Please talk to me about field maintenance (i know there are gurus on here!)

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Alphamare

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I am interested in the pros and cons of harrowing vs poopicking.

We have enough land to rotate the fields and would like the ease of harrowing everytime i move them.

Does it damage the ground/grass?

Is the harrowed poo good for the ground/grass?



The horses are on a regular worming schedule!

Thanks for all advice! :)
 
I personally poo-pick, I don't have the machinery to harrow anyway. The only advice I can offer is that my horses won't eat grass that they have pooed on, so spreading it around with a harrow would mean they wouldn't graze! To be fair, my horses are very tidy - they tend to have a "loo" in each paddock, so poo-picking my 12 acres is not at all difficult, or probably even necessary, as they won't graze anywhere near where they poop. Bless them. We even used to have a gelding whos trick was to back right up to the muck heap to go, what a good boy!
 
Ok I was leaving this to others but this is how we do.
Circa 14 acres split into 1 acre levelish mown weekly in growing season rolled in spring used for working the horses on and hand grazing. Not used if wet ( we have a surface as well)
7 acres used from sometime in September till mid April/ may it gets trashed it's is rolled in spring as soon as it's dry enough as soon as it starts to grow up it is topped and that is done 4 or 5 times over the sumner and it may be rolled if it looks like it needs it around every 3 years it is spread with the muck heap which is well rotted
2 acres lightly used in winter rolled in spring topped as necessary over sumner after grass has got away it spring it is used for brief spells over the sumner then topped and rested until comes away again
2 1.5 acre paddocks rolled in spring then grazed all sumner with short breaks to allow for topping when needed they get very grazed down but the horses do well and I am usually tring to get there weight down these paddocks are topped in autumn when the horses are moved to the 7 acres
2 small paddocks one with a field shelter that opens into 3 of the other fields used for fatties and restricting movement as needed.
5 horses live out in sumner ( in for a while every day) Stabled with turnout daily in winter.
Worm counts 5 times a year rarely need to worm this year only one has had to be wormed he's the newest. Has been here a year will be interesting to see if he needs it next time.( do blood tests for tapeworms)
I never Harrow as I think it spreads the dung around spreading worms don't poo pick apart from the two tiny paddocks.
We don't spray ever we control the weeds by topping we get a little ragwort seeded in from adjoining quarry but dig it up as soon as we see it.
For the topping I use a ride on lawnmower with a mulching deck .
That's what I do it works for us .
 
Some time ago I went to a vet talk about worms and worming, and the guest speaker was a guy from wormer manufacturer Fort Dodge.

He said that we should never harrow our horse fields in this country with the poo still on it, as we rarely if never get hot enough weather or freezing winters to kill the worm larvae and that by harrowing the poo in, we're just spreading the potential worms around.

As for whether it's good for the land, I believe chain harrowing is supposed to be good for pulling out the weeds and moss from the grass. But I'm sure there are better times to do it within the year - i.e not in winter.
 
Poos should be picked up each day as it prevents the spread of worms and souring the grass by killing off the grass under them.

Harrowing in the spring will stimulate the grass to grow but make sure that all the poos are removed prior to harrowing so that the poos and worms are not spread about.
 
We have twenty acres for between two and four horses. We rotate our fields. We have a tiny winter hardcore-grassed-over area that we turn out in in mid winter and a two acre field for winter that they go out in from now to new year, and once a week in mid winter. The two acre is harrowed and rolled in April/May then left until November. The tiny paddock has to be poo picked as it is so small. We have a couple of summer/autumn fields that are also harrowed and rolled - usually spring, and then they are roughly poo-picked over the summer. We have never had a worm count come back showing anything.

For us its impossible to poo pick in anything other than summer as the land is too wet. Most farmers around here try to persuade us to spread the muck heap on the land too, but I don't. I also think that we surely have enough frost to kill worms -especially over the last couple of winters.
 
Last edited:
SpruceRI said:
I don't know how cold it needs to get to kill the larvae.

Does anyone know???
Click to expand...

I found this article about strongyles:

http://www.thehorse.com/Parasites/Parasites0404.pdf

[....What this means for the horse world is
that larvae disappear rapidly from pastures
during hot, dry weather, but they survive
extremely well in freezing conditions. In
most regions of the United States, infective
larvae present on pasture in October can
persist until the following May or June. In
climates with hot summers, grazing horses
are at far greater risk of parasitism in
December than in July.]
 
always poo pick. for a start it helps with the flys and grass growing. Make sure when you reseed you use a pasture seed mix. Pastures need different grasses and plants in them. It helps the horse get what it needs which is why so many need extra vit supplements as they dont have a field mixed the correct plants. Use a good weed killer made for fields or thistle top the thistles and weeds but keep nettles and just dig them up as they are brilliant for iron and horses wil eat these.

If you worm keep them in for 24 hours as it savess worms gettin into the pasture and make sure no dogs decide to eat the droppings. You can also check the droppings for worms.

This is one thing the BHS teach well is pasture management.
 
the youngest muck that goes onto our fields is 3 years old and I am told it will not increase the worm burden and as I said in my post our dung counts show the land is not carrying a burden.
Also the vet told me that grass sickness occurs more on land that is poo picked or harrowed ( this a grasss sickness area) although they are not sure why this is so it could be linked to over grazing or to land where there are often new horses which be more likely to be poo picked.
I do think harrowing is generally a bad idea unless you need to use grass harrows to help the grass but you ought not need to do that often.
As we are not worming regularly and if we do horses are kept in after we will have a full quota of beetles etc clearing the dung for us over time.
 
Goldenstar said:
.
Also the vet told me that grass sickness occurs more on land that is poo picked or harrowed ( this a grasss sickness area) although they are not sure why this is so.
Click to expand...

A good point ,but not exactly correct. It is not poo picking as such that MAY be the problem,but the poo picking machines that contaminate the grass with soil due to a sweeping action. I would think that it would be safer to allow a week to ten days rest before returning horses to harrowed or poo "swept" fields in a grass sickness area.
 
Mine are pooh-picked daily - and usually harrowed & rolled once a year in late spring. Its a fine line to get it done tho as have sandy top paddocks (so ground can't be too dry) but close paddocks are more clay so need tim to dry properly.

In additon to the comments abouve about land management/worms etc - if pooh-picking regularly, you get to see how your horse/pony is doing - seeing the changes in diet through the expelled dung.
On occasions this can help you keep on top of potential problems if tummy is loose etc, or possible colics etc if output suddenly drops or droppings become hard.
 
The non poopicked but harrowed field would be rested for a minimum of 6 months.

I know there are people on here that do this, Harrow rather than poopick and I would very much like to hear from them also please.

My question was about more than just worms :) anyway they are regularly wormed so I'm not sure it's a problem in this regard I was more wondering what's the best practice in terms of the land itself.
 
We keep 3 horses on 5 acres, strip grazing across the width of the field in summer and opening it all up in winter. It's naturally divided into a very well drained top plateau an d a water-meadow bit at the bottom (typically by the stables) which turns into a paddy field in winter but is rolled (never harrowed) in the spring.

Our neighbours have 5 horses on 12 acres. They never poo pick, only harrow, and the farmer whose land marches with theirs is totally fed up, as the horse fields are a constant mass of dock and ragwort. The horse people do pull the ragwort, but the fields, which are technically very good old permanent pasture - the same land type as ours, is a real mess.

We don't harrow because as someone else has said, our horses won't consider eating where their poo has lain for any time. My liveries are very good at poo-picking. Another local farmer once said to me that if he ever DID have to have horses on his land, and he hoped he wouldn't! he'd have mine, as I looked after my land properly - I was hugely complimented.

Ours is a very small piece of land, compared with what many of you on here will have, but what works for us is:

1. Land rolled in spring (usually early May)

2. Land sprayed for buttercups etc at same time (we have some borrowed grazing for a week elsewhere)

3. I hand-sow each and every bald patch with long ley seed

4. Once every three years the field is fertilised with calcified seaweed. This is wonderful stuff because a) you don't have to take the horses off when it is done and; b) it's a very slow acting fertiliser, so you don't get a 'dairy cow rush', just a steady growth and improvement. *For some reason we also get an alpine meadow of ajuga the next year, but it dies away - this may just be a freak with us

5. We've put in some drainage to take the surplus paddy field water into the stream, and also have a willow avenue as the willows drink for England.

6. As I can afford it I'm putting down Field Guard holey rubber matting in poached bits. It is expensive but it's been a great success.

Hope some of this helps.
 
I much prefer harrowing to poo picking and it does the grass good as it removes the rubbish from the sward. Harrowing is best done very first thing when the dew is still on the grass as it prevents soil erosion.
 
We have 5 acres, split into 5 paddocks and a wide perimeter ride which we also graze and 3 horses.
I poo pick twice daily and poo is stored on huge muck heap. The heat of the fermenting muck kills any worms and larvae.
We have a muck spreader and will be spreading this 'pure manure' back onto the land later this month. The spreader mulches it to tiny particles.

If you read any nutritionalists literature they always say you should 'put back what you take off' the land (Jane van Lennup).
I do not agree with simply 'leaving the poo' - maybe if I had 20 plus acres, nor harrowing as someone said that just sours more of the land with fresh poo!!! I know poo picking is hard work, but it is worthwhile - my worm counts are nil. I agree harrowing is good to pull out dead matter and get air to the grass, but not to spread left poo.

We roll and weedkill in the spring and use fertiliser also (our grass was never planted and just what has come naturally, so needs improvement).
 
We would normally rotate summer paddocks every 6-8 weeks and would harrow.
I had an interesting conversation with a parisitologist about 6 months ago who said that it is not the heat that kills the worms and larvae but UV light. In that instance harrowing should effectively reduce the worm burden.
Has anyone else heard this?
Is there any parasitologists on here?
I have heard so many different theories and methodologies over the years that it is difficult to tell right from wrong, as what is right now was probably wrong a year ago :)
 
We have 4 acres with 3 ponies on it. We poo pick rather than harrow this is partly because with relatively little land it keeps the fields they are on as fresh as possible all the time they are on it. Our local farmer mostly likes our field management but says we should spread the muck back on our own land rather than getting him to take it away but it was seeded as cow pasture and is richer than I would like for horses so gradually overseeding with more Timothy and red fescue. Think we will need to fertilise somehow though.
 
Cocorules I was very unsure when a farmer said I should spread my well rotted muck on my fields but it defiantly improves the field it does get at least 4 to 5 months with out grazing after spreading.
 
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