todays rain has finally finished off my field !!

J

JLD

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When will it stop ?!! I only have 1 x 2 acre field all year round, and work hard to keep it ok. I am on heavy clay on a bit of a slope and paradise track spring/summer and use most of the middle bit in winter. I only have one unshod pony on it who is pretty sensible and doesn't charge round much and he is generally up on concrete with access to stable overnight unless really windy when he is better out. I have been so pleased and proud of how my system has stood up to the weather but today it is a swamp. With rivers all over it and the top surface dissolving in front of me and running down the hill !! Please tell me it can recover - it is my first winter keeping him at home and the weather is relentless. I know everyone is in the same boat I just needed to vent !
 
It will recover. Stressing about it won't help, you just have to grit your teeth and get on with it. You might need some grass seed in spring to help it along but I never have. What I do do sometimes is feed loose hay on the driest bits so the seeds fall out and germinate come spring.
Mine is bad this year and I am understocked, it's fast becoming a nightmare but there isn't anything I can do.
 
It WILL recover. The first year I had my two out 24/7 in about 2 acres, with a shelter, on clay - flat as a pancake with flooded ditches around it. It was awful, like the Somme. Needless to say, we moved to a new yard by March (partly because of other problems with the Y/O though...had it been my own land, I'd have found a way.) Anyway, the field was back by summer and you'd never have known. It was empty to recover, though.
 
OH no!!! Trust me it should drain and recover ok especially with only one unshod pony if it is usually well draining. you have my sympathy though we are in much the same situation have 3 horses on 3 acres one, shod 2 youngsters and the sacrifice paddock is beyond help now =[ the yard and stables are flooded also so I'm just closing my eyes to the main field and I'll figure it out when the rain stops !

Your grass should manage ok (that's if the rain ever stops!!!)
 
Thanks - I know there's nothing I can do. I think I am just panicking as it is my first year of land management. Am really feeling for all the YO out there trying to keep everyone happy who's business depends on their land. At least I can do what I can to balance pony and field and I don't have to factor other people with unrealistic expectations of perfect turnout into it !
 
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It will recover. We are ankle deep in mud all over! but come spring its always looks lush again even the corner that is clay recovers well. Cheer up! :)
 
I have three horses on a nearly five acre field, one being my friends. Just had to ask her to move her horse, she charges about, sets the others off and its ruining the field which is sloped slightly but still has alot of sitting water on it... with two unshod it should be alot better... despite looking awful in winter it always grows lovely in spring..
 
our field is next to a river and now in parts the river is actually now in the field :( luckily we have high ground where the horses can graze, but even that is saturated. however, last winter was pretty wet as well, but once it was rested it recovered amazingly.
'rain, rain, go away, come again another day' (preferably in a few months time and only a light shower!)
 
I feel your pain! Am on the same soil but have 3 horses including a 16.2 shod rotevator who encourages galloping at every oppertunity.
I left them in this morning and am dreading going back in a minute to be honest, pretty sure we will be under water.... However it's nothing like last winter and as the others have pointed out it will recover! Mine looked great last summer. Keep smiling :)
 
Our winter field gets a terrible mess and floods and freezes and looks like nothing will ever grow on it again. However it gets rolled in the spring when the ponies move off and has always recovered enough to take a cut of hay off it in the summer.
 
it will recover, my winter grazing was a foot deep mudbath last year but once it was rolled in spring and then left it was grazable by summer (hadn't intended to use it but friend needed livery while she was in hospital) because i feed hay out there the seeds grey and in places it was better grass then before winter!
 
My field is 90 percent underwater at the moment and its gradually creeping up the concrete towards the stables. It happens every year, last year stables were 3 inches deep too. When it goes down the grass is fine and grows normally in the summer.
 
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