Three questions: Muzzles, shelter & grazing.

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margaretb

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Poppy is currently in a grazing muzzle 24/7 and perfectly happy in it. However, her grazing is getting away again and OH has no spare livestock to put in her field to keep it down as we have grass growing like fury everywhere! Shouldn't complain we had none this time last year.

As she is a very good doer, Poppy had been coming in during the day on old hay and muzzled at night but "her" barn is now full of hay. Mustn't complain again!

So the question is; is she better muzzled and moving about in her paddock (about 3.5 acres sharing with 5 tups) or should I electric fence off a much smaller area, but this will restrict her movements.

As she has lost her shelter due to forage storage I am looking into buying a shelter. What size is necessary for a 14.1 cob x?

Thank you!
 
Purely a personal opinion, but we're in rather the same situation. What I'm doing is:

Grazing: Have divided 4.75 acres into 4 paddocks. Electric fenced it. Will then stripgraze paddock No. 1 up into Padsdock No2, if you get my meaning.

Muzzling: You say she's happy muzzled. I'd leave it like that, and leave her out. In my book, movement is everything (hope the tups agree?!!)

I bought a ready-to-assemble (by the firm) 'haybarn' which I then divided with a breeze block wall just off centre. It was a 24 foot wide, 12 feet deep barn, so I now have a 10 x 12 feedstore and a 14 x 12 'loose box' (I put slip rails across the fronts of both divisions). Seems perfectly adequate for my 15.3 substantial Welsh Section D.

Hope this is some help in your decision makaing. PS: Well done having all that hay in for winter. Isn't that a lovely feeling...............
 
I personally don't like horses to have muzzles on 24/7. When the horses were living out mostly last year, I used to bring them in for four hours each evening to take rugs and muzzles off for a bit and get the sweet itchers out of the midges. Now my horses have muzzles on during the night and come in with a bit of old hay during the day. They have been fat all summer though! The Water Board is now doing some work in my main 3 acre summer field, so I have brought them into the 1 acre winter field. They had muzzles on initially, but have eaten it down a lot now and I have taken them off. TBH they seem a bit slimmer now they are on a bare field moving around more to find food, plus its a bit colder too perhaps?

Shelter wise, the bigger the better - you always find something you need to store under a roof, and they can always be divided up..
 
margaretb said:
Poppy is currently in a grazing muzzle 24/7 and perfectly happy in it. However, her grazing is getting away again and OH has no spare livestock to put in her field to keep it down as we have grass growing like fury everywhere! Shouldn't complain we had none this time last year.

Thank you!
Click to expand...

I am unable to give you advice but grateful for your post as I am about to move my boy to a yard where they can (and the others do) stay out 24/7 all year round and was worried about weight gain - mine wears his muzzle 16hours ish a day and usually comes in for a nap daytime (this is a recent thing) SO I am gradually minimising his nap and lessening his time in his muzzle but you keep yours in it 24/7? My boy doesnt care about his muzzle, comes over to the gate to have it put on (idiot) so you think it is ok to muzzle all the time?

Good luck with your quandry....seems whatever we have wherever we are, we all have them!
 
I would rather not muzzle her 24/7 - but daren't let her graze without it due to the quantity of grass about, hence the dilema to strip graze but therefore restrict movement. She was coming in during the day and going out muzzled at night and was really beginning to look good on that regime, but sadly OH requistioned "his" shed for forage!! I could bring her back in into a loose box, but the joy of where she was before was she could go in the shed, and then mooch about on the stone area in front of the shed, so she wasn't "shut in" entirely. I don't think she would be happy in a loose box.

We have a fold yard by the house which I think I will try her in at the weekend, just to give her respite from the muzzle.

She accepts the muzzle really well and it does not rub. Even puts her head down for me to put it on!
 
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