PapaverFollis
Well-Known Member
I actually do want sheep, preferably transient summer ones if that is even a thing! But my fences just aren't up to it yet and I can keep the horses where they should be with two strands of electric fence.
Will it never end?
- Thread starter PapaverFollis
- Start date
brighteyes
Pooh-Bah
I have three mannerly sheep. They sort most stuff. Mu lads sold the flail mover in need to wallop the reeds - though how they have grown in this desert weather I have no idea!
Anyway, I hate grass and land management.
Anyway, I hate grass and land management.
PapaverFollis
Well-Known Member
How does one acquire mannerly sheep? They sound like what I need.
TPO
🤠🏴
We just borrow sheep from the farmer next door. We have sheep fencing from previous owner so that is very useful and touch wood no escapees
This might help or might make anxiety worse so proceed with caution
https://forageplus.co.uk/why-is-there-too-much-clover-in-my-horse-pasture/
This might help or might make anxiety worse so proceed with caution
https://forageplus.co.uk/why-is-there-too-much-clover-in-my-horse-pasture/
FestiveG
Over the hill and far awa
We had Ryelands to begin with known as stay at home sheep. The current bunch were three " orphan" ewe lambs who haven't been too bad and their three lambs, who also stay at home. The three ewes are now 12 year old texel crosses, and are starting to look like old ladies
PapaverFollis
Well-Known Member
I will have a look... maybe in a bit. I know that the soil probably needs some TLC all round. Soil testing is on the to do list. The back field doesn't have a lot of clover genera rather it had an intolerable amount of alsike clover. But the acidic soil doesn't help with that I know. We had lots of crimson clover last year which I haven't seen back so I'm hoping the alsike might be a one year wonder too.
Mostly it's just getting to know the place really. I'm just very low on resilience and finding it all a bit much. The ergot discovery should have sent me over the edge. ? But something in my brain did a self-preservation sweary acceptance type thing instead, rather than just shattering into 1000 pieces. ?
Errin Paddywack
Well-Known Member
If you get electric fence trained sheep two strands at the right height should keep them in. Our neighbour has Hebrideans and keeps them off his hay crop with two strands of electric. This is just a fence straight across the field. Unless they were chased and panicked they wouldn't go through it.
sbloom
Well-Known Member
A slightly side issue but sort of addressing your original question I think there are some issues that may emerge as having an effect - environmental changes (pollution, exhaustion of soils I guess), selective breeding and genetic markers (offspring inheriting things that "happened" to their parents, rather than only original genes being passed down). On the breeding front we have been breeding for elasticity in even our everyday horses more than we did, in part due the popularity of dressage and the ways it's marked, and it's said that we were already way beyond the length and elasticity of tendons and ligaments that nature can support. Things have changed I'm sure (some things for the better of course) and I hope we start to find out why we have so many broken horses, and horses with hard to manage chronic issues and way more things that seem to trigger sensitivities.
PurBee
Well-Known Member
agree - regarding ergot. We get it here affecting tall fescue and sweet vernal grass mostly. Its because we have a very damp climate and ergot spores thrive to produce the ‘mouse poo’ fruiting ergot bodies on the seed head of grasses.
I cant have standing hay for winter feed for the sole reason of ergot.
I see it on all the roadside grasses in late autumn, as well as my fields. Its a climatic problem, suiting the fungus, than anything to do with failing land management practices.
My solution is to have all grazing areas topped by late autumn latest.. preferably earlier before ergot forms on seed heads. I dont bale and burn it if i see some….just top it, allow 4 weeks for rot down, and the fields can be grazed judiciously throughout winter without ergot issues.
To all:
Absolutely dont let animals graze ergot. Ergovaline and neurological issues. Dont rely on probiotics to solve ergot poisoning. Probiotics are useful and worth having in stock but dont think you can allow ergot grazing if you’re feeding probiotics.
Get the grass topped and rotted down.
When i first discovered ergot “whats this black mouse poop on the grasses?” I was struck with panic! Topping everywhere like a nutter!
Before ergot fully develops youll notice the seed heads of grasses go a kind of mouldy pinky, blackish colour…then youll next see black mouse poops sprout out of the grass seed.
You can get ‘black spot’ mould on grass leaves, but thats not ergot. Its another fungus….still not ideal for eating but not as toxic as ergot. Probiotics are useful for mycotoxicosis of these types of spot moulds on grass/hay.
Ergot is seen on grass seed head mostly. If we have a damp autumn, ergot is more likely.
PF -if you have many acres, and dont have a flail mower/tractor - its worth getting in touch with a local farmer to flail mow/top your fields late autumn. Flail mowing cuts the grass up into tiny pieces, which means it’ll rot down faster than other cutting machinery. Late autumn also allows the grass to be growing september/opctober and graze-able.
before i got a tractor i got a quote from a farmer to flail my fields, 80 euros an hour. Worth it to have safe mould-free winter grazing areas.
It took me ages to strim 8 acres by hand….exhausting job!
PapaverFollis
Well-Known Member
I only have one section that the horses will be accessing that still has seed heads on so not enough to get machinery in this year. I will strim and probably clear by hand and burn. Next year I will see about getting the 4 acres flail mowed or sheeped.
This year it is strimmed and I have these long lengths of grass stalks that haven't rotted away I think I'm just going to have to clear. That's fine. It's just a job and a learning.
This year it is strimmed and I have these long lengths of grass stalks that haven't rotted away I think I'm just going to have to clear. That's fine. It's just a job and a learning.
Fruitcake
Well-Known Member
Well, after learning about ergot here, I dashed to B&Q this morning and bought some snazzy shears with long blades and short handles and OH and I spent the day trimming, collecting and burning all the seed heads off the ryegrass in one field. We've had the farmer from the next farm over to look at the other affected field (which has loads more in) and he's coming to completely cut it later in the week. He's going to top all the unused fields in summer next year before the seed heads have developed so, hopefully, we can still use what will be standing as winter grazing.
I am currently waiting for my bath to run and plan to remain there until I shrivel up! My back is killing me!
For years, my horses have grazed standing hay in the winter (even when I rented land before we had them at home). I'm slightly concerned I must have missed this in the past. OP, please don't get disheartened: we can only do our best. I agree with what was said upthread about how some of these issues (ergot) seem more to do with climate etc than land management. Like you say, next year will be done differently to try to accommodate these things. (And, thanks to this thread, for me too!)
I am currently waiting for my bath to run and plan to remain there until I shrivel up! My back is killing me!
For years, my horses have grazed standing hay in the winter (even when I rented land before we had them at home). I'm slightly concerned I must have missed this in the past. OP, please don't get disheartened: we can only do our best. I agree with what was said upthread about how some of these issues (ergot) seem more to do with climate etc than land management. Like you say, next year will be done differently to try to accommodate these things. (And, thanks to this thread, for me too!)
PurBee
Well-Known Member
enjoy your well-deserved bath FC….what trojans you and your OH are shearing a field! ?
For the love of the horse eh! ?
Labaire
...
this afternoon on the roadside verges I have found ergot on cocksfoot, Timothy and false oat grass and Yorkshire fog-just in case anyone thinks it’s only on rye.
PapaverFollis
Well-Known Member
Yup. I had plenty on the Timothy, some on Yorkshire Fog and loads on a little pointy grass that I don't know the name of.
palo1
Well-Known Member
As a complete side issue (though deffo ergot related) during one of the worst years of plague in the middle ages, after a year when it rained nearly every day ergot was quite a serious issue for the human population. As a result of the scale of plague deaths it had been incredibly difficult for some communities to harvest so starvation was a problem and people eating ergot infested corn often went completely crazy with toxin induced psychosis and hallucinations with some villages almost totally destroyed by a combination of both. There were outbreaks of 'dancing hysteria' - particularly in the year 1518, which have been quite well documented. It must have been quite apocalyptic in places at that time...
PapaverFollis
Well-Known Member
Yes it does really odd things to people. I was looking at my neighbour's oat crop which is still not harvested and wondering if it will be OK. They probably use resistant varieties these days for grain crops though.
It's weird because it has actually been really dry up here this summer! When I was reading about people getting ergot I was not at all concerned because we haven't had the wet.
It's weird because it has actually been really dry up here this summer! When I was reading about people getting ergot I was not at all concerned because we haven't had the wet.
Fruitcake
Well-Known Member
Not sure how trojan-like I'm feeling at the moment! I think I have some sort of repetitive stress thing going on with my hand from the shears! Yes, it's definitely a good job we love the horses!!
Yes, we found it on some tall, fluffy grass too. (I'm not very good with varieties). Most of the field we did today is that short 'feathery' grass though that looks, thankfully, unaffected.
ycbm
Einstein would be proud of my Insanity...
Is this about horses not having enough space to roam? I've been grazing 10+ acres with an average of 2+ horses for 30 years and I have never even looked for any of this dangerous stuff. I didn't even know about it. I think maybe horses with enough choice don't eat stuff that's dangerous? That brings its own problems, of course.
I'll probably walk out and find 2 dead horses tomorrow now!
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I'll probably walk out and find 2 dead horses tomorrow now!
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PapaverFollis
Well-Known Member
I would look for the dangerous stuff regardless if it was brought to my attention. I've more space here than I ever had on livery yards so it's not a factor for me. I've literally never heard of alsike clover before this year. And I knew about ergot but hadn't considered that it would be an issue on standing grass at any point... with respect to that they've never really had standing grass because the livery fields were always either topped for haylage or (over) grazed. I know about horse tail because we looked at a field when we were looking which hadn't been grazed for years and it was rank with it so I think I asked on here and found out that was Bad. I think most poisonous plants they will avoid if they have enough to eat but with alsike clover they'll eat it because it is tasty!
Sycamore is a known problem but I only really found out about that recently too. I had a vague notion it was bad but one of the livery yards had a tonne of sycamore trees and noone eve mentioned it! Now I'm freaking out because my neighbours have one tiny one on the other side of their house (they have chopped down the two on my fence line because they are actual angels ?)
But yeah. For me it's just a knowledge accumulation rather than a space issue! And a complete inability to just leave stuff alone. "Ooo, I wonder if...." and off I toddle to find the dangerous thing. A low, there it is.
Also having my own place and enjoying plant ID meant I was cataloguing everything.
Sycamore is a known problem but I only really found out about that recently too. I had a vague notion it was bad but one of the livery yards had a tonne of sycamore trees and noone eve mentioned it! Now I'm freaking out because my neighbours have one tiny one on the other side of their house (they have chopped down the two on my fence line because they are actual angels ?)
But yeah. For me it's just a knowledge accumulation rather than a space issue! And a complete inability to just leave stuff alone. "Ooo, I wonder if...." and off I toddle to find the dangerous thing. A low, there it is.
Also having my own place and enjoying plant ID meant I was cataloguing everything.
Labaire
...
I've two ponies on six acres currently-I like my ponies to have space.
I expect there’s been ergot before but it’s really obvious this year and we’ve had a hot dry summer here. My ponies like to go about snipping off seed heads and while I trust their instincts to a point, there doesn’t seem to be much choosiness going on when they do that.
It’s not a field that I can get machines into so I’ve no way of topping earlier in the year. I will strim what I can and have fenced of the worst two acres.
palo1
Well-Known Member
I think there is a bit of a hangover or knowledge lag in equestrian ownership from an earlier time when most horse-owners were landowners who either had staff or worked their fields themselves and understood all the agonomic issues. In the current times there is a huge lack of knowledge about land/grass management in the UK horse owning group I think - largely because many horse owners have either no personal history of land management or it is left to farmers who don't need to talk about it or livery managers who may or may not be closely connected to that knowledge. Ergot and Alsike clover are both pretty well understood by stock farmers in my experience and a great many things that are 'new' to equestrians are historically understood by other land managers; the benefits of magnesium, of lime, of forage balancing etc. It is sometimes difficult to persuade equestrian land owners to discuss with other stock farmers as there are cultural interferences on both sides which don't make it easy.
Fruitcake
Well-Known Member
I think there could be something in this. We have far too much space for our horses (hence the standing hay) but can’t allow them completely free access as they’re tubby natIves. Our summer grazing is overgrazed purposefully (although I know this isn’t ideal and we do rotate). I totally agree about the dangerous stuff! My horses have always grazed standing hay and I’m sure we must’ve had this in the past - I just never knew about it. I’m a natural worrier and whenever I read about something, I find problems!
PapaverFollis
Well-Known Member
None of the farmers I have spoken to about the clover had any idea what it was either. ? or they didn't let on "what clover? Pink and white you say?".
It's a small sample though and I think mine came up from the seed bank so perhaps it's not common around here generally.
But they do all top their fields so are probably aware of ergot... or maybe they just top their fields because you top fields. ?
You're right though. I've never owned land. My family have never owned land. Noone I know, apart from on here and the livery yard owners and farmers I've met along the way, has ever owned land. Its a learning curve but I'm not taking it for granted. As I say, it's not that I mind the work. It's the "WTF now??!" moments that I'm struggling with. ?
It's a small sample though and I think mine came up from the seed bank so perhaps it's not common around here generally.
But they do all top their fields so are probably aware of ergot... or maybe they just top their fields because you top fields. ?
You're right though. I've never owned land. My family have never owned land. Noone I know, apart from on here and the livery yard owners and farmers I've met along the way, has ever owned land. Its a learning curve but I'm not taking it for granted. As I say, it's not that I mind the work. It's the "WTF now??!" moments that I'm struggling with. ?
ycbm
Einstein would be proud of my Insanity...
How does the ergot issue sit with the increasing trend of feeding foggage?
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palo1
Well-Known Member
We have always been unwilling to feed foggage - not because of ergot per se but because the 'received knowledge' (lol!) in these parts at least is that there simply isn't enough nutrition in foggage and that you end up with deficiencies and problems in both the land and the stock if you do this year after year. I have tried growing and feeding foggage but without much luck; I think our ground is too wet for one thing and the horses wouldn't eat much of it. My OH (a farmers son) found it unbearable to think of what was happening to the grazing under that scheme - it really, really stressed him out and essentially made that land ungrazable over the winter for cattle or sheep. It just didn't work for us and we value the input of other stock more than grazing the horses over winter when we can quite easily feed them hay. We had, for several years, endless problems with our grazing in any case with lots of minor health issues with the horses feet, skin, eyes etc. After that we did both soil and forage analysis (as many of our neighbouring farmers do) and took a different track to the standard barefoot naturalisation of grazing approach. We limed our fields well, use plenty of cow muck and even organic fertiliser and graze horses on the longer stuff in a kind of mob grazing style. My native has to be muzzled but we have not had any lami or other issues and the grass is neither short and stressed nor does it get to the seed point. We cross graze with cattle and sheep and rest the fields over winter with alternative turnout for the horses. The horses are much healthier on this regime with a fairly standard balancer than when I was committed to following a bespoke balanced and naturalised grazing approach but we do have old pasture that is not, essentially, very rich.
Also, our horses are in work or grazing over the summer before being turned back out onto a Welsh hill so we are possibly more comfortable with them eating 'richer' grass than might be appropriate for some. I do know that I would not graze horses on a bare patch now nor will I try feeding/growing foggage again; it is too expensive to supplement and the grazing which might be 'safer' for horses can lead to the deterioration of soil fertility which is a problem for us. It's not easy to balance all the factors I don't think but I do know that having other stock really helps.
As for poisonous plants; we don't have alsike clover (thankfully! Most of our neighbours are definately aware of that) and we are generally reasonably relaxed about other stuff as the horses have plenty of grass to choose. I would get rid of ragwort and sycamore in fact though.
You can go mad thinking of all the things that can go wrong @PapaverFollis and that is very trying whilst you are understanding your own land and any specific characteristics that has!! But most things are dealable with and can be sorted one thing at a time. If you think about the health of the land firstly, most things should (!!) follow on from that - ideally you are looking to nurture ph balanced fertile soil and edible grasses in some diversity. Sometimes easier said than done...!!
MissTyc
Well-Known Member
All this is terrifying. We have diverse meadow grazing, and I have to admit I mostly close my eye and let the ponies get on with it. We rotate 45 acres in 15 acres batches and the ponies seem pretty good at eating the right stuff ... We top occasionally but did not get to it this year for the winter field - wondering if can still fit it in, but without collecting I think it would now just rot where it falls ... We spray on rotation every 3 years but thankfully we're on infertile chalk soil so we mostly have crappy grass (desirable for a pony herd), fescue and yarrow.
milliepops
Wears headscarf aggressively
I think there's foggage and foggage.
the last yard I left had grass that had grown and rotted over multiple years because the YO was so stingy with strip grazing they never grazed their full paddocks... and he was too tight to get the grass topped. it was clearly not appetising stuff and the horses would just trample even the newer growth that poked through the old stuff. Grim.
I've tried to hold back grass for winter that just grows a bit longer and rougher, rather than the seed heads it's just older grass which stands up to hooves better and gives them more to fill tummies with. or have grazed into standing hay that's still of an age that would be fit for mowing, to avoid it getting trampled, more an early autumn thing than the depths of winter.
the last yard I left had grass that had grown and rotted over multiple years because the YO was so stingy with strip grazing they never grazed their full paddocks... and he was too tight to get the grass topped. it was clearly not appetising stuff and the horses would just trample even the newer growth that poked through the old stuff. Grim.
I've tried to hold back grass for winter that just grows a bit longer and rougher, rather than the seed heads it's just older grass which stands up to hooves better and gives them more to fill tummies with. or have grazed into standing hay that's still of an age that would be fit for mowing, to avoid it getting trampled, more an early autumn thing than the depths of winter.
palo1
Well-Known Member
Yes, that sounds good to me. By mid-winter I don't think standing hay has enough value nutritionally to be much cop and it isn't at all appetising which leads to waste and particularly selective grazing. But grass that would mow would be less rich though still have value. It is very hard to schedule all that though I find so we tend to focus on just having grass of a reasonable length from about March to October! This year has been good for our grazing so we have some pretty long stuff (still green and not seeded) as we have moved the horse's mobile paddock round pretty quickly this summer. The base of the grass is much thicker and healthier this year than last when we struggled to not graze down 'to the road'. It seems to take the grass ages to recover from that and then also allows less desirable plants in too. Sheep are fantastic for taking grazing back to an even 'length' over winter whilst also helpfully adding poo too. Grassland management, particularly if you want to encourage diversity in fauna and flora is a real art in fact! We haven't cracked it yet...
milliepops
Wears headscarf aggressively
we've really struggled this year. Normally half the big horse field is closed off for hay, but there was no point as it just wasn't growing. After the hay crop is done and that area reopened then i would usually close off a sunny bank that they then strip graze in the autumn.. but I've had to leave it all open as it all just took too long to get going. My nursery field is dying for a rest but isn't going to get it until next year now as there's nothing to move the youngsters to. Hopeless! fortunately the permanent hay fields had a good yield so we have enough to not worry about needing the grazing to provide "keep" this winter.
PapaverFollis
Well-Known Member
My winter field (planted May 2020) currently looks like...
I'm not feeling particularly confident about it. But we'll just have to see. My summer field that there's been on since we got here is completely scalped and is going to need some serious TLC. Again, I just feel like I'm failing all the time.
I'm not feeling particularly confident about it. But we'll just have to see. My summer field that there's been on since we got here is completely scalped and is going to need some serious TLC. Again, I just feel like I'm failing all the time.
