managing grazing??

[bambar]

I have a section A and a section D. Both are good weight - slightly on the overweight side of good infact.

I have 2 acres of very very lush grass which I'm trying to manage by strip grazing them.

Problem is by the time I get there the next day they've eaten the strip right down and currently their patch is brown mud as they've literally eaten everything in sight.

I'm worried I'm not feeding them enough as they cant get enough of it when I push the fence back but at the same time I don't want to give them too much either to cause laminitis and make them fatter!

I don't exercise the little one and the bigger one has around 20 minutes of schooling at the moment in the field when its dry enough to do so, cant hack out as she wont hack out alone so can only go out as and when its convenient for the only other person in a ten mile radius to come with me which at the moment seems to be once a month. So I cant exercise to counter act the eating.

If it was crappy grazing I wouldn't worry too much but its lovely lush green stuff!

Any thoughts as to how much is too much grass?

 

[JillA]

Could you set up a track around the paddock? Start with quite narrow so they don't have access to a huge amount and gradually widen according to how much they need. Keep the centre for them for winter - known as foggage and has plenty of fibre to fill them up.
It will keep them on the move and allow them to browse hedges etc - you might need to abandon it for winter or it will get badly poached but it normally works well in the drier seasons.

 

[bambar]

Yep that's pretty much what im doing just making the track bigger every day. I cant give them access to the bushes as they are full of different weeds including bineweed which im sure is poisonous so to be on the safe side they just have a fence either side, but the track is pretty long and will eventually go all the way around the perimeter of the field but im still unsure as to how much I should be moving it by each day to ensure they aren't "starving" by the time I get there the next day!

 

[autumn7]

My two large cobs are strip grazed for the same reason, porkiness, although one is ridden, other totally retired. I only move their strip each evening so that they nosh the new bit overnight when sugar content is at it's lowest. In the daytime they're left with the pickings . Morning and night though I hang two haynets up (mine live out too) filled with two year old steamed meadow hay which they pick on during both day and night to ensure they have adequate forage. They get through 4 x 2kg nets every 24 hours doing this and appear well satisfied. Would this be an option?

 

[Twinkley Lights]

I'm in pretty much the same situation OP as I have some lush forbidden fruit grazing and they have denuded the rest. If you go for the hay option then soaking not steaming will remove calories as steaming only deals with dust and spores etc.

 

[bambar]

My two large cobs are strip grazed for the same reason, porkiness, although one is ridden, other totally retired. I only move their strip each evening so that they nosh the new bit overnight when sugar content is at it's lowest. In the daytime they're left with the pickings . Morning and night though I hang two haynets up (mine live out too) filled with two year old steamed meadow hay which they pick on during both day and night to ensure they have adequate forage. They get through 4 x 2kg nets every 24 hours doing this and appear well satisfied. Would this be an option?

Yes that's an option - didn't want to give them hay incase again it made them fat but will go down that route I suppose....