Maintaining 2 acres for 2 horses?

daisydoo

daisydoo

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I may have the opportunity to buy a couple of acres and would look to keep 2 horses on it. The fencing is good but no field shelter. I have never managed land before so wanted to ask those that do would I be able to realistically have a winter and a summer paddock or is 2 acres not enough room? I would look to put a field shelter on.
 
Two pones would be fine, horses tend to poach, ie make field muddy and full of holes. You need to feed hay/ haylage to supplement the grass. Assume grass has no little/feed value from December to February. A field is not essential if there are hedges and so on, to ask them to stand in a tennis court in driving wind and snow and ice is not fair, even with good rugs.
 
I'm going to quote what I wrote in another thread to save writing out again - hope you don't mind! The whole thread is here: http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=11166252#post11166252

nikicb said:
We have three acres overall, one of which is garden and house and two for the horse area. I have two ponies and one horse. Luckily all are good doers but I manage fine. They are out all day and in at night - all year round. The only time I have ever put hay out is in the snow. We are on a hill and have good natural drainage. I was worried that it wouldn't be enough, but it is plenty. They get a small bucket feed (hi-fi lite and high fibre nuts) in the evening and hay/haylage overnight. I am constantly moving the fence line and close it up again behind if that makes sense so each bit of land gets rested for about 9 months by the time I get back to the beginning. They still have plenty of room for a run around and hooley as I divide the land up into longish rectangles rather than squares. I try to poo pick daily.

I don't have a school but I have an arena marked out (within the 2 acres). This just gets mowed and harrowed but not grazed (although one of my ponies gets an hour's 'treat' grazing on there every now and then). I am careful about how much it gets used but it's fine and copes well for schooling the unshod ponies and lunging all three. I don't school my shod horse on there often unless the ground is really good.

I do box out for hacking as we have busy roads close by but fab hacking just a bit further down the road. I also box to a school and for lessons a couple of times a week and then for competitions.

It's the first time I've had the opportunity to keep mine at home and despite the lack of facilities I love it and wouldn't want to go back to a livery yard. There are things I would do differently if/when we move to another place, but I can manage with what I have. In fact not having a school has meant that I have had to take my youngster out and about since day 1, otherwise it would probably have taking me a long time to work up to it.

Hope that helps. Good luck. :)
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I think it would depend on the quality of the land and the type of horses you've got. If it's decent quality, well draining grazing and you can feed extra hay in winter, then it's plenty. I would want a field shelter up or good shelter from trees though...
 
First thing to do is to check if it has had planning permission for change of use to Equestrian use. If not you will need to apply even if you are grazing horses on it. The lay of the land, soil type, drainage and grass type and horses will dictate if you can keep them on the land without them poaching it. Best practice would be to pick up the poos once a day so as not to sour the grass. Poos prevent light getting to the grass below it and the grass dies off. The grass is then replaced with weeds. Also leaving poos increases chance of worm infestation.
 
Holly Hocks said:
I think it would depend on the quality of the land and the type of horses you've got. If it's decent quality, well draining grazing and you can feed extra hay in winter, then it's plenty. I would want a field shelter up or good shelter from trees though...
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Agree with Holly Hocks, if its well draining you should be fine.

We have 7 acres in total, which is divided into paddocks. One paddock is around 2 acres, and keeps 2 horses all year round no problem. I do tend to keep part of this paddock sectioned off in the summer, as the grazing is too good, and then open the rest over the winter. But always supplement in winter with hay/haylage. Another good investment is hardstanding infront of the gate, prevents/reduces poaching.
 
i have 4 acres in total - 3 field and 1 garden - i let my mare graze the garden periodically!
i have 2 large horses living out 24/7 365 but i have just built a brand spanking new field shelter :D they just dont use it :rolleyes:
it was doing fine until i took on a 3rd horse as a favor for 8 weeks and it really poached the ground. it will recover - but tbh i'd not want less than 3 acres for 2 living out. for living in half the time then 2 acres should be fine if you manage carefully.
could you put in an all weather bit? i plan to make a section in front of the stables that is hardcore covered by sand that i could if needed fence off if the field was really bad. i also intend to put a 40x20 arena in the garden soon so will use that too as turn out in bad weather
 
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