Minimum land to keep a horse or pony

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Patchworkpony

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Given that there has rarely been weather like this in living memory I did wonder what was the minimum land that people keep their equines on. For example there are some folk I know who keep a couple of ponies in the back garden and still do really well with happy, contented animals. So is space as much as an issue as it was or, especially with small ponies, is it better to have less space (which must be well managed of course) and avoid the real risk of laminitis - given that we now seem to have milder winters with more grass?

Please tell us your secret if you are succeeding on a small space - say half an acre or less BUT do tell all if it has gone horribly wrong. Both encouragement and warnings are always welcome as none of us ever stop learning!
 
I have three large and one small native ponies on 2.4 acres. In the summer i've always got too much grass. we do have a stone hardstanding area though and in winter they spend some days penned on there to save the field. we have stables too and although they spend as much time out as possible, I do stable them at night when its really wet. It would be hard to keep a pony on half an acre with no hardstanding/stables unless it was only a small pony. My 12hh pony would probably be fine.
 
We have 3 on 2 acres, works fine in summer as 2 are muzzled for weight/lammi prevention but winter, unless ground dry they stay off it completely :( It is flood plain/clay so bad combination in winter for keeping animals on anyway. Am very very thankful for the small sand/gravel turnout I have!
 
I tried 2 horses (15.2 & 16hh) on 2 acres with hardstanding with field shelter on - we are on wet clay but it was a no go - had to rent land elsewhere to rest it through the summer !

I now have 4 acres and manage to get hay off one field and rest it - so round by us 2 acres per horse or maybe if you didnt want hay then 3 acres for 2 would do it.
 
I think it really depends on the land - is it well drained, etc. My horse is in a 1 acre paddock at the moment, but it is on a hill so no mud at all and plenty of grass. My friend has a similar sized paddock, but on flat ground, which is very muddy. Also depends on type of horse and if they fence walk or charge around when out.
 
I keep 2 large natives and a shetland on just over an acre, with a yard area and stables they stayed in the yard during the winter with a run around if the ground was ok. All of them did really well at showing so they werent starved. But we did buy in hay as and when needed. and only stabled on the very wettest of night or when going to shows.
It is possible I was looking at a house recetly with 1/2 an acrea with a yard and stables for 3.... I would have bought it if my OH had agreed but he didnt like the house.
 
When I used to rent my own field, it was 1 acre that I sectioned into 4 smaller paddocks for my TB and a welshie. Both kept good weight on (also fed hay in the field in winter) and it never got too muddy as it was a slope which drained into my neighbour's field and river below mine.
 
Although we have more acres than horses here, it is on clay soil and so cannot sustain them out 24/7 all year round. They go out on the grass 24/7 in the summer. In the winter, I have a sand turnout area which is around 35 metres x 18 metres. It is large enough to turn up to three horses out and for them to have a bit of a hoon about. I guess, if space was really at a premium, there is no reason why they couldn't be kept like that all year round so long as they got ridden most days too. I have two hay feeders in there so they are able to play and also eat as and when they like. I don't believe that grass is a must for most equines, in fact, with what seems to be an ever increasing number of lami cases, it is probably better for them on a measured amount of forage a day, rather than endless grass.
 
I'm thinking of renting 5 acres and 8 stables I would keep up to 7 horses there, I know they say 1 acre per horse but I think this will be ok!
 
When I lived at home (many years ago) we had just under a quarter acre paddock, stables in a concrete yard and plenty of storage. This worked fine for one pony, who was a fatty anyway, and also she was very gentle on the grass - never hooned about or ripped it up. I even divided it in two, so there was some decent grass to snack on from time to time. In the winter, if very wet, I could just restrict her to the yard. A small area is easy to manage and keep looking neat too, but it obviously means you will be feeding something extra all year round.
 
At our most horsey we had 4 horses on 5 acres of old sward/sheep type grazing, 2 heavyweight geldings over 17 hands, a Thoroughbred mare and a Connemara stallion, the field was separated into 3rds. For 8 months of the year there was ample grass but I poo-picked religiously. We always brought them in to rest the field for at least 3 months and they had access to a large barn and sand turnout. Of course that meant at least 3 months of hay for 5 horses. Now we just have the mare and she is fine on 5 acres but we still buy haylage when she needs it. My advice would be to try not to overstock if possible, have some alternate turnout and pick up those droppings :D
 
We have 2 on about 4 acres. I've only guessed at the amount of land, but I can't see it being much more/ less. They are out 24/7 weather permitting -the field is on an exposed hillside and the only shelter comes from dry stone walls, so if it is going to be very wet all night, or very high winds, we do bring them in. They're out tonight and hopefully tomorrow, and were out most of last week, so we do manage quite well with turnout. The land is very well draining - there is no way it can be clay-based, but we're not sure what else it could be (we rent, don't live there!). My mum thinks it might be peat. We have a little bit of mud round the gate, but so little as not to be a problem, and the rest of the field is in very good nick for the time of year. Neither horse is shod though, and there are only two of them, which probably helps. Even with all this rain, we haven't had to reduce our turnout at all. We have always kept them on land with clay underneath before, and the drainage was atrocious. On the yard we moved from the horses were knee deep in mud at the end of October!!!
 
Great replies everyone! I so agree it really does depend on the type of ground, whether you have stables and hard standing and also whether you have the luxury of a school for turnout and work.
 
I ended up with my two big horses (16.3 and 17.something) living on around half an acre. Five others were out at grass elsewhere but the big two needed to be at home, stabled. We had a hard(ish) yard about 15m x 30m, a woodchip turnout area 15m x 35m, a grass area about 15m x 20m and a gravel car yard. We ran their turn out mostly on the woodchip (and rode on there too) but they also got turn out on the hard yard and less frequently on the grass and gravel. They seemed to be happy and healthy and were out competing on that. During the winter I ended up with 6 stabled at home so they ended up in 2 pairs on the woodchip (I split it with electric tape) and a pair on the hard yard. Most of the horses were out all during the daylight hours. When I had 7 at home it did get a bit tricky and we ended up with half day turnout for everyone.

We now have around 8 acres at home for them and over the past few days I've ended up with 2 on the sand school and 4 on mud in a sacrifice paddock. I'm not sure it's an improvement!
 
I've had my two ponies on just over an acre with twelve sheep and two goats since I bought the ponies in the summer. The smallest area they were in at any one time was about a quarter of an acre

I've only had to put out hay in the worst weather just so they can stay near the shelter, There is still some good grass but the ground has standing water in a lot of places so I want to rest it now

I do have just under two more acres of well grassed land and will be moving them on to that for the rest of the winter as soon as I have managed to build some sort of windbreak

Their original quarter of an acre is still fenced off and they could just about be ok on there if I was feeding ad lib hay
 
I think with very wet winters and summers some sort of turnout pen would be preferable to acres and acres! I have ten acres for four ponies and it would all be trashed if they had the run of it at the moment. I am thinking next year I need either a woodchip/gravel pen to winter them in, or even better a large loose housed barn I can feed hay in a ring feeder and muck out with the tractor which I could use for cattle and sheep at other times. Just raising the cash to build it is the problem!
 
I agree that a big barn would be a huge advantage in the current weather

My neighbour has a huge one that sits largely empty too!
 
I have half an acre at home of paddock with two stables, another half an acre or just under of garden if i need it! keep two ponies, one 9.2hh and one 10.3hh, and use it as a winter paddock which I dont mind them trashing, their summer paddock is is about an acre and a half and to be honest they spend most of their summer on a tiny little patch so we dont really need all the space! cant use it as winter turn out due to it being about half a mile away and would mean daily trekking in the dark twice a day to turn out and bring in
 
I have three acres with a sec A, new forest and section D on. It's mostly well drained but the gates are awful. I don't stable but my yard is opened up so the can come up to stand in the stables and eat their hay if they want. I have left one acre fenced off to use in the spring so the rest can have a rest. I once had 5 on it but we do have the option to borrow a friends paddocks in the summer so I can treat my fields.
 
I have just over an acre for one 17.1 and a 13.2 lammi pony. We have the set up right now, but took some years to get there. In all year round, i summer out through the day, field split 3 and rotate. We also fertilise and weed kill to give best possible grass content. In winter in at night and either in small barn with small outdoor sand, gravel area or in the outdoor school with haynets. I dream of land but no chance as we are an island between road and railway line so cant expand if i had the money too, which i dont lol! My horses are happy and content...i think lol x
 
we have a 13.2 and a 14.1 both cobs on 1 acre, for the winter they are kept on a stone chipped area about 25 foot x 80 foot that has a good sized field shelter on it. We will divide the field into two sections during the spring/summer and rotate them. Both are excellent doers and have ad lib hay.
 
These replies have been very interesting as I think so long as you do plenty with your animals they are happy being well cared for on a more restricted area than thrown out into the mud with no proper shelter and competing for food in the rain.

I must admit we are moving and because we now keep smallish natives I do feel that we don't need lots of land. Our previous house has 10 acres and we only used a fraction of the land for the horses - we ran sheep on the rest. Two fat coloured cobs lived on just a one acre field all year and spent the winters in a play area that was linked to an outdoor school and even then we had to put sheep in with them to keep the grass down. I would never buy a place with lots of acres again as we were constantly battling too much weight and laminitis. I must admit the first sign of bad weather in the winter and ours were standing by the gate waiting to come in.
 
One thing is for sure if the climate really is changing to be much wetter and milder we are all going to have to rethink how we keep our horses and ponies.
 
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