Tips for horses living out 24/7 - field management/feeding hay ideas :)

cob&onion

cob&onion

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Thought we could could start a thread about field management and everything that goes with keeping them out 24/7 during the bleak winter months.

This winter am getting the OH to make me a hay feeder out of wooden pallets, (seen on an earlier thread) one wooden pallet for the base and 4 pallets around the edges to make a square, fill with hay to stop it blowing over the field and reduce wastage.
Will also be investing in one of these haylage/hay covers - will be buying in the large round bales of hay one at a time so will be able to store in this bag to stop it getting ruined in the rain/mud.
http://www.robinsonsequestrian.com/haylage-cover.html

Over to you :)
 
Well i'll have 3 + the little foal out 24/7 all winter & feeding large round bales of haylage... i was trying to find a metal bale feeder or hay ring type thing but no joy finding anything cheap so i decided to buy a very cheap car trailer just large enough to hold a bale, i will be driving this into field and leaving it with the bale on board. This will keep it off the ground and stops them lying all over it also means i can move the location of the big bale each time to save ground getting too poached... then when bale is finished i will hook on trailer & drive to farm to collect the next bale... thats my tip!!
 
I am not going to use a hay feeder unless I could make one light enough for me to move.
I generally deliver hay twice daily and put it out of the wind,which is usually where the horses are standing,and with three well hedged fields there is shelter whichever way the wind blows,and the wind blows something rotten here! This also avoids the poached hay patch.
Last year they started eating the fence posts and the trees in January.So this year I will try to provide extra roughage in the form of straw and twigs/branches collected from around the farm. I will also make plenty of my special chilli and vaseline paste to smear on the fence posts!
I try to vary hay and feed times,and I am lucky enough to have 4 gateways to choose from,so horse do not end up hanging around a particular gate at certain times of the day waiting for attention.
By March the field looks like a battle site.
Last year I harrowed and reseeded in spring. I guess I will have to do this again next year,but I will choose the rye free grass mix because a)my horses don't eat rye grass and b)rye grass does not grow in lower temperatures so takes longer to germinate and establish.
I will NOT touch the bloomin thistles until may.(This year I started chopping them as soon as they appeared which seemed to double the numbers.....It turned to war!)
Resting the field for 3 months this summer+ grazing sheep on it means I have a really good start this winter.
 
I'm in a much better position than I was last year so I'm not too anxious about the winter. Last winter I bought some land in December and the previous owers totally trashed it. I had 2 big horses and 2 mini shetlands on 3 acres of clay and it was horrendous. Fed big bales all winter and there was so much wastage and mess. Learnt loads though!

I've now got just 2 horses - a 16hh 3yo and a 14.3 fat native type. I still have a reasonable amount of grass (my grass is very rich.) I have a large hardstanding area which I will confine them to if it gets too wet, and they have access to stables 24/7. I would consider keeping them in overnight. I've bought a round feeder and a Toppa Net (google) and am sure this will reduce wastage. They have excellent rugs, 6 months worth of hard feed and I will make sure I always have a months supply of hay/haylage in.

I've split the field now instead of letting them have the whole lot - the wettest areas will be rested till spring. I've got a harrow and seed ready for repairing the damage to the winter paddocks. I'm just going to take it week by week, if it snows I may let them have the whole field to wander round.

Have several containers for water incase it freezes, I think the only thing I need to do is get a little as heater for my tackroom.

Waiting for the ground to soften infact so we can do some fencing!!
 
We have a calf/sheep round bale feeder and put a whole bale in at a time. This saves time as we dont have to put hay out every day.
It is easy to move, you just tip it up and push it like a wheel, so saves on heavy poaching.
 
Ive had two/ three out full turnout for about 8 years. This is how I do it:

Cattle feeder (cost me £60 2nd hand but sheep feeders better) with ab lib barley straw of if I can get is oat straw. I top up with a good handfull per a horse of haylage at night. And I hard feed in the morning.

Good rugs. (rhino, axiom and bucas for me) are a must in the horrible weather. I was lucky enough that I had a dad who was willing to build a shelter however this year I have no shelter but I do have three solid hedgerows round the field. Field mats are a saviour in gateways.

My tips:

From my experience take shoes off(nothing more annoying trudging through mud trying to find shoes and nails, you will be suprised how well feet do on full turnout whilst being off riding for two weeks, use your normal farrier ( I dont believe in barefoot trimming big expensive "con",had a TB out cough cough)

Go to a farmer NOW and see if he has any water butts he is willing to sell, a saviour in freezing conditions.
If he has hay bale perservatives tubs they help too, just steam clean them.
Pig oil and sulphur, never had mud fever problems.

Again go to a farmer he might have some spare bags for haylage rounds for a couple of quid. (basically huge in bags that fit a round of hay/ haylage/ straw ) Like what is in OP thread but much cheaper.

Try and have a couple of acres you are willing to trash for very wet days, snow melt. And let it grow back in spring
 
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Mines simple; Two natives out on 4 acres no need for hay, no need for rugs unless it is windy/wet and cold at the same time. They have loads of shelter, they have hardstanding at the back of their stables .

If the water gets frozen, I take a bucket of hot water up and tip it into the trough which usually melts it fairly quick ( very lucky as its only about 20 steps away from the house :) )

My ownly dilema is when to let them out on the 4 acres; atm they are still in the summer paddock as we've had no rain for weeks and weeks, its rock hard! Normally I let them out gradually. 10 mins a day then increase it so they get used to the grass, but it looks so lush still :( Sometimes I wish I had horses that needed rugs and fattening up :D
 
WE have 4 out 24/7 , my tips are

Use large tractor tyre for hay feeding , so it can be moved if the groud gets trashed , although this year ( Yipee!!) we do have a large shelter with haybars so we'll hay them up overnight inthere ( luckily the boys get on really well and will share a haybar if one runs out)
Decent rugs , and spares also , i tend to have two of each weight , but also something worth thinking about is something like a buccas power turnout so if you ride and they get sweaty or rained on , you can just pop it on them wet/damp as it will wick - priceless if you can't keep them in to dry off.
B & Q do small halogen lights ( runs off aaa bateries ) which we'll hang in the shelter , gives enough light for rug changes / feeding / foot picking etc. Also Pizel head torch is worth it's weight for those of us that are up in the dark!
 
cob&onion said:
Thought we could could start a thread about field management and everything that goes with keeping them out 24/7 during the bleak winter months.

This winter am getting the OH to make me a hay feeder out of wooden pallets, (seen on an earlier thread) one wooden pallet for the base and 4 pallets around the edges to make a square, fill with hay to stop it blowing over the field and reduce wastage.
Will also be investing in one of these haylage/hay covers - will be buying in the large round bales of hay one at a time so will be able to store in this bag to stop it getting ruined in the rain/mud.
http://www.robinsonsequestrian.com/haylage-cover.html

Over to you :)
Click to expand...

pinkypug1 said:
Well i'll have 3 + the little foal out 24/7 all winter & feeding large round bales of haylage... i was trying to find a metal bale feeder or hay ring type thing but no joy finding anything cheap so i decided to buy a very cheap car trailer just large enough to hold a bale, i will be driving this into field and leaving it with the bale on board. This will keep it off the ground and stops them lying all over it also means i can move the location of the big bale each time to save ground getting too poached... then when bale is finished i will hook on trailer & drive to farm to collect the next bale... thats my tip!!
Click to expand...

I'm afraid I would worry far too much to put a car trailer or pallets in my horses fields.

Personally I have a couple of these:

http://www.hay-hutch.co.uk/

Which I think are fabulous :) :)
 
I am not on grass livery but have been previously and in my case it was to have spare rugs available and plenty of bibs to stop rubbing. We also always always ALWAYS strip rugs right off daily to check the weight. Older horses can drop off in a matter of days so I was pretty hot on checking condition properly each day and that means sticking hand through the hair to check that as well. Yard also has a policy of fattening up horses for winter (for the grass liveries) and as an example, there is an older TB who will be living out. He has been out unrugged to throw a coat and fed up as well so looking somewhat on the porky side.
 
abitodd said:
I will NOT touch the bloomin thistles until may.(This year I started chopping them as soon as they appeared which seemed to double the numbers.....It turned to war!)
QUOTE]

Just reminded me of this old saying (which is actually in my experience, very accurate!):

"Cut a thistle in May its up the next day
Cut a thistle in June its up pretty soon
Cut a thistle in July it`ll very soon die"
Click to expand...
 
I have a couple of square wooden crate hay feeders (they originally held building materials) and they have been excellent. Up until last winter I had 4 out 24/7 and previously used to waste huge amounts of hay putting it on the ground with it getting trodden on/peed and pood on/ laid on but the feeder crate stopped all that and, if course, easily portable (if a little heavy!) so that it can be moved to stop areas of the field getting too poached.

I also have a very thick layer of straw by the gateway to stop the ground getting poached. I put it down when the ground is still dry so even when it rains, the wet goes straight through the straw. Just put down more straw as and when necessary.
 
Puppy said:
I'm afraid I would worry far too much to put a car trailer or pallets in my horses fields.

Personally I have a couple of these:

http://www.hay-hutch.co.uk/

Which I think are fabulous :) :)
Click to expand...

This trailer is very very basic... i have it this way as little foal can get into all sorts of trouble so their is nowhere for big or little legs to get trapped, no mud flaps or extras to cause any damage!
 
marmalade76 said:
I just put my hay out on a clean patch of ground. They don't waste much 'cause if they stop claering it up, I cut down the amount I give them.
Click to expand...

I do this as well. I try to break field down by electric fencing but eventually once they have eaten long grass down (ie summer grass) I then let them onto the lot.

Mallet hammer for smashing ice(mind you last year it was so thick I ferried hot water along every day in big 25litre containers.

In mobile field shelter I tie up hay nets one in morning and one in evening or a row of them for overnight if its bitter. I try to fill them all at beginning of week so that I can be quick on days I work ie just to tie up net.

Poo pick on dog walk and it gets lobbed into hedge as I walk round. I might chain harrow poo but then I have to move to another field ie after all the snow last year I couldnt always find them!
 
indie999 said:
In mobile field shelter I tie up hay nets one in morning and one in evening or a row of them for overnight if its bitter. I try to fill them all at beginning of week so that I can be quick on days I work ie just to tie up net.
Click to expand...


I thought about using lots of nets to hang up in the field for hay, would save the wastage?!
Does anyone do this who has NOT got a field shelter? instead of using a feeder
 
i've hung haynets in trees before now but always worried about horses getting caught up in them so don't do it anymore.
Some of the tips here are real handy, theres a veg place up the road from me where they have huge wooden crates stacked up outside, might see if they'll let me have or buy a couple for hay this year, drives me insane how much my lot waste off a round bale:rolleyes: if not will have to see what i can borrow off the farmer, have used a ring feeder but one of my bys is a bossy sod and chases the others off so i really want 2 'hay stations' this year.
 
Great ideas here...:)
2 ponies on 3 acres...plan to split the field in half in the next week or so and keep them on the dry half - the other half has two badly badly poached gateways already and just does not drain. Though as someone suggested on here, will use this half for snow melt if need be..
Gateway in dry half is really not too bad yet so will be looking to either straw it, invest in field mat or might even use all the reeds from the reedy patch up the boggy end.
The 2 are sec B gorger-type and 2yo sec D good-doer so plan to start them off on twice-daily haynets as frankly, they are not to be trusted with a big bale or haylage as they will just eat themselves silly. Feeding hay as sec B just does not need anything much more than fresh air and sec D seems to hold weight well too, but will monitor his condition as he is young and if need be, slip him a sneaky extra net of haylage. He will unrugged, but again will monitor this if he is losing condition-wise.
Have got 20 bales on order, will order more once I see how that is going in the first little while...had a different set-up last year so not used the standard bales before.
There is still grass left...have just bought a block of mineral lick to put in to top up their vit/mins needs.
Will see how snow this year pans out....in the hills of Wales so gets bad-o but these days, where doesn't?
Water-wise there is a stream running right round the field..dried up over the summer a bit so top up with buckets daily...Will be taking hot water down when it gets to freezing and trying a ball in the bucket.
This is as far as I've got, in my 3-4am ruminations virtually every single night for the last 2 weeks!!! :eek:
 
I use a wooden crate for feeding hay from :) I just chuck a couple of barrows of hay in it at a time and let my guys do what they want with it until its empty then i refill :)

I can move it by popping it on my wheely and trundling it off up the field :)
 
I use a tractor tyre and a JCB tyre on concrete slabs for hay/haylage feeding. In the past I've made hayracks but no matter what the design, they either pulled hay out of the top, onto the floor and trod on it, or out the bottom and trod on it.

Eventually, the youngster managed to get her leg caught in it and that was that!

Admittedly you can't get a massive amount of hay in a tractor tyre, but plenty for 2 ponies.

This year I've got the most grass I've ever had, which is fantastic!

Am hoping that I can strip graze the biggest paddock during the day, to last until end of December. This will halve my hay/haylage useage, as by now they're usually on a bare muddy paddock on 100% hay.

Am feeding A&P Fast Fibre now and will up it to Calm & Condition as one sack of either goes a very long way.

Now that haylage is almost the same price as hay, I feed half and half, they do so much better on the haylage mix which has reduced my hard feed costs no end.

And I'm hoping we don't get any snow, though I am prepared!!!!
 
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