Photos- how does your field look? :(

P

poiuytrewq

Well-Known Member
Joined
3 April 2008
Messages
21,450
Location
Cotswolds
Visit site
Show us your fields!

This is the first ever summer I have been genuinely really worried about my grazing.
I’m usually resting my winter field and strip grazing the other.
My winter side has been rested all summer and looks much the same as it did after winter but with big clumps of daisies and weeds.

The bigger summer field looks awful. They have the whole lot (it’s not big) rather than strip grazed and it’s pretty much dust and loose dirt.
I’m putting more hay out than I do in mid winter.
My Welsh A hasn’t been muzzled at all this year and my smaller fatter pony is now muzzle free which is unheard of in summer.

My biggest fear is how muddy and trashed it’s all going to be come winter with no coverage to protect the ground.

It’s so rock hard I can’t fence anything off to try and preserve it, but then it seems pointless anyway looking at my winter that is rested 🤦‍♀️



IMG_1914.jpegIMG_1915.jpegIMG_1937.jpegIMG_1938.jpeg
 
Almost relieved to have an empty field now and no worries about finding enough hay going forward :( Although we did have a couple of days of decent rain the sacrifice field that they came off in May still looks like yours. I know this gets said on all these threads but keeping horses during climate change is going to get more difficult.
 
Mine looked like that, but after last weekend's rain it's gone lush green and we've had to muzzle all the ponies again. They do all come in for a small soaked haynet every day but other than that are living off the land. Native types + my 16.2hh ISH heavy dude who seems to think he's a little native type and also lives off air (but not muzzled)
 
poiuytrewq said:
Show us your fields!

This is the first ever summer I have been genuinely really worried about my grazing.
I’m usually resting my winter field and strip grazing the other.
My winter side has been rested all summer and looks much the same as it did after winter but with big clumps of daisies and weeds.

The bigger summer field looks awful. They have the whole lot (it’s not big) rather than strip grazed and it’s pretty much dust and loose dirt.
I’m putting more hay out than I do in mid winter.
My Welsh A hasn’t been muzzled at all this year and my smaller fatter pony is now muzzle free which is unheard of in summer.

My biggest fear is how muddy and trashed it’s all going to be come winter with no coverage to protect the ground.

It’s so rock hard I can’t fence anything off to try and preserve it, but then it seems pointless anyway looking at my winter that is rested 🤦‍♀️



View attachment 163909View attachment 163910View attachment 163911View attachment 163912
Click to expand...
Crikey - it looks like it has been sprayed off with Roundup.
 
*
poiuytrewq said:
Show us your fields!

This is the first ever summer I have been genuinely really worried about my grazing.
I’m usually resting my winter field and strip grazing the other.
My winter side has been rested all summer and looks much the same as it did after winter but with big clumps of daisies and weeds.

The bigger summer field looks awful. They have the whole lot (it’s not big) rather than strip grazed and it’s pretty much dust and loose dirt.
I’m putting more hay out than I do in mid winter.
My Welsh A hasn’t been muzzled at all this year and my smaller fatter pony is now muzzle free which is unheard of in summer.

My biggest fear is how muddy and trashed it’s all going to be come winter with no coverage to protect the ground.

It’s so rock hard I can’t fence anything off to try and preserve it, but then it seems pointless anyway looking at my winter that is rested 🤦‍♀️
Click to expand...
Honestly, if you can, I would take them off everything. Maybe make a little sacrifice track and feed hay? All the time they're walking on it and eating anything they can find they will be doing more damage to the root system.
ETA sorry of course you can't get fence posts in!
 
Archangel said:
Crikey - it looks like it has been sprayed off with Roundup.
Click to expand...
It really does. I took the photos and could have cried.

We have missed all the rain. I’ve had calls from my mum, Mr P when he’s been working 10 minutes away, all sorts excitedly telling me about the torrential rain. It’s literally missed us time and time again. Or starts and stops in seconds :(
It’s a very well draining, dry field at the best of times.
 
Burnttoast said:
*

Honestly, if you can, I would take them off everything. Maybe make a little sacrifice track and feed hay? All the time they're walking on it and eating anything they can find they will be doing more damage to the root system.
ETA sorry of course you can't get fence posts in!
Click to expand...
They are in for the day time but honestly there is no way of fencing anything.
We tried pushing proper wooden posts in with a forklift. The posts just snap the ground is that hard.
 
My bottom paddock looks like your field, lots of bare patches too, but i have abused it.
My top paddock mainly looks pretty good, because there have been no ponies on it since April, and I borrowed some sheep for a couple of months. Now I'm thinking I probably have a bit too much grass on it 🙄 the gateway and around the trough are still rutted solid from winter
 
Mine looked like yours a week ago but then we did get some rain and I've got lots of green shoots of new growth. It will recover, it just needs rain- grass is amazingly resilient.
 
Plenty of grass at my place.
It’s quite a wet field as have land drains going underneath so that’s possibly the reason why as it’s been dry in the surface for quite a number of months. Is the first year I’ve had them here so I’m pleased it’s coping well.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_9517.jpeg
    IMG_9517.jpeg
    122.5 KB · Views: 26
  • IMG_9518.jpeg
    IMG_9518.jpeg
    117.6 KB · Views: 28
Wowser….to be fair mine looked similar until a couple of weeks ago but the rain over the past couple of weeks has helped enormously. We are greening up but my girls are coming in hungry. I have only one field and have a huge dry soil area by the gate which isn’t recovering and will turn to clay mud very quickly in the Autumn.
 
Our fields were going brown, but the rain has really perked them up - we're on clay so the ground is holding onto the water well.

Two smaller fields had had work done in them - the topsoil went back down just over a week ago and it was re-seeded just before the rain. This week there are already a couple of millimetres of growth showing on most of it.
 
Mine were crispy and brown, one is rested for 8 weeks and had hardly grown at all but the rain has kicked stuff off and now my rested field looks like this.

Messenger_creation_3CCBC81F-9A8F-41EA-8FE8-AA0ED457DF8E.jpg

It's taken a lot to get it like that though, including back pack spraying, topping and harrowing and it's still not great but am a bit more hopeful I'll have a least some ground cover over winter now 🙂
 
We have had to move to the winter fields, which have been rested since the end of February. They have grass, but it’s not wildly thick.

The summer fields that are now resting are very short and only just beginning to green up and grow after the rain. I stayed there, feeding hay, until the ponies were coughing with the dust then gave up!

Summer field…winter field.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_6663.jpeg
    IMG_6663.jpeg
    278.3 KB · Views: 41
  • IMG_6664.jpeg
    IMG_6664.jpeg
    206.3 KB · Views: 38
scats said:
Bare but I’m loving it! Two prone to being fatties so it’s ideal for them. My resting field was lush so one of my liveries is having that this summer because I don’t want the grass.

I am terrified of grass so this summer is ideal for me
Click to expand...
Ditto. We have 3 natives and a cob grazing on our fields and I’m glad we have minimal grass. I lost my horse of a life time to laminitis so I’m terrified of grass!

I’m resting one field, just to ragwort and poo pick but I’m hoping it doesn’t grow too much so when I swap them I don’t have to worry!
 
Burnttoast said:
Almost relieved to have an empty field now and no worries about finding enough hay going forward :( Although we did have a couple of days of decent rain the sacrifice field that they came off in May still looks like yours. I know this gets said on all these threads but keeping horses during climate change is going to get more difficult.
Click to expand...
I agree. It’s honestly making me rethink my keeping retiree’s
I keep them because I can and I’m happy to see them grazing green grass, I’m happy to muck out after them
In winter if they can be turned out in a half decent field during the day.
Honestly I’m not sure what fun they are having stood
With no or little grass, eating hay, covered in flies or up to their knees in mud in sideways rain and gale force winds which is all winter was :(
 
scats said:
Bare but I’m loving it! Two prone to being fatties so it’s ideal for them. My resting field was lush so one of my liveries is having that this summer because I don’t want the grass.

I am terrified of grass so this summer is ideal for me
Click to expand...
I get that, it’s been lovely not muzzling or separating my ponies. It’s more winter I’m panicking about. I also have two TB’s who are both a good weight so don’t desperately need grass but I’d like to see them stood in green rather than at a hay pile.
 
@poiuytrewq I feel your pain!

Our soil is sandy which is great in the wet weather but as soon as it's dry for any length of time it's like this.

We had the same in 2020 and I think 2023 was pretty dry here too, but it does come back OK eventually.
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot_20250726_212708_Gallery.jpg
    Screenshot_20250726_212708_Gallery.jpg
    15.1 KB · Views: 28
  • 20250726_142951.jpg
    20250726_142951.jpg
    197.2 KB · Views: 26
PSD said:
Ditto. We have 3 natives and a cob grazing on our fields and I’m glad we have minimal grass. I lost my horse of a life time to laminitis so I’m terrified of grass!

I’m resting one field, just to ragwort and poo pick but I’m hoping it doesn’t grow too much so when I swap them I don’t have to worry!
Click to expand...

Same. I lost Polly to laminitis in June and I am now petrified of grass. If our grass never grew again and I had to supplement with hay all year, I’d be happy!
 
It was like this in 1976 and it didn't rain till August Bank Holiday (I was in the ring at a show so remember it well) when it broke with a thunderstorm. Grass came back just fine for winter. I am worried because I rely on foggage through the winter and at this rate I won't have any.
 
Ours is not too bad at all. I've got two elderly good doers on a very small patch. They've been on it for months now and it's still green. The other end of the field hasn't been grazed since winter and some of the growth is as tall as the small pony. That will feed them Autumn - Christmas, and I have another small field which is also ungrazed, they'll get that after Christmas.
I'm in Devon, we've had enough rain here to keep it all going. And no hay shortage here either, yet.
 
this is the pony paddock, purposely kept this short and bare every year TBH as its the grass that gets him cresty and froggy eyed.....he has ad lib hay in nets on the ground however
grass1.jpg
this is the TB paddock, so pretty rough and dry but ok covering, he is still eating a massive net of hay overnight in the field in addition though, probably double the amount of hay per day compared to 23/24

grass3.jpg

and this is my winter fields-looking ok, better than some, there are a few sparse areas at the bottom though but i do have all weather tracks for Dec-Feb too

grass2.jpg
 
This one hasn't really been grazed since last Autumn (they had a few hours on / off early this Spring but otherwise rested). Those seed heads make it look a lot longer than it is but its really, really poor and bald in places which it shouldn't be. I did take a close up photo but it won't let me upload it.

And this is a rested one! The ones they have grazed through are really struggling to come back and any hints of green are trefoil or clover.

I've got another thread running about fertlizer because I'm wondering if I get some down when rain is due it will give the grass a boost.
1000004666.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top