Why is not turning horses out over winter becoming normal?

[Jambarissa]

A golf course could make a nice track.

 

[ElleSkywalkingintheair]

As I flick through the mega top end horse properties for sale (just in case the lottery ticket - that I don't buy! - comes in)
I often see tiny circular individual turnout pens with walk ways all the way around - at studs and racing yards mostly but pretty common.

They look very beautiful and must cost a fortune to install / maintain - cutting the grass all the way around etc.
But the horses couldn't touch each other even over a fence and certainly couldn't have a good blast about.
Yes it's turnout but in a very sterile environment

I ponder how much of my lottery win would be needed to pull it all out !

Simple, use the walkways as tracks in the summer and in the winter open up a few small paddocks at a time, then close them and open up the next once eaten down Perfect equicentral set up!

 

[Polos Mum]

Simple, use the walkways as tracks in the summer and in the winter open up a few small paddocks at a time, then close them and open up the next once eaten down Perfect equicentral set up!

Ahh a genius solution - you're right the outside walkway bits are perfect - just off to buy my ticket !!

 

[Cloball]

A golf course could make a nice track.

Golf courses could be used for infinitely more useful things and take up far to much land. It's a soap box of my sister's.

 

[Abacus]

mainly in livery yards because theres too many horses mucking the field. there should be less horses then

The interesting thing about the “people aren’t willing to pay enough to reduce stocking density” argument is that in my experience the more you pay, the less turnout you get.

Budget liveries seem to have a more realistic approach to land management, high price point liveries focus on facilities for the human - multiple arenas, wash boxes, nice living room areas (I have no idea why these are desirable on a yard) etc, at the expense of horse welfare.

It isn’t something I’ve ever been able to understand - it seems entirely counterintuitive. It might be that someone willing to pay £600 pcm for livery wants the flashy stuff and not the horse stuff, but I’ve never seen anyone offering the alternative for them to demonstrate that.

I think that “people aren’t willing to pay enough to reduce stocking density” is actually true at the more budget end of things; people will tolerate high densities of horses and/or limited turnout just in order to be able to keep a horse. With higher budgets I guess they might have a choice between fewer horses or more luxurious facilities but the latter seems to be more common.

 

[maya2008]

Weather.

If I could, I would have a big barn and they could winter in there, with an attached turnout pen. Not worth being out in the mud as a horse if the result is that you get injured. No fun living in constant rain with wet ground so slippery you cannot play safely.

Last winter we had about an inch of standing water in the vast majority of our fields most of the time - so they stayed empty, despite being several metres higher than the road, sloping downhill. As it has started raining this autumn, same problem. That leaves 1/6 of the land available for winter turnout.