his arab gf next door. I believe his field is about 2.5 acres - not so fun for in the dark poo picking but its nice for him to have a large area to explore. Mind you when he is galloping around when he is meant to be resting his injured back it would be nicer to have a smaller field.

Each horse is an individual though, your friend's horse may be ok with plenty of hay and friends around but for me personally I think it is a rather small area. Horses for courses as they say...
 
Horses are herd animals so for me ondividual turnout is a no no. Even though my mare couldn't care less whether she is in a field of horses or if she can't see a single horse around her..
 
mine are in small turnouts over winter and daughters mare is kept on her own as thats what shes used to and was agressive with the others when i tried them together,.they can touch and groom over the fence so although not ideal is ok.maybe the small area is more sacrifice turnout for winter.
 
My preference for my horse is that she is turned out in a group in a large field, since she is very sociable and active. Turnout would be one of my top priorities when picking a yard.

However, in other countries with colder winters it is very normal to turn horses out alone or in pairs in small paddocks all year apart from giving them a summer break on grass in a herd. The horses seem to cope ok with it.
 
1/3 of an acre is tiny!!! A horse should have at least 1-2 acres each.

I prefer to turn out in company. my old yard did individual turnout but me and a couple of other people decided we would join our three paddocks together so our horses could be with each other. worked out very nicely.
However after having a mare kicked and her hock joint becoming infected, I am now a bit wary and will keep a close eye on potential new turnout mates, but will still continue to turn out together. Horses are herd animals after all.
 
My mare's previous owners kept her in individual turnout and to start with I carried on doing the same when I bought her as I moved into a brand new yard and everyone who had moved in were wanting individual turnout too. But when there were others wanting group turnout who moved in, I got the choice but decided to keep Tia on her own. She is happy where she is. Its a very large field which is sectioned into 1 acre paddocks by electric fencing. She often makes friends with who she is next to and grazes along side the fence by them. If I were to put her in group turnout she would most likely be the bottom of the pecking order. And I dont need to worry about her getting too attached to who she is turned out with. If I did change to group the most is about 3 horses in a paddock together at my yard.

I wouldnt choose individual turnout if she didnt have any others around her. She still socialises.
 
My horses have individual turnout. I only have the 2, a competition horse and an older companion pony. When turned out together my mare lashes out at the pony, and having been on a yard where horses have been fatally injured by their field mates, I'm not prepared for this to happen. They happily groom over the fence and will have a hoon around their fields and charge together up the fence line. If I had to go back to a livery yard, I would want individual turn out without a doubt. (I think until you witness a horrible accident, or own a horse who is either very dominant or likely to get picked on, it is not something you necessarily have to think about).
 
We have individual turnout about an acre and a half each and we all have our own field shelters. The horses can all see each other and the good thing about it is there are no injuries. However I still feel that for many horses, mine included it is a bit of a compromise. My cob loves company and mutual grooming but he also ends up at the bottom of the pecking order and has been bullied and kicked in the past.
My friends horse gets on well with mine even though hers is the boss, so we frequently turn them out together especially in the spring and summer or after hacks for a few hours.
I think individual turnout is very miserable for the horse and in an ideal world I wouldn't do it.
Horses are sociable creatures and they become withdrawn and unhappy on individual turnout.
Hacking horses out in company seems to help, I know our two love to go out together wandering.
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1/3 of an acre is tiny!!! A horse should have at least 1-2 acres each.



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That's a bit of a misunderstood 'measurement' (it was first published in Henry Wynmalen's Horse Breeding and Stud Management and was meant to be a recommendation on the number of acres you needed for x number of horses, allowing for resting fields and making hay. So half to 1 acre for spring/summer grazing, 1 acre shut up for hay. A small stud with 10 mares would need 20 acres if foals sold as weanlings. But the 10 mares might spend 6 weeks in one 5 acre field, then 6 weeks on the next while 10 acres shut up for hay - then have the run of 20 acres autumn/winter.

Horses that are stabled at least part of the time and whose hay/haylage is bought in DON'T need that much, except perhaps if turned out most of the time in winter. For individual turnout, half an acre is fine as long as there is another half-acre available when the first enclosure needs a rest. VERY few horses do much galloping around when turned out - unless they're not worked. Mine canter up the field and have a buck when first turned out, then put their heads down!
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It really depends on what you do with your horse, I have a large field with my broodmares and youngsters in who live out, I also have small paddocks where my competiton horse goes out in, in an ideal world I would have a large paddock for my competition horse but in reality he goes out to stretch his legs and have a kick about.
I wont turn my horses out with others I dont know or with shoes on, my mares and youngsters dont kick at each other and my competition horse certainly will not be turned out with shod horses to kick him.
 
Surely that tiny an area will get seriously trashed within days?! It'll just be a mud bath surely?

I wouldn't do it personally. Fine if your horse is on "box rest" or something but IMO horses should be out with others. Keeping them seperate takes away their natural ways.
 
Both my horses have individual turnout as I prefer it. My mare is ok and very sociable but my gelding can get a bit bolshy and make a nuissance of himself. Both horses have had some nasty kicks because of it. But under supervision they often have a romp around together in the menage where they play and roll around.

Each horse is out in a paddock of about 1 1/2 acres . I find that this is only just big enough to cope with the wear and tear that horses inflict on their surroundings, but I'm not too sure I would want my horse turned out with 15 others either, Been there, done that and got the vets bills!!

There is always a compromise with horses and people have to decide what's best suited for their own horse.
 
Our mare is on individual turnout - depending on the time of year either in the same field as another mare but separated by a strip of electric fence or in her own paddock but with other horses around her. The former paddocks is about half an acre, the latter an acre.
She is stabled at night and gets plenty of haylage, so nutritional needs are not an issue. You do have to keep on top of the poo picking and try to rest the paddocks when they're this small, and big buckets are better for water than a trough, as you can move them around to avoid poaching.
When we first had her, she was turned out with other mares, but got kicked so badly that we had to move yards.
She 'chats' to her neighbours and either chooses to graze near them or not, has a little whiz around if she feels like it, but is totally relaxed. She's the sort of horse that if she was not happy, she'd let you know - for instance if it is really wet and windy she'll stand at the gate and whinny until someone gets her in!
The only thing they do miss under this system is mutual grooming, so I make sure she has a really good scratch and scurb with a jelly comb every day, even if I'm not doing much other grooming.
Yes, it is a compromise - the ideal thing would be to take her shoes off and let her 'sort it out' with an unshod field mate. But like a lot of owners I'm not in a position to do that, and I think that properly managed individual turnout in small paddocks can work well for horse and owner
 
Thanks JG for talking some sense, I sometimes feel there is a "camp" that feels if you havn't got perfect facilities you shouldn't have horses.... I have a small DIY yard with 7 horses, all Welsh crosses, and I have 3 1/2 acres on rotation, the horses come in at night. They are all well fed, two are managed laminitics who if they went to live at "perfect" yards with "perfect" grazing would be crippled in no time! Apart from my youngster none of them bother to dash about.
And to really upset people... my young horsey days were in Tooting and Brixton, NO turnout, shock horror, but my horses hunted, show jumped and evented, none developed "vices", they were worked hard and appeared to thrive on it.
 
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