Letting graze

[lucky seven]

How much grass should minis be allowed to have? My boy is on a drylot but also has a pen with grass that gives him much more room to run in. He loves to go to the far fence, get a running start and end with a sliding stop at the other end. Looks like a combined barrel racer and reigning horse

This winter my hubby snowblowed a maze in that pen and does he love running it.

 

[Matt73]

If I had grass the very most I'd allow mine on it would be an hour or so (when I did have it, that's how long they went out on it). I'm so happy to not have any grass paddocks. My little ones are happy and healthy on the hay they're on and Gro 'n Win, throughout the year.

 

[targetsmom]

Grass is a very sore subject in the Northeast US these days.... ours is buried under FEET of snow.

But to answer your question.. it depends. Some minis will do fine on grass 24/7 (once they have been introduced VERY slowly) and some will get fat and/or founder. It sounds like you have a relatively small area of grass. If that is the case, then I would let you boy out there a maximum of maybe 2 hours a day or whatever time will keep the grass a good length. I would also introduce him very slowly by starting with only 15-20 minutes and working up over 2 weeks to the 2 hours. (Just a rough estimate - if grass is very tall or lush I would go even slower).

We use our back yard for turnout and found that 1 mini or 1 mare & foal for about 2 hours a day keeps it a nice length. Fertilized too.

 

[rabbitsfizz]

Mine are out on grazing 24/7. If you can do this they settle down and do not over eat- obviously some occasionally will eat and eat but it is occasional, not par for the course. The problem with limiting grazing by time is and always will be that it makes the horse stuff itself as quickly as it can, so it always looks as if they are eating a lot. This is also a good way for them to founder, as it is the sudden influx of good grass that can cause this.

Leaving a horse on short grass all the time is by far the best way to do it, if the grass is too rich a hotwire is a much better way to limit amount than taking them off the grass. Horses are meant to eat grass, although their digestive systems are not brilliant this is what they are meant to eat.

In 50 years I have had exactly two cases of founder and, although some might say my horses are too fat, they are easy enough to get ready for shows, so what does it matter if, before and after the show season they pack on a few pounds, so do I!!

 

[FoRebel]

Our biggies are out 24/7 in the summer, the minis are out at least 12 hrs a day.

 

[maplegum]

Mine are out during the day and bought into the horse yard at night.

 

[lucky seven]

My grass is under snow, with more on the way the next two days. He will always be stalled at night, just to keep him from eating too much and away from roving dogs. Has anyonetried grazing muzzles? In thesmaller paddock that is a drylot, he spends all of his time eating the grass on the otherside of the fenceline. When I let him graze he would eat as fast as he could so I think itwould be better if he was on grass during the day only.

 

[supaspot]

my broodmares/ youngstock are out 24/7 in the summer and 12 hours in the winter , the others get at least 8-10 hours a day

 

[Helicopter]

This is always a huge concern for me too because I am absolutely paranoid about founder.

We are told by the experts that horses should never be left without feed, that they should always have free access to hay when not on grass.

There is so much grass here this year because of all the rain we've had in the last 12 months (after 9 years of very little). And weeds.....weeds I've never seen before...some of which contain toxins that build up in the system and eventually damage the liver (if eaten).

I've been limiting grazing and putting the herd in a bare yard (I guess that's what you call a dry lot) between turnouts. They are going hours without feed which I know is not good but if they had free choice hay they would never stop eating.

They all seem to be doing OK but I worry about ulcers.

In fact when I think about it I seem to spend an awful lot of time worrying about the horses

and agonising about my management.

Pathetic, aren't I?

Any words of wisdom?

 

[lucky seven]

Founder is my biggest fear also. I drive by a paddock with minis on a round bale, I don't think they should be on them either. To grass or not is a very big issue to keep our little friends healthy.

 

[Getitia]

All of our miniature horses are allowed to graze year around from around 9am to around 7pm - our pastures are primarily orchard grass/timothy/bluegrass - no clovers. Pastures are fertilized and treated each year and mowed. We have about 100 acres of pasture in total and we rotate the various pasture fields. We bring up the horses each night to covered paddocks, and they are provided grain and hay. This has been our approach for 20 years. To date, we have never had a case of founder. None.......... and this statistic would represent hundreds of miniature horses over the years.

All of our show horses (except the stallions) are turned out with the primary group of horses at the end of the show season and follow the same program as above until we bring them up to the main show barn a couple of months prior to our first show.

This has just been our experience and our approach.

 

[weebiscuit]

How much grass should minis be allowed to have? My boy is on a drylot but also has a pen with grass that gives him much more room to run in. He loves to go to the far fence, get a running start and end with a sliding stop at the other end. Looks like a combined barrel racer and reigning horse

This winter my hubby snowblowed a maze in that pen and does he love running it.

I love the snow maze! LOL!

After years of trail and error and having very fat horses on pasture, we worked out a schedule that seems to work very well for us. I used to let my miniatures out into their pastures the same time I'd let the big riding horses out, and I always noticed that after three or four hours of grazing my big horses would lay down and rest and soak up the sun. But not the minis. They must have thought they were hired as offical lawnmowers and in charge of eliminating anything green. They just never stopped grazing!

We began taking them off pasture after six or seven hours and bringing them into the dry lots to just digest their food until we brought them into their stalls at night. But they were still far too fat, so we kept adjusting the time and for the last few years they go out in the morning for four to five hours when the grass is the lushest, and we lengthen the time a bit starting in August until they are outside from morning till they come into the barn at night by October.

When they are at the point where they are taken off pasture after only four hours we always give them a wee bit of hay in the afternoon, halfway between the time they were taken off pasture and before they come into their stalls for the night. This seems to have worked out very well for us in preventing bloated, fat horses. Their dry lots are big and spacious, so they find places to lay down and rest or just walk around annoying each other.

Like I said, this works very well. None of them look thin, but they don't look tubby, either. The only thing is that it's kind of a pain for us to always have to bring them in off pasture in the middle of the day, as it puts a crimp in being able to go away for the day if we want to, but by September they are out there for much longer so we just do out gadding about then and in October.

 

[Riverrose28]

It depends on each individual horse, I have a mare that foundered and the vet says no way to let her eat grass even with hand walking. On the other hand, we have a dwarf that has been out on grass her whole life, six years now and is just fine, We rotate our stallions in a grass field and they do just fine. I think it just depends on the horse.

 

[Relic]

Our herd from the foals to the oldest are out on pasture all summer and on round bales 24/7 all winter we also don't stall except if sick/foaling/showing etc. l found food in front of them all the time hasn't been a big problem nor have we ever had any of them founder...l do control pasture grazing time to only days and a round for nights in early spring and after the first frost as sugar is high in pastures around then.

 

[weebiscuit]

This is always a huge concern for me too because I am absolutely paranoid about founder.

We are told by the experts that horses should never be left without feed, that they should always have free access to hay when not on grass.

There is so much grass here this year because of all the rain we've had in the last 12 months (after 9 years of very little). And weeds.....weeds I've never seen before...some of which contain toxins that build up in the system and eventually damage the liver (if eaten).

I've been limiting grazing and putting the herd in a bare yard (I guess that's what you call a dry lot) between turnouts. They are going hours without feed which I know is not good but if they had free choice hay they would never stop eating.

They all seem to be doing OK but I worry about ulcers.

In fact when I think about it I seem to spend an awful lot of time worrying about the horses

and agonising about my management.

Pathetic, aren't I?

LOL! I don't think you need to worry about your horses getting ulcers as much as getting them yourself! I don't necessarily agree that a horse should have feed in front of them every hour of the day. What about show horses? Their feed is severely limited at times. Of course, a lot of show horses DO get ulcers!

 

I think a good rule of thumb is to never let a horse go four hours or more without food. They need a more constant supply of it going through their guts than other animals. And if they are out on pasture for four, five, six hours, and then brought off pasture, they don't need an entire bale of hay four hours later, either. Just enough that they can finish in a half hour is actually sufficient. As long as they get some more in another four hours.

 

I think every horse owner worries about founder, but I wonder what the statistics would show to be the actual number of horses that founder in a year? All my friends have horses. I've had horses for 40 years. I have NEVER had a case of founder, and never had a friend who had a horse founder. I know of only one other person in my area that had a foundered horse.

 

My horses get a big bunch of hay, individually in their stalls, each night around 7 PM and they don't get fed again till 7 AM. I know that hay we give them doesn't last 12 hours. Not if they are eating at it steadily. Maybe if they eat an hour here and then rest and then an hour there, it might last. I have no idea because I don't check them at 2 AM to see if they have any hay left, but they have always been just fine.

 

[rabbitsfizz]

A horses digestive system works on eating 22 o/o 24 hours a day.

It is as simple as that.

It is a common fallacy that horses will never stop eating, they are meant to graze all the time, this does not, necessarily, mean that they over eat, only that this is the way they are supposed to live!

My horses, as said, are out 24/7, on good grass.

I have never had a horse over eat hay.....well, one mare I bought in did, but she had been starved, and I think it was as a result of this that she always stood at the hay rack, even when there was grass around, and she never foundered.

In response to Helicopter, yes, you should worry about ulcers.

As soon as a horse is removed form it's natural environment, ulcers become a real possibility.

Even our show horses, receiving the best of care and feed, get ulcers all the time.

Once you limit a horses eating pattern, ulcers enter the picture.

If there is really no alternative, I would have the whole herd on some sort of ulcer medication, but, you can do marvels with an electric fence, why not do as I do and strip graze across your filed? It is a bit of work, but at least the horses are eating (they do not have to be eating long lush grass- this is the point that most people do not seem to understand, they only need to be moving their jaws across almost bare ground in order for their brains to be satisfied!

So, in all circumstances, a horse out on a short grassed paddock is 100% happier, in it's own brain, than one kept in a stall, simply because this is the situation every fibre in it's body is telling it should be so.

How many times have people said their horse would rather stand out in the rain than go in a run in?

My own mares only use their sheds in summer, in winter, even in the snow, they stood with their backs against the hedge line.

Turning a horse out on grass does not have to mean turning it out on knee deep grass and leaving it to eat itself into founder.

I manage my fields and I manage my horses grass intake, as I am sure everyone who grazes does. Whether by strip grazing or making sure the pasture is not too rich for the animals turned out on it, it is all part of horse keeping.

So, there is absolutely no reason why, with a little hard work and oversight, horses cannot be kept on even the richest grass, in safety.

It is all down to how you want to keep your horses.

But leaving them without any food at all for anything over a couple of hours is asking for trouble, sorry.

 

[AnnaC]

Hear hear Jane.

I think that most of the digestive troubles in horses these days are caused by restricted 'eating'. We all know that horses are 'trickle' feeders and leaving them without food with their gastric juices running and nothing to work on, is just asking for trouble.

Of course horses allowed out on pasture for a few hours each day will 'tuck in' as fast as they can - green grass is manna from Heaven for them. Most horses that free range graze will regulate their intake and also be on the move a lot more, which is again more natural and good for their systems. Horses kept on dry lots/bare pasture areas but with 24/7 hay, will of course have access to a steady eating programme, but a lot of these animals then do not move around very much.

Not many of us have the perfect system/farm space or layout for our horses, but we do our best and keeping them as near to their natural way of existing can only be a good thing for them.

Anna

 

[CharlesFamily]

We don't have very much pasture, so I don't have to worry as much about the grass. During the summer, I will let the minis into the backyard for a few hours at a time as a treat to eat the grass there, but not first thing in the spring.

This winter has been one of our coldest and snowiest on record. I was blowing through my hay supply just trying to keep enough hay in front of them to help keep them warm, so I decided to try a round bale. I was nervous at first because they went out and literally gorged themselves on the hay. I checked on them often that first day and that night after I had put them in and they were fine. Now, since they have realized the hay isn't going anywhere, they will actually walk away from the bale during the day and go find something else to do!

That said, my horses look better coming into the tail end of winter than they ever have! I am very excited to see what they look like under all of that hair, because with some of the other changes I have made to my feeding program this year, I think conditioning them is going to be a breeze! They aren't too thin at all, but they have a nice balance and I can feel under all that hair that their toplines are still doing good. I was sure I would have some very bloated bellies to work off of them after the round bales, but once they learned to eat them in moderation and settled down, that hasn't been the case.

I think this just comes down to having to know your horse. I am a firm believer in horses having something to do for the majority of the day - and they were meant to be grazing animals. Since we don't have much grass, except in spring and early summr, I supplement with enough hay to give them something to do. Of couse, that's my belief - I also don't believe in horses standing in stalls all day except for 1-2 hours of work or turnout - but each to their own!

Barbara

 

[mdegner]

We live in west central MN and our non-show horses==primarily the brood mares and retired brood mares--are in grass pastures 24/7. Something has been grazing on our land for thousands of years as it is primarily prairie grasses. We will rotate our horses and beefalo sometimes as the beefalo will go into one of the pastures, eat all the weeds and trim the grass down nicely for the horses. We have never had founder but the gals will get pretty chubby and this year I want to dry lot between 10 PM and 5 in the morning to see if that helps with the weight at all. They are very healthy and typically foal in the pastures as well, so I am a big believer in letting horses be horses, as others have pointed out. With our brutal winters, that extra weight is usually gone by spring anyway and this year is looking to be no exception. Obviously our show horses are not on grass and we struggle with creating a space where they can run without finding some grass to eat as the rich soil we have is constantly sprouting something. If we are introducting or reintroducing a horse to grass, we do it very slowly, maybe 15 mins a day and then building up slowly over a period of time.

Love the snow maze idea but this year its been all we can do to keep the driveway plowed with over 60 inches of snow. I can see the look on my husband's face if I suggest he start plowing a trail through the pastures......LOL

 

[Helicopter]

With the flush of spring growth and again with the flush of autumn growth there are horses around this area foundering left, right and centre. This area has been (and still is) a sheep and cattle area. All the low energy native grasses are long gone, replaced by grasses designed to fatten stock. Not good horse feed at all....too rich.

I lost my beautiful part arab to founder about a month after moving to the area. His pedal bones rotated in all 4 feet and stuck out the bottom of his hooves. He was 20 and had never had a sick day in his life. Thought I'd die too........you know how it is.

I have a mini who is a chronic foundered.......probably metabolic syndrome now. Under control at the moment......she never gets a bite of grass and her chaff and hay are soaked to leach out the sugars, Speedibeet and Zero round out her feed.. Another had a couple of slight episodes but I caught it early.........you live and learn. I know a LOT about founder.............................now.

Another is so fat you would swear she is related to a hippopotamus......wears a feeding muzzle......wears them out really fast.

Hence the paranoia.

Thank you all for your input. My management is constantly evolving and I really do appreciate your advice.