So who else's feild has turned in to a bog this winter ?

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HuntingMadImmy

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My feild is not longer a feild due to all this bloody rain and my mad horses galloping around!
This Autumn I had tried to prepare it for winter but nothing stops my feild from turning in to a mud bath. My horses rugs have half the feild on them when I bring them in To there stables ! And so much for clean hunters , which is impossible because my hunter just LOVES to roll !!

Who else's feilds are mud baths now due to the silly British weather ???
 
I find as long as the grass is long enough you don't get a mud bath. It's short grass that results in mud. But I have mine at home so I'm lucky that I can do my own thing.
 
Yeah my horses paddock is just mud. Its a tiny paddock though, and since he now keeps escaping or trying to get into the mares paddock beside him, he has been moved to a paddock closer to the stables. He's only there for another week anyway so he'll be fine. He's moving to a place with a huge field with 8 other geldings in there, so he should be pretty happy with grass and company. That field is doing ok because its on a slope so the drainage is quite good. At least its still green unlike the ones here.
 
Parts of my field have surface water and so are not being used so as to avoid damage. part is a mud bog but the longer grass is holding up ok

Its rented land but I don't want to ruin it so am restricting turnout the most turnout they have had this past week is 10 hours and the least 2 hours.
 
Can I make you all jealous?

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(Please excuse the tatty vicious one ;) - they're all out 24/7 and hairy...)
 
I have a colt and a gelding turned out together in a thrash paddock. Think mud wrestling, the colt likes to kneel in it and when he comes in its literally dripping off his tail. But they never fall over not matter how they charge around, but it was funny when the other one, a Highland almost sat on him.
 
our fields at the bottom of the hill have seen better days, my horse is currently up by the main yard in a tiny field, so only getting a few hours out a day! but would rather that than this.................

Sam's field is the wet one at the bottom of this pic


the river next to his field


and the two fields next door
 
Unfortunately if you've had constant rain for over two months the length of grass has little to do with the amount of mud, anything - unshod horse or human will leave a hole in the ground although field with longer grass will recover more quickly if it ever stops raining!
 
gallopingby said:
Unfortunately if you've had constant rain for over two months the length of grass has little to do with the amount of mud, anything - unshod horse or human will leave a hole in the ground although field with longer grass will recover more quickly if it ever stops raining!
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Not true at all - look at my pic and the amount of marsh grass. We are on the edge of the Moor and it is very wet. It the grass hasn't been overgrazed it will have a decent root structure that will provide stability.
 
The ponys paddock is very muddy compared to a normal year, I asked hubby to sort out the gateway over the summer and he didn't :(

He is moving to a dry one in the next few days though.

The horses haven't been out for a bit (weather and then lame horse) but electric fence moved to the driest bit of their winter field ready for them to go out soon. It has plenty of grass so hoping it will be grand until spring.

Fiona
 
EQUIDAE said:
Can I make you all jealous?

DSC_0251.JPG


(Please excuse the tatty vicious one ;) - they're all out 24/7 and hairy...)
Click to expand...

Not jealous - mine looks like that too :D

We do have a bit of a wade through the gateway situation, because that's where all the water seems to run off the field and collect, but given the rest of it is 9 or so acres of lovely moorland with plenty of grass, I don't really mind!
 
Mine isn't a bog - it's a lake! The weather has been pretty awful up here in Yorkshire though, so little surprise there.
 
I feel really lucky that I can rent a field that has been able to cope with the wet, despite the fact that it is indeed clay soil. My two live out 24/7, have no shelter/hard standing area as such (concrete patches from old biuldings, now over growing). It is about 5 acres or so.

The odd bit of standing water at times
field2_zpstdeufixk.jpg


Grass and spaniel!
field1_zps2tw2feag.jpg


To prove that my girls are not knee deep in mud.. I've been able to see hooves all winter!
meg%20field_zpspu1j5gvs.jpg
 
One of mine is totally a bog (well, I am in Ireland!). It had pretty long grass beforehand as hadn't been used since the previous winter and mine are out 24/7 unless its extreme weather and don't tend to gallop around much, but the bottom third is totally underwater and the rest is just so wet. At one point I had to bring them in as the gateway suddenly flooded and I was worried about access, but luckily that cleared the next day. I don't have a picture of that field at the moment, but this is my summer grazing taken last week (no, this isn't usually a lake):



Luckily I just got back some higher level, stony grazing that I had rented out last year as we had too much grass, this is drier and has had light grazing by sheep. My two were skipping about like foals when I moved them out of the bog!
 
My fields are awful they have ponds in them and the gate ways are rediculous..... I did fence off hard standing for ponios to have a rest from mud and left gate open so they could come in and out as they pleased but they kindly trashed my shed so they lost that privilege. Unfortunately like many I can't figure out how to post pictures.....
 
By the field shelter is a bog as it blew over during storm Barney and the tractor had to come in, get it out of the hedge and spin it round. That trashed the already wet field. The middle bit is ok though. Still have plenty of grass to eat and its re-grown in the field shelter a little.
 
Mine are doing well, but I have 3 (well, two Shetlands so really 2 whole ones) on about 8 acres. The land is very wet but the grass is long enough for it to not be muddy yet.

Feel awful for those flooded. The yard just down from me is severely overgrazed and the fields are bogs.
 
Even on the top of our hill, the sheer amount of rain has meant that we have sitting water on clay soil...but with the acreage and size of fields, it's still holding up really well. Gateways are awful but they're being fixed this summer. They squelch around as they play, but hooves always visible and clean.

I will be glad when it dries up though.
 
Mine are awful. There's still grass in one, but a lot of surface water, and the other is just vile, one edge in particular. On the plus side, we put a load of stone down in the gateway last year and that has really helped - need to get more stone I think.
 
EQUIDAE said:
I find as long as the grass is long enough you don't get a mud bath. It's short grass that results in mud. But I have mine at home so I'm lucky that I can do my own thing.
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Mine has long grass - and a load of poaching in between. Not a mud bath except gateways but water lying between the grass, which is still long enough for them to be able to graze. and divots and muddy rolling areas in several places. My yard and school are so bad I am having to have more land drains put in and loads more road planings to fill the dips where cars have driven.
 
my field is next to a river and at the bottom of a hill, so water all drains down across it to get into the river, so the front part is a massive bog :( loads of standing water. however, the far end is actually relatively ok. but as the grass is not as good now its January, the go to the drier bit for a few hours, but then go back to the bog and mope until i bring them in! yet more rain this morning :( this is the worse winter since I've been here, the past 4 winters. however, it is great at drying come spring so it will recover.
 
The whole entire field is basically mud soup. :( The grazing has been rested for almost a year but it's clay soil and the field next door drains through ours so we get the worst of it.

I keep moving the girls to a different part of the field but it is literally trashed in minutes. All very depressing but it looks like we are in for a drier, colder spell soon so fingers crossed it dries up a bit.
 
My bottom field is wet and squelchy on clay but not over the fetlocks. I haven't used my top field yet and will probably start using it in a week or two. It has tons of grass so hopefully will keep us going until the ground dries up a bit!! We have 2 acres for 1 horse in exceptionally wet ground but it does recover and horse prefers to be out so I ignore the mess and carry on!!
 
My field goes downhill to a stream and we literally have another stream running down to the steam! I slide along to catch him and hang on to him to get out of the field. We do still have grass tho.
 
My small paddocks are trashed, totally and utterly awful. Problem is you have to walk through these paddocks to get to their big winter field (which isn't too bad, still plenty of grass but also still very wet!), so they can't be rested.
We do have a seperate untouched 6 acre field which is usually used for hay, but we will be sectioning some of it off in March to turn out on while our other fields recover.
 
EQUIDAE said:
Can I make you all jealous?

DSC_0251.JPG


(Please excuse the tatty vicious one ;) - they're all out 24/7 and hairy...)
Click to expand...

Your field is only dry because its so steep all the water runs off. Obviously you have photoshipped all the ropes and climbing gear holding horse in place. He does need a safety helmet at that altitude.... :)
 
My entire yard is basically underwater... all the horses come in with wet, sloppy mud up to their knees every evening, and my boy is a grey!!! Utter nightmare, absolutely hate wet winters. Half of our paddocks are out of use until the summer because there's basically no grass left at all, and the smaller yard half a mile from us can't even turn the horses out because most of them developed mud fever due to the horrendous quality of the fields. Clay soil round here ruins lives haha
 
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