Will it never end?

[The Xmas Furry]

Yes, no more standing hay! And I've gone off a track too after watching my horses get lost around it for a month... I think from now on I might split into 5 paddocks and rotate every month or something.

I have mine as paddocks, previously many years ago we worked out where best to site permanent fencing by using electric for a long while.
Each and every paddock has a gateway to the adjoining ones including 3 separate gates onto my yard. Makes my life so much easier day to day. The water is only in the 3 paddocks close to yard, the 2 smallest are kept pretty bare and then gates get opened to the adjacent one or further, depending on grazing needs.
Probably sounds odd to some, but the fuzzies get exercise to get a drink and then wandering back up the fields to graze.

 

[palo1]

Yes, no more standing hay! And I've gone off a track too after watching my horses get lost around it for a month... I think from now on I might split into 5 paddocks and rotate every month or something.

Have a look at simple mob grazing systems which can be adapted for horses as well as tailored to an equicentral system. This is the compromise we have found to work best; the grass isn't stressed by being grazed to the road but grown longer it is not so 'dangerous' and the horses can have 'fresh' pasture every day. We don't graze the same small paddock more than 2 days in a row though it involves a fair bit of fence moving!

 

[Ceriann]

So glad I read this - thank you for raising awareness. Two fields just cut for haylage and I have tiny bits of it along the borders of those fields! Dots of it here and there. We will burn the bales we got off the fields and I’ve just used our mulching lawn mower to mulch the borders and corners (v sweaty messy job). Such tiny amounts - only two small fields and some bales so not the end of the world. We have sheep on our winter fields so no standing hay anywhere else.

If anyone knows how long you have to leave the mulched stuff before they can graze that would be really helpful.

 

[Not_so_brave_anymore]

Sorry to tag in at the end of this. I've walked my autumn track and literally cut by hand and removed all the seed heads ("luckily" I've got hardly any grass- it's all weeds!). But my winter grazing is denser, and there is a moderate (?) amount of ergot. Anyone who knows about these things- I won't be using this grazing til beginning of December, will the seeds have dropped by then do you think, and will this make it basically safe?

 

[Fruitcake]

I found a vet website type source saying to keep consumption of ergot at <0.1% of total feed volume. So less than 15g a day for the bigger horses. So 60 infected seed heads? Easily done in a fully infested field but they're realistically not going to get that from a cleared field, even if some has fallen to the ground.

With regard to amounts in the Facebook Post above... 1g of ergot per seed head is a large over-estimate (I just weighed two infested seed heads -because it has been bugging me- without seperating the ergot and it didnt even tip the scales to 1g... at most I'd say 0.25g ergot per seed head, at the very most). Also, generally toxicity needs a "per volume of feed" stated after it, or even "per amount of time" perhaps or "per area grazed". Ideally they wouldn't have any but I can't understand how none of us had been more aware of it if it was that deadly? But then I don't think I've ever seen it before, would I have noticed though?

I thought the same when I saw that FB post. I don’t have electric scales so I couldn’t weigh any but I totally agree that there’s no way there can be 1g per head.

I’m actually pretty sure I’ve seen it before. When I Googled it following reading this thread, it was the familiarity of the photos that made me check the fields. I know it’s something I recognise so imagine that I must’ve seen it before. How much there would’ve been I don’t know though as I wouldn’t have been looking for it.

 

[Fruitcake]

Basically I think it's wise to be aware but our horses have probably grazed it in previous year when we were all oblivious. Obviously knowledge is power and now we know we can try our best to manage things but perhaps it doesn't need to be thr reason for sleepless nights

This is exactly the way I’m trying to look at it now. I was initially frantic, but in hindsight, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it in previous years but haven’t registered what it was as I didn’t know anything about it. I’ve done the best I can this year. I’ve hand snipped one field that I’m now stripping into and am rechecking every evening when I step the fence back. I’ve had the other two fields topped and will leave them until next year when it’s, hopefully, rotted down (if not, I’ll rake up the stems). I’m gradually hand snipping the bits at the edge that the topper didn’t get and I’ve started all the horses on Micobind. Next year, I’ll top before the seedheads develop.

I read a really good comment someone made on one of the many FB posts about this. She’d had a “grass person” out to look, who’d advised her to hand snip the seed heads and, to calm her down had asked her what she would’ve done with the field if she hadn’t happened to read the warning online. She replied that she’d have been grazing it over winter. He pointed out that whatever action she was taking now was an improvement on what she would’ve done if she’d remained blissfully unaware. That comment really calmed me down too!

 

[ycbm]

Basically I think it's wise to be aware but our horses have probably grazed it in previous year when we were all oblivious. Obviously knowledge is power and now we know we can try our best to manage things but perhaps it doesn't need to be thr reason for sleepless nights

Spot on there.

 

[southerncomfort]

I've changed to handsnipping affected seed heads and strimming down all the unaffected ones just in case they think about going to the bad! All are removed and burnt in an incinerator bin.

I was thinking today that even if some seeds drop, the likelihood is that the ponies will step on them and press them in to the ground. I can't see them ferreting out unpalatable seeds when their is so much grass in there.

I might even just run the roller over it if I have time.

Mine will have to go in there next month but we strip graze so it should be relatively simple to re-walk the strip before moving the fencing.

I'm not sure what the reasoning is behind leaving it a season...?

 

[PapaverFollis]

The whole plough in and leave a season is if you are trying to grow cereal crops on the land I think. We can just not let the grass go to seed again. But cereals obviously have to go to seed!

 

[PapaverFollis]

The ergots fall to the ground and then next year will grow teeny mushrooms that release spore to reinfect the grass...

 

[DizzyDoughnut]

The ergots fall to the ground and then next year will grow teeny mushrooms that release spore to reinfect the grass...

Eekk, I can't believe I'd never heard of this before this last week! I found a tiny bit in my field, but if I miss any and end up with tiny mushrooms will keeping the field topped before the seed heads appear solve the problem or do I have to walk round looking for tiny mushrooms to destroy next year?
I keep telling myself that this must have been around in previous years I just never knew about it and my ponies have survived fine so far, but now I know I can't ignore it! Anyone walking past my field will think I've lost the plot walking round inspecting the grass and lopping affected bits off!

 

[southerncomfort]

So will the mushrooms be poisonous??

(Heading towards hysteria again!!)

 

[PapaverFollis]

So will the mushrooms be poisonous??

(Heading towards hysteria again!!)

They're teeny tiny. I think it is just the ergots that are the problem!

 

[PapaverFollis]

I'm not sure these helpful FB posts from various nutritionists are actually helpful at all.
Latest one implies that hay should not be made from a field that has ergot (on it now) "in future"... what, never ever ever again?

Seems like, again, if that was the case we'd all have been a bit more aware of ergot?

 

[southerncomfort]

I'm not sure these helpful FB posts from various nutritionists are actually helpful at all.
Latest one implies that hay should not be made from a field that has ergot (on it now) "in future"... what, never ever ever again?

Seems like, again, if that was the case we'd all have been a bit more aware of ergot?

Yes all the different info has been a bit confusing tbh.

I've seen some vets being very doom and gloom, while others say it's bound to have been in our fields before whether we've seen it or not and they've never had to treat a horse with ergotism.

BTW although I'm seeing a fair few mouldy looking seed heads, very few of them seem to have developed the black seeds.

Also, I swear every time I closed my eyes last night all I could see were b****y seed heads!!

 

[Labaire]

Well my ponies limbo'd under the electric fence strands that span the burn and greeted me in the waist deep grass at the other side of the field when I went after work the other day-the 4 acres that they are currently fenced off from. So the risks were laminitis, colic and ergotism. They looked pretty full but thankfully none the worse for wear. They are very good about fencing usually and think they just realised that the burn is very low and the strand relatively high..
There are a lot of mouldy seed heads that dont seem to be ergot, but there is also a fair amount of ergot-I have a lot of cocksfoot and that seems to have a fair bit.
I also wonder if verges not being mowed until nowish is a contributory factor-the verges are rife with it. I'd be sorry to see them mowed earlier due to the amount of wild flowers and moths we have.

 

[palo1]

Well my ponies limbo'd under the electric fence strands that span the burn and greeted me in the waist deep grass at the other side of the field when I went after work the other day-the 4 acres that they are currently fenced off from. So the risks were laminitis, colic and ergotism. They looked pretty full but thankfully none the worse for wear. They are very good about fencing usually and think they just realised that the burn is very low and the strand relatively high..
There are a lot of mouldy seed heads that dont seem to be ergot, but there is also a fair amount of ergot-I have a lot of cocksfoot and that seems to have a fair bit.
I also wonder if verges not being mowed until nowish is a contributory factor-the verges are rife with it. I'd be sorry to see them mowed earlier due to the amount of wild flowers and moths we have.

Yes, it is a fundamental conundrum of rewilding and other nature friendly practices that there will be some species that lose out, possibly terminally. I don't mean horses obviously but you get my drift! Birds of prey love shorter grass for example as it makes life easier in some ways for them but the smaller prey critters do better with longer grass which in a roundabout way may, eventually provide a more sustainable food source for predators other than birds of prey and the same for invertebrates and all life. Not always easy to find the balance.

 

[PapaverFollis]

Nightmare, Labaire! I hope your ponies are OK.