No rain and no grass

I had to take mine off the summer fields some weeks ago as they were burnt to a crisp (and not helped by the army of rabbits that have moved into them) and put them back into the winter fields as at least then they have access to the big barns. There is no grass there either and I am just resigned to feeding industrial amounts of hay over the winter.

Like IHW I am feeding hay at about the same rate as I usually do in winter. In nearly 50 years of horse ownership I have never fed anything like this amount of hay in the summer. Usually one large round would last 5 - 6 weeks and I would be strip grazing them.
 
mine have eaten a small bale between them today since coming in this morning. I have been purposely restricting the grazing but now the summer paddocks Im using are quite bare. There is a little bit of growth after the rain at the weekend but they are eating it as quickly as it’s growing… other fields have currently got grass that’s been cut and waiting to be baled. I don’t mind too much as I’m still using last years hay at this point and have about another 30 bales left…
 
We’re not feeding hay in our fields, there is some super short grass but a lot of it is burnt now or bare in patches. Horses are out 24/7 and maintaining condition well, having a small feed each day, salt lick and I do give mine a haynet when she comes in for ridden work etc but she often doesn’t bother with it, so I assume she’s having something! Welsh ponies so we do need to keep their intake to minimum!

I am worried though we haven’t had any decent rain for weeks and nothing forecast for the foreseeable. Tricky to put hay in the field as it’s a herd of 3 on DIY and we all have our own supply so it would be difficult to ensure mine had what I wanted her to have! We all go up at different times too. YO has taken the entire hay barn up with her own supply so I’ve not got anywhere to store it at the moment…Tricky! Please god let there be rain soon!!!
 
The grass may be crispy but it’s packed full of sugar. My two are out early and in by 2pm and then have nothing but two small nets of 12 hour soaked hay overnight but they can munch on their straw beds if they get peckish. I’ve stopped feeding tea but do give them a breakfast of chaff, salt and supplements as DP is in a muzzle and I want something in his tummy before he goes out. Both are still passing very green poo which shows while the field looks dead they are still finding green stuff.
 
I’m trying my best, I’ve just bought a new lighter fly rug because Pepsi was getting too hot. Surely that should encourage it to rain for a while?!

We do actually have rain in the forecast, although it only rained for about 30mins today. Luckily we are still strip grazing knee high grass (although it’s more like standing hay now!)

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No rain here 😢 it looks like it’s rained all around us but not here, very annoying!

We have some grass though so I won’t complain too much! Had a job getting mine in today and didn’t touch a mouthful of her haynet 🤷🏻‍♀️
 
I'm also feeding at winter levels of hay and having to buy it in while waiting for this years hay to be able to be fed. Our fields are just brown crisp.

We're forecast rain this week so crossing everything 🤞
 
I put the washing out yesterday and we had 30 mins of heavy rain. 10 mins down the road not a drop fell on my paddocks. I'll resort to hanging the sheets out there next.

6/7 months of hay dropped off yesterday. My farmer tells me he won't be able to do any more big rectangular bales when I run out mid winter so I'll have to take whatever he's got.
 
I’m on DIY and have literally a tiny space in the hay barn for any hay as the YO has filled it up with her own bales…so I’m going to have to buy small bales a few at a time come winter at god knows what price…

It’s 2025 and people are panic buying hay bales not loo roll…joy 😫
 
We are still using up old hay as we bought in a load about 3 yrs ago now and haven't needed much. Have been able to get by without using much because we have had enough grass to last the sheep and our ponies all winter. Praying that we get enough rain to get the grass growing before winter as we have no grass left for the first time in years.
 
No rain here, but there is thick dark cloud. Nice and windy, so I am sitting here, staring out of the window and praying for the clouds to bump into each other a little and give us a few nice showers! Our fields are big, but most of them are pretty brown.

I may have to do (quite) a few extra shifts at the supermarket to afford this winter!
 
It's been raining g here for most of the day, with some very heavy showers amongst the drizzle with a few dry spells interspersed. Of course it had dried up when it was time for me to set off to RDA but I'd not gone more than 500 yds when it started raining heavily again. We cancelled the sessions. It always seems to be Tuesday when it rains
 
West Ireland had a few weeks of dry earlier on, but since it’s been rain every other day. It would be a miracle if I ever see my fields brown, as many have mini underground springs feeding them too.
The deluge we had just yesterday and last night filled the wheelbarrow. I keep telling it to bugger off to the uk so your fields can green-up!
 
Feeding like they do in hotter countries would work well if we didn’t have the super wet winters. Not sure our climate will be suitable for horse keeping much longer!
 
It's bonkers.

Put it this way, ours wintered out the entire winter and maybe had about three small bales of hay put out during that time.

We have just put out a large bale as there is NOTHING in the field.

We had considerably more grass all winter!
 
honetpot said:
Unfortunately not my ragwort. Too dry to pull so I just going to cut the heads off. The only plus is the bits that I had sprayed are completely weedless, but I am waiting for the bill.
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We are the same in north Oxon. I keep on telling my OH that the only thing that is growing is the ragwort. I got a load dug out earlier in the year after we had a night of rain but now the ground is too hard to pull. Fortunately there are only a few that have popped up since I dug the last load out.

We did have some rain yesterday but only about an hour and the ground is bone dry. It is great in winter as it drains really well but not so great in summer.
 
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