01/06/2025
Managing abundance.
It might look like they are on the pasture, but they are not. This is a central track that had little to no grass on it. They are nibbling bits of it. The pasture, currently as high or higher than their chest, is abundant in a rich variety of plants, and is still growing.
Our dark, loamy soil, abundant rainfall, facilitates enormous amount of growth. When the pasture finishes its growing, or almost finishes growing, I will open the pasture to them.
We have two pasture fields on this land plot, and another field nearby.
Between then three fields there is about 4.5 acres of grass.
This will feed the four horses, without hay bills, for about 5 months.
If the horses had regular access to the land all year, the grass wouldn’t be able to rest. Species that are healthy for them to eat would be pummeled away, and toxic w**ds take over. Giving us in the end, a lower yield of grass, and triggering a cascade of events in the grass biome that leads to stressed grasses, the necessity to fertilize abundantly, and the down the road risk of laminitis and metabolic diseases.
Already in the pasture, last summers high traffic zones have patches of toxic plants growing where the horses over used the land in concentrated movement pathways. Which we are pulling out by hand before the horses are turned out.
So not only resting the pasture, but laying out the spaces better, so that the horses move through the pasture in a manner that reduces over concentration of traffic in specific areas.
To do this, I changed the gates of entry, to two zones of entry not one and will consolidate footing at the entries. Then, I fertilized with our own manure, and overseeded parts of the pasture with their favorite grass, to draw them out of high traffic zones and pull them into corners they use less. The pasture then is patchy, but that’s natural. And the amount of feed this small plot produces is totally impressive to me.
I over seeded with a mixture. I sought an alpine, temperate grass mix with a minimum of rye and a lot of herb, and mixed this with avena negra, black oats. Black oats are native to the Iberian peninsula and have a lower glycemic index than white oats. They love nitrogen and are a perfect winter cover crop, and are competitive against broad leaf w**ds. They have already gone to seed, and now I harvest by hand small bunches of it at a time, for treats, but also to begin establishing their biome to grass one mouthful at a time, in preparation for pasture season in a few weeks.
Late in the summer, just before the autumn rains, I feel the roots of the plants be tired under foot. This is when I close the pasture, to let the grass drink and rest.
Maintenance of the pasture in this manner can allow horses to eat this grass without metabolic concerns. Important to mention, that it has been many decades since this land was plowed, fertilized with synthetic fertilizer, has probably never seen pesticides, and the seeds I used were organic and horse safe, some of them native to the Iberian peninsula.
The rest of the year they have access to a fully surfaced 650 meter track, with a variety of surfaces and local hay produced in exactly the same manner.
Good pasture is not about meddling with it less, just maintaining it differently than industrial agriculture might encourage us to do.
I am grateful for this land and how it holds our horses.
