Question RE single turnout yards. Owners with more than one horse.

[Meowy Catkin]

Having read some of the yard threads recently I have begun to wonder how it works on yards with single turnout for owners with more than one horse who wants them to be turned out together?

Is that allowed? If so do they make the single paddocks you are assigned into a bigger paddock or do they stay small and let you rotate which paddock you use?

 

[asmp]

I’m on a very small DIY yard where we are on individual turnout but our two boys stay together. We are very lucky though as our individual fields are very large.

 

[chaps89]

I ended up with a 2nd purely as a companion so that I didn't have to keep mine on individual turnout... luckily at the 2 yards where I had them both I had about an acre and a half which was plenty - but that would have been 1 field no matter how many horses (though the yards did say they wouldn't allow more than 2 maybe 3 to the field)

 

[dogatemysalad]

In my experience, owners are expected to put their own horses together. For owners who have three horses, it can be a squeeze.

 

[milliepops]

all the places I've been i would have been able to turn them out together if I'd wanted to. often the paddocks are quite small but i've always been given one per horse in that case so would have just rotated. at the moment i have one paddock so I split it in half as the little one just starts fights when turned out with anything.

 

[SEL]

I was given 1 paddock to start with (it has been rested so more than enough grass) then when another livery left they did a shuffle so I could have the one next door too. It was only electric tape between them so made that into a gateway.

That yard worked on around 1 acre per horse so nothing was crammed in

 

[SussexbytheXmasTree]

I’ve got two horses, two reasonable size paddocks per horse. I turn them out together using two as my main summer ones and the drier ones as my winter ones. We have a couple of overflow paddocks which we can all can take turns to use mainly in the summer as they can get quite wet and are not suitable as someone’s primary paddock. We are pretty much left to our own devices.

 

[Sir barnaby]

Yes we are single turnout but we have a choice of putting two together, so when I have barneys companion horse through the winter I am allowed to join two paddocks together so they then are together and I have two stables next to each too which is great.

 

[Winters100]

We have a selection of paddock sizes according to what people want. Some of the smaller individual paddocks are quite popular with people who do not want their horse to run, which I find strange. With 3 horses I have a one paddock and an adjoining field. It works well for me as when I start exercising I bring them all into the paddock and let 2 wait while I ride 1, it is more than big enough for all 3 and has a shelter and hay. I also use it to seperate them, for example when I feed poor doer, as she needs 5 feeds a day and it is easier to take a bucket out than to bring her to her box. The rest of the time the gate is open and they can choose where to be, in wet weather the paddock is always quite muddy, but the field is on a slope so they have plenty of dry(ish) ground to go to. For me it is a perfect set up as I would not like to turn out alone. I did it previously, and thought that my mare was quite happy, but when we put a companion in it was a big lesson to me that seemingly content horses can be missing something in their lives.

 

[MidChristmasCrisis]

I have a paddock for each of my mares but put the two in one then the other...or remove the fence line between them and run both over the two paddocks...which is what I’m doing now.