Mud fever/seedy toe :pasture management question

[no_no_nanette]

We have some serious thinking and planning to do on the pasture that we rent at the moment, and one of the major problems is that about 1/3rd of our summer grazing, patches of which have standing water on them in the winter, seems to be crawling with pathogens! Every time our horses go out on it they get mud fever, and this year seedy toe for the first time ever!

Is there anything that we could or should be doing to try and improve the pasture and kill off the pathogens? We can't install drains unfortunately as the fields are not ours, but we could do anything short of this.

Also all the fields are very uncared for - lots of thistles, nettles, etc - any advice for how to manage both the winter and summer grazing from those of you who farm/are experienced in pasture management, would be gratefully received! (I'm posting this in Stable Management as well ...) Once we know what we need to do we can cost this and start negotiating with the owner of the land

 

[shellonabeach]

I thought I'd reply as you have had a lot of views and no answers.

The field I rent is pretty similar, with the odd dip which lays water, I haven't had any problems with mud fever or seedy toe from it but it always is a concern to me especially when they insisted on drinking out of the "puddles". We simply fence off these areas and the worst corner has actually become my lunging area as when the ground was rock hard it still had some "give" to it.

Asking the obvious but could you fence off the standing water?

Our field was also rather uncared for, we have cut back and sprayed the nettles, docks and thistles with Grazeon 90 doing a section at a time to keep the horses away from the treated patches. It looks much better now and I will be interested to see if it stays that way!

 

[fatpiggy]

I think one mud fever has arrived on a field, you will not get rid of it. Where I used to keep my mare, the whole area was infected. I then moved her to a farm and she was fine for the first 3 years, then another horse moved on with it and we've all had it in the winter since. I treat with a good dusting of Keratex Mud Fever powder, then slap on the udder cream over the top - works better than anything else I've ever tried, and believe me, I've tried every lotion and potion going! I suspect the seedy toe is a result of the wetting and drying caused by this years so-called summer. Probably not much you can do about that either.

As for pasture management, I don't know how many neds you have and how much land, but I think people make a big mistake by letting them have the run of the field all the time. All it means is you have an entirely grazed and trashed field constantly. I would divide it up and graze a section at a time. That way the grass has a chance to recover and the mud a chance to dry out, or at least, not get any deeper.

Hey, shellonabeach - I've never yet seen a horse which preferred to drink mains water if there was a puddle available. I'd rather my arthritic mare didn't stand up to her fetlocks in one either, but it seems that the grass growing in one just tastes sweeter (and the water less chlorine!) That, or she is a closet Carmargue pony!!