Please advise- worried about fertiliser

Just found out that YO is having her fields fertilised today (NPK 20-10-10 if that helps?) and she was surprised when I asked about keeping the horses of the fertilised bits. I thought this was normal? Please help- I could make our pony a pen out of electric fencing in a non-sprayed part of the field but she seems to think I'm overreacting and the other 3 horses (2 of YOs, one livery) are going back out on the same bit once the sprayer has been. Is this normal??
 
Last year we fertilised a couple of our fields. As we didn't have any rain for ages, the pellets took a long time to go and we ended up keeping the horses off the fields for 6 weeks. As a rule of thumb, horses should be kept off fertilised fields for a couple of weeks minimum and until there has been a good couple of downpours. If your pony is at all prone to laminitis he should not be turned out on fertilised grass at all. As we have had so much rain this April, our grass is coming through a treat and we haven't bothered with fertiliser this year.
 
I agree with Jaylen 100% and she saved me typing it all out
cool.gif
 
Thanks everyone for your help- thought I was going mad! YO wasn't happy with me today but I feel I have to do what's right for my horse, not what doesn't offend YO. She has now agreed that Ziggy can go in the bit her mare has grazed down already which is on the bit which wasn't sprayed. The other option would have been to put him on lots of long/lush grass and I wasn't sure about that either. He's rather prone to be rotund, shall we say
blush.gif
 
Agree- and after our discussion this afternoon I think she did know that it wasn't ideal but told me that there is nothing she can do about it! (It's one big 10 acre field which is subdivided with electric fencing) I thought the obvious solution would be to do the field in 2 lots and even offered to pay for the second time (she pays a local farmer to do it) but was told she didn't want to bother the farmer and people weren't just there to run around after me (thought that was quite hurtful actually, as I felt I had been very polite and diplomatic about it. Anyway, it's sorted for now and we didn't fall out over it (too badly...)
 
Seems daft to do the whole lot at once then - I have the same problem, my field is split into 3 paddocks and they're done 1 at a time to avoid having graze them. Hopefully it's sorted now though and you'll not have any more hassle. Though since you're a paying client I would have thought she is actually supposed to be looking after you.
 
We normally fertilise the winter paddocks in spring and the summer paddocks in Autumn - that way they have 6 months with no horses so we can be sure the fertiliser has been taken into the ground.


I would actually be a bit concerned about what fertiliser your yard owner is using - that is a standard dairy cow fertliser. too high in nitrogen for horses. We used it last year as we bought a house with land which had had nothing put on the land for 16 years and had been over grazed with horses for that time. There was no grass. So we used 20:10:10. but it was an emergency - we needed grass and fast. 20:10:10 is not recommended for horses as it increases the risk of laminitis by quite a large percentage.
 
Oh no- it is a dairy farmer she gets to come in and do it. I don't know enough about it TBH but she assured me today that this was a fertiliser which was particularly low in nitrogen and that's why it would be ok. Thanks for your advise on this!

To scotsmare: It isn't really a proper livery yard, just this lady's own yard and she has us and one other livery at the moment. We do get a very good deal and she helps us when we go on holiday etc, so I was reluctant to make too big a deal of things, but with the risk of laminitis and seeing other people's posts today, I'm glad we got to a point where he's in a non-fertilised bit which is already grazed down. I'm off to buy him a muzzle tomorrow, too although I'm sure I'll be accused of being cruel to my pony by YO
frown.gif
- she's only ever had TB types and always feels I'm not feeding Ziggy enough...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top