Paddocking advice

[emmad96]

Hi all,

I'm not too sure on how to divide up my grazing for my horses. Its well draining soil, decent quality grass, and will have two horses on it year round.

My main problem is that my old boy gets very attached, and the lady I lease him from is always saying 'make sure you keep him apart from the other horses' blah blah blah, but all he does is get through the fences to be with his buddy. Also, both are very fat, so I can't give them too much grass for the obvious reasons (summer here btw!).

If I can figure out how to upload photos, ill draw a 'blueprint' of my paddock if that would help.

Also, she I just leave them together?

 

[be positive]

As long as the old boy does leave the other one when required and you can separate them if you have to then put them together, I hate to see horses kept alone especially when they are obviously needing company, he is at risk of injuring himself if he keeps going through the fence to get to your other one, if you could get a third as a companion it may prevent him becoming too attached to just one other.

Spliting up the fields depends on what you have available but ideally for fatties making a track around the edge, so grass is restricted but movement is increased, is the way to go, then use the middle for winter when the grass is not so good.