Livery yard field size

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If you’re on a yard with your own field, how much space do you typically have (pref if you are out 24/7). Happy enough with current yard (not much choice here) but fields are pretty small (1 acre total between my two horses- not ideal). Unless you have your own land does anyone get the ideal of 2 acres for the first then 1 acre thereafter?? Thanks
 
Speaking as a YO rather than a livery. We have smaller fields than that, ranging from small pony paddocks to about an acre, but with one large 6 acre field for the ones that need more grass. But we have 13 of those smaller paddocks so horses are rotated to harrow and rest them. This year has been super difficult with the lack of rain/grass but generally this would work well. It’s harder I think if you are trying to manage a small number of horses on a couple of acres. Can you split your fields to give them say 1/3 of an acre at a time? Sadly most places have more horses than 1 per acre (ish) but that is based on feeding them on grass alone, I don’t know anywhere that can do this all year round.
 
Abacus said:
Speaking as a YO rather than a livery. We have smaller fields than that, ranging from small pony paddocks to about an acre, but with one large 6 acre field for the ones that need more grass. But we have 13 of those smaller paddocks so horses are rotated to harrow and rest them. This year has been super difficult with the lack of rain/grass but generally this would work well. It’s harder I think if you are trying to manage a small number of horses on a couple of acres. Can you split your fields to give them say 1/3 of an acre at a time? Sadly most places have more horses than 1 per acre (ish) but that is based on feeding them on grass alone, I don’t know anywhere that can do this all year round.
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Thank you. Yes I’ve got it split into 0.4 acres for winter and then 0.7 is summer and I strip graze that (which lasts about 3-4 weeks). It’s very tricky to manage but there’s no other options sadly
 
I have two mini shetlands, one 13.3hh native and a 15hh horse on about 2.8 acres, split across several fields. They all live out 24/7 but I do feed hay all year round. Most fields on the yard are one acre or less but it's generally the case that owners are allocated one field per horse.
 
I have a 15.1 and a 12 hh in a field with a shelter. It's just over 1.6 acres according to Google Earth. I do feed hay all year round, but that's because I shut about a 1/3 of the field off in the summer months, due to it being ex dairy and sheep pasture.
 
I dont have a horse now but my previous yard gave me a total of just over an acre split into 2 fields, they were very dry though and we hay'd in the fields. Not ideal but there is such a limited number of yards and space these days, being dry was a big plus
 
We have 10 acres, 10 horses - split into 2 acre paddocks, but very sandy and well draining so they don't suffer much with winter weather. We get hoof deep mud around the gateways but that's about it.

They are out 4pm till 8am April to about October, and then swap around to being out 7:30am till 4:30pm in winter - we have maybe 2 days a year of no/limited turnout if it's genuinely dangerous for YM to turn out eg: ice/gale force winds as we don't have any natural shelter and it's not a short walk to/from some fields.
 
Have 7 acres for 6 horses, split into 2 and rotate 3 monthly. This normally means we ad lib hay 4 months of the year and feed 'some' for another 2 months and have 6 months of grass.

I dont want to talk about this year though as we are now on winter routine with food, just not wearing 10 layers to do it!
 
The last 3 yards before we moved them home, we were told the paddocks were an acre per horse but each yard had a very different idea what an acre was! As I had 2 or 3 horses I had 2 or 3 paddocks to manage how I wanted between them (they were always in together).
 
We're at home so it's a but different but we have 3 horses (15 hh size native fatties) on 8.5 acres - there's not tonnes of spare grass usually and this year I'm glad I don't have any more.

If they really are out 24/7 and you don't want to supplement with a lot of hay, then you need quite a lot more space than it would be feasible for most yards to offer and still make a profit.
 
I had my 15.1 cob on 0.6 acres for most of the year - occasionally got an extra bit to let the paddock recover from the winter. It worked alright for me because the land was well cared for and drained ok, and he's a fatty, so I tracked it and then grazed him into the middle in the winter. I started feeding hay around December and managed to have him out 24/7 for all but a few days in the year.

Livery is a really hard game to be in, I know my previous YO makes very little from her liveries (it's not her only business). She was very good at letting us do tracks etc, and manage our horses however we felt was appropriate for them. I'd take a YO with a flexible attitude over one with loads of land!

I have my two on 3.5 acres of old grazing at home now. It's FAR too much in the spring to autumn (I section it up), but not enough in winter to get away without feeding hay at all.
 
I have a New Forest and a Dartmoor.
My Summer field is 1 acre and that is tracked so they have the track through summer with hay put out and then the middle paddocks will be strip grazed through autumn.

My winter field is about 0.7acre but i bring them in during the day so it.

It would be better to have the fields the other way around but unfortunately the bigger of the 2 gets really wet in winter so can only be used in the drier months.
 
Mostly round here on livery you are talking half acre paddocks, it’s understandable but a bit sad tbh. Just about acceptable if you have a horse in proper work. But I’m now lucky that I don’t need to rely on local yards for horses in light/no work
 
It depends but most around here are small, half an acre at most! Fine for the ponies but not great for the bigger ones!

Saying that we’ve now got the problem of too much grass where I’ve moved to…always something!
 
A large individual turnout paddock that I am continually strip grazing as the grazing is great. It's more than enough space for one.
 

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I am not at livery anymore as the yard has sadly closed down. But for the majority of my time there I had a 3 acre field for 3, to manage as I like. But the yard had winter turnout restrictions (every other half day in winter and daylight hours spring/autumn, 24/7 summer).
When I then sold a horse we moved our remaining 2 into other herds. One was in 4 acres with 4 others, but 2 of those horses only utilised half day turnout year round. The other one had 10 acres shared with 3 others. BUT this field was a LONG walk away from the yard. I was happy to have the amazing grass/field for this horse, and suffer the extra walking everyday.

At my sole use rented yard, we have approx 0.75 acre per horse. But we rest/rotate/maintain the grazing we have, and utilise a large yard area for the worst weather days. We also tend to bring them in for at least a few hours a day year round, as this suits us and our horses, who love their yard and open large stables.
 
Usually 1/2 acre per horse.

One yard had fabulous amount of land and we had about 1 acre per horse. People would double up so they could rest fields and switch around. Unfortunately a lot of land around here = housing and that's what happened

Now my own place with 2 acres per horse
 
We're lucky, we have more acres than horses so we each have about 2/3 acres per horse. Most of us have two 1.5 acre paddocks that we rotate into summer and winter. my old yard, and most others around us have small 0.5 paddocks per horse x
 
At the end of the day it depends on the grazing quality. I've visited friends yards and seen the size of some of the paddocks which would deter me from considering such a place if I was looking at moving, which I'm certainly not. I love it where I am.
 
I think it's so difficult to judge things by acreage alone.
When we had our first horse on a livery yard, a group of about 6 were turned out in huge 'field' (about 7 acres)- however, part of the field was a quarry, it was all quite hilly, at the bottom there was a 'swamp' area and what grazing remained was really poor. We used to say that they went out for social reasons during the day but did most of their eating when they were stabled at night.
I and a friend then rented 6 acres for our 4 horses. In the summer they ballooned and the whole thing needed sectioning off pretty regularly. In the winter it just turned to mud due to poor drainage.
We then moved and had three horses on 2.5 acres with the option of using our neighbour's field during the summer. This worked well but the field needing lots of maintenance, especially in terms of controlling weeds. It's not unlike what we have now. We keep a close eye on the horses, they get good quality feed/hay/haylage to supplement their grazing and they all look well. Ozzy has put quite a lot of weight on in just 5 weeks so we'll need to monitor his supplementary feeds.
The croft needs sectioning off, harrowing and overseeding but it's almost certainly better grazing than the 7 acre field at the livery yard. So much is down to quality and management.
 
I have 2 horses and 1 pony and have 4x 2 acre paddocks for the 3 of them. I use 4 acres for summer and 4 acres for winter. They are out 24/7 in summer and out from 6am-7pm in the winter.
 
I doubt anyone in this day and age (and market...) gets an acre per horse. Most people on livery barely get turnout in the winter! We have about 3 acres between 2 horses that we continually split and rotate and that is like gold dust around here (East of England).
 
I think it’s a shame that the majority of livery kept horses appear to get a small rectangle of flat field on their own.
Turnout should be more than simply providing grass- it’s about allowing horses to express normal behaviours such as grooming with their friends, browsing different types of grasses and hedges and big enough to wander across a significant distance, not just round and round a small block.
I know why it’s like that, I just think there are ways of improving things for horses that use the space available but in more innovative ways.
 
I'm extremely lucky that with my two boys that I've recently moved to my new yard, I have just under 3 acres between them. So I'm currently sectioning off a bit of the field, letting them eat it down and regularly poo picking it, then in the next two weeks, I'll move and give them a nice fresh section of grass to munch on. They're out by night and in by day due to flies so not out 24/7 which is making the grazing stretch longer, but even then, I'm having to watch Baggs' weight as he currently looks in foal and ready to drop any day, despite regular work......
 
TheMule said:
I think it’s a shame that the majority of livery kept horses appear to get a small rectangle of flat field on their own.
Turnout should be more than simply providing grass- it’s about allowing horses to express normal behaviours such as grooming with their friends, browsing different types of grasses and hedges and big enough to wander across a significant distance, not just round and round a small block.
I know why it’s like that, I just think there are ways of improving things for horses that use the space available but in more innovative ways.
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Unfortunately I think in the world that we live in now means that unless you have your own property, your own land, that certain details of the things that you speak off, ie browsing different grasses, hedgerows and significant acreage/distances will only be a dream for most equines….
Better a small area to roll and nibble, look at friends, breathe fresh air than just albeit a nice stable, filled haynet, hard feed and constant water…it’s a lucky horse with this…
 
My 3 live out 24/7, and over the past year have had access to maybe 10 acres-ish. This is mostly because I'm willing to move them around a lot and graze off bits of field as when the YO wants them grazed. Some bits of it are out of action at certain times of year (for ecological or ground reasons, or in the case of the field I was on over winter, because it has caravans on it in the summer). They've cut hay from two of the fields, and there'll be good grass regrowth by the time mine are done on their current field. We've had an unusually good year here though, despite the drought and recent downpours!

It's good, unfertilised grass, mixed species, some hedgrows and natural browsing. I run a track to keep them moving in summer, and they live in a herd. It's about as natural a life as I can reasonably achieve on livery.
 
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