Our grazing looks like...

HollyWoozle

HollyWoozle

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Beds/South Cambs
www.farandride.com
...this. :( Please God let it rain soon!

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Where are you? I was checking out the forecast earlier and down in the south east we're not predicted rain until mid August!! I don't mind too much as my pony is a bit chunky but his fatty paddock is a dust bath so I've been letting him out into the main field more than I want to really.
 
Ours doesn't look much different:(. They are saying we will get rain tonight - in the last 3 months we have had 2 inches of rain - in 'normal' years we get 2 inches or more for each of those 3 months. The crops are all struggling and the hay yield is significantly down on normal.:(

My horse haven't had a spring grass 'rush' this year - great for the cob as she has had laminits in the past but normally all our paddocks are on restricted grazing by this time of year as it is good pasture so we have plenty of grazing to last year round. This winter they may just be out on mud.:(
 
eep, thats bad, must say i was thinking of moving but thinking again, we have good grazing but only because its been left for several months, its not growing any more though, weeds seem to be thriving
 
Went to check my resting field, no rain for god knows how long so no grass :( rain due tonight, I cannot wait!!!!
 
omg how do u cope :eek: ... ours just moved fields and theres loadz and loadz, and its been raining the past week or so :) wooo ... *raindance* ;)
 
Good grief! That isn't good.

I've had torrential storms for the past two days, I am directing them your way.

Our grass won't stop growing, I am cutting the lawns twice a week and have too much grazing.

This was taken yesterday, and that is on a hayfield that was only cut a couple of weeks ago and has been grazed ever since.

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We are thankfully predicted lots of rain this week - shame it didn't come 3 weeks ago as the crops are dire :( People are already harvesting around us, which is a strange sight!
 
Somehow the horses are still looking very well! We have 2 horses on about 3 acres of that at the mo, supplemented with hay (though we are rapidly running out and it's hard to source more as there seems to be a shortage this year). Horses are out 24/7 and have been having hay and a small feed in evenings just as they are obviously hungry, though not showing it weight wise!

My uncle has an orchard next door and he has let the grass grow really long in there, it's somehow really green as shady. Today I cut some of this and mixed it with the horses' hay so that they could have something green! It seems to just be the field which is particularly bad, despite having been fertilised, reseeded etc in the not too distant past.

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Though for anyone worried about the horses... they seem to look just fine for now! (The bit in the surroundings and background looks greener because it's all weeds in that part)

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ETA: The horses are in Bedfordshire.
 
Mines horrid i havnt needed to cut the garden for 7weeks now, it just hasnt grown. The whole time ive had my new horse its showered once in 2months, my paddocks are dust, feeding horse hage and a feed as no grass he's lost a fiar bit of weight, although he was on the large side bit is now spot on so dont want to him drop anymore. At the min its costing me the same amount as in winter due to price of horse hage cant get any good hay anywhere. Need a good few days of rain
 
Our grazing is also dire and dusty. We were stableing at night anyway and they were coming in hungry for haylage. However its just got worse as there is a problem with the stables so they have to go out and there is not enough grass so we are putting haylage in the field (in July!) Y/M not being that helpful despite empty fields with grass so we can't wait to move to new yard soon. It's almost worse than winter.
 
We live on Gravel so used to the Dust but this year its awful!!!!!! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE GOD, LET IT RAN FOR WEEKS IN BERKSHIRE. also makes cantering really difficult due to terrible ground!!! Didnt realise there was no hay either. bad bad times.
 
Most of mine looks like that too!!

In desperate need of rain, cant believe we are having to feed hay atm, aswell as slowly strip grazing around what little grass we do have, and on top of that our hay field produced a 3rd less than last year.

Silly thing is that as soon as it does start to grow most of mine will be on restricted grazing.

(hay field not available to graze as it does not belong to us, we just have it cut once per year for hay)
 
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we have no grass either, not quite as bad as yours but not far off. We've had 1.8 inches of rain since the end of April and we are desperate for rain. The tracks are horrendous, rock hard and rutted, you can not work out hacking at all, you can only canter in the school but thats as dusty as hell as well. Please please let us get the rain we are forecast tonight :rolleyes:
 
Wiltshire is pretty dry, and hay harvests apparently not that great, our pony's farmer reckoned he sold his hay even before it was baled up, I hope to God he remembered to keep some by for us... we may have to buy haylage from our horse's yard otherwise, if there is any spare.
 
We have the same crispy dust you have, we are in South Cheshire and Thursday last week they put a hosepipe ban in place :eek:

YO has already got all his hay in and has enough for our yard but isn't selling any this year off the yard which is unusual for him. He is worried however about the straw harvest...just have to wait and see how that goes.

The Met Office has forecast light showers tonight which will be the first bit of rain in weeks but the ground is just so dry it doesn't really do anything :(

My boys are in during the day just so they can have a munch of some hay which means that this summer has cost me the same amount of money as winter due to hay, bedding, feed etc...but no rug changes, so that's one less thing!!!
 
We've got too much! Send them up to the pennines for a bit. We're having out grass topped this week as we're in danger of losing the 12h pony! Its not great quality grass though.
 
yipppeee!! The forecast shows light rain tonight and heavy rain on Friday :D :D

But to be honest light rain was forecast today and I recon we had about 5 drops :(

No grass and hopefully just about managed to sort hay out for winter but farmer friend tells me that long range forecast looks dry down here for the next 6 weeks :eek: :eek:
 
We still have some long grass ( being strip grazed) but strangely the horses don't seem to like it and still ask for Haylage that they wolf down ?! We have never know our paddock so dry - we normally have 5 springs and they have all dried up and our stream has been dry for weeks which has never happened before so the neighbour tells me and she has lived here all her life and she's a granny! Really quite scary now and for the first time ever I am wishing it would rain properly.

But on the plus side does it mean the grass will have rooted more deeply so not poach quite so quickly next winter.....? Please tell me there is a plus side !
 
I haven't got a picture but mine is pretty much worse than that to be honest. I am haying 3 Native ponies in July - simply crazy and something i have never experienced before. They have usually been in their muzzles for a couple of mths now but i didn't even get a spring flush this yr and am very worried about the winter as we only really have another mths worth of good rich growing time IF we have some sufficient rain, if we don't then i am in serious doodah for hay this winter....................
 
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