Lace's Legacy - Track Grazing

19/11/2024

Recently I had a horse come to stay while her owner was on holiday.

With such a short stay there’s no point trying to put them in with the whole herd but I also don’t want to be forced to keep any horse alone, without a friend.

Happily I have Richie who is the perfect friend for new arrivals. He doesn’t bully anyone and is very good at looking after himself. I can put him straight in with them and know he won’t hurt them and that he will be able to stay out of trouble himself ❤️

Sure enough he soon taught her about track life - I think he enjoyed having a girlfriend! 😅

Neither of them needed too much grass so we soon settled into a routine of haynets at night and a break of horse grasses in the mornings

28/10/2024

There is no way to set up a tape in the morning at the moment without ending up wet to mid-thigh! 😂😂🙄😩

18/07/2024

Found someone 😁😁

My flatmate is leaving 😢 so I’m looking for another

Horse/farm capable
Near Pirongia

Pm for details if interested

20/05/2024

The new horse, Arke, is settling in well... if not entirely according to plan.

While Richie and Dreamer were confined to the barn and the bale for a few days post drenching, Arke was free to hang out next to them and explore a smaller loop of the track system.

After a few days separated with half the bale he was able to be with them and share happily, they were back on the grass, all was calm.

But then Arke decided he didn't want to hang out with the bachelor bromance underling pair and started crying at the gate to be let in with the big kids. Nothing would do but to let everyone in together otherwise he was going to waste away pining at the gate 😟

Jimmy had been grooming him over the gate, which was a good sign as being the lowest ranking of the big kids he's the one who has the task of chasing interlopers away.

So I opened the gates and let them mix. 🫣
Dancer wasn't in season so predictably wanted him well gone and her lieutenants, Tigger and George, were quick to enforce.

But at 23 he's a canny lad and being a TB quick enough to get out of the way.

Now we're a couple of weeks along and they're starting to accept him. No one wants to finish the bale as the grass is still growing, so everyone is confined to the barn at night... except George and Arke who get to wander up a track to grass... so they're getting on a lot better as long as Dancer isn't around. Tigger looked like he and Arke were going to groom each other this morning, they didn't quite, but soon...
Jimmy alternates between chasing him away and being friendly.
Dancer still hates him, but he is determined to be one of her groupies anyway, he could hang out well away from them on a different part of the track as Richie and Dreamer do, but no.

He's seems happy and to be enjoying track life 😄 When he arrived his feet badly needed trimming... that is still the case and will be dealt with soon, but in the meantime it has been interesting to see how the movement of the track and the sand around the barn how much self trimming has taken place, no longer extremely long they are now just cracked and out of shape...

03/05/2024

New horse, drenching time and beetles.

I’ve always drenched all horses as soon as I can be sure the bots have finished. I also wait until the endurance season is over so my competition horses don’t have to cope with any extra metabolic challenges at Champs time.

Now I have dung beetles so it all gets more complicated as the residual drench in the manure will kill beetle larvae.

So when the horses are drenched they need to be confined for three days so I can pick up all the manure - the beetles don’t seem to like the manure around the barn, the sand I guess 🤷‍♀️ that’s also good as it lessens the chance of the hens eating them! It’s also a good idea to not drench the whole herd at once so there is still fresh, safe manure for the beetles.

Most of the beetles will be less active now as it’s getting colder, but I do have one species that remains active over most of winter. I got the four seasons deal 😁 Really looking forward to when they are all well established and all manure disappears 🤩🤩 but that takes about ten years apparently, I think I’m coming up to three years so getting there 😁

Add to that a new horse arriving and things get a bit complicated! But he’s a nice chap and while Richie and Dreamer are confined it’s a good time for them to get to know each other over the fence. Arke is a brave boy and has already taken himself off to explore one of the tracks on his own 😁

So rather than spend all day filling hay nets I decided to get a big haylage bale out, despite there still being plenty of grass… it’ll still be there once the bale is done!

Richie and Dreamer are allowed out again tomorrow, they’ll be staying with Arke while he settles in, then it’s time to drench the others. The three cattle can clean up the rest of the tracks for three days while they’re confined to keep the beetles happy!

01/04/2024

My horses love track life and I love watching their decisions. Where is the best shelter today? Seeing their problem solving when they were too busy eating and have lost the herd 😂. Who splits off into a smaller group, who are best friends.
And it’s amazing how stealthy they seem… one minute they’re hanging out at the barn, then next minute all gone.
Turning up back at the barn at top speed which needs several loops around the barn to disperse the energy.
I like that as well as fun this is their way of finding safety if something frightens them… back to the barn!

Turn your damn horses out.

Solitary confinement is used as punishment for humans, yet stabled horses are described as "living like kings".

Horses don't want to live like kings, they want to live like horses; horses run, play, roll, doze in the sun, mutually groom, fall over, get kicked, get bitten- it's just how herd life works and they need that entire spectrum to be functional individuals.

Maybe you have a horse who doesn't like his pasture time. I can assure you that your horse likes time outside. What he doesn't like is lack of shelter, lack of company/incompatible company, lack of hay/grass/forage and whatever else is it that the average pasture tends to lack.

Another argument is "my horse has all that and he's still waiting to come in every evening!", chances are that you feed your horse in his stable and he therefore has a positive association with it. What if you fed your horse in the stable then instead of bolting the door, left it open all night? Would he still be in there by morning, content to stare at the walls for 12+ hours, or would he be raiding the feed bins or going around saying hello to his neighbours?

Everyone is doing their best and the reality is that the majority of horse owners are bound by the rules of yard owners, so 24/7 turnout in herds is not always possible. However, let's stop pretending that the main reason we lock horses up for half their lives is because they like it. No being on this earth likes being locked up with no choice about when to come or go, so why would horses? Sure, all horses are different but all horses are horses!

Here's some of our mare herd letting off some steam with Spring living up to her name!🤠

22/03/2024

Old horses on tracks - George

George was diagnosed with arthritis in his fetlock at age 9, it ended his brief endurance career and he moved into semi-retirement.

At 27 he has been in full retirement for a year or so, and his movement is often not pretty.

But he is still loving life living in his herd, looking after his mare - he was besotted with Lace, and since she died has shifted his devotion to her daughter Dancer... nothing but the lead mare for George! He does however share his duties with his best friend Tigger.

With only the help of AgriSea NZ Seaweed Ltd tonic he managed for many years. now he also gets willow bark powder.

I firmly believe he would have deteriorated far more quickly without the movement required by track life.

However about a year ago he wasn't keeping up, and I feared George's time had come. He wasn't comfortable, his good front leg was swollen with the strain of taking most of his weight all the time. I called Anna Drabble Equestrian - Hoofcare, Bodywork, Education, she confirmed that there was nothing sore in his hooves, but suggested we try some rocker shoes on him - nothing to lose!

The result was dramatic, within two days the swelling on the good leg had all but disappeared, he could weight bear on the dodgy leg once more.

It won't be long before it is George's time - he doesn't have another colic associated vet bill in his budget, not with his legs as they are - but in the meantime he keeps moving and is still enjoying life 🥰

13/01/2024

Grass, weeds and weather…

Training for our first 40 km ride of the season last week ( I suffered a badly broken leg in August just before the start of the endurance season😬 ) I discovered Dancer to be very reactive. It took 10km for her to settle and stop ridiculous shying. It was not normal for her.

While I have planted horse friendly grass species and they’ve been awesome, clover and rye have started to sneak back in. I’m in the Waikato which is dairy country and full of nothing but clover/rye

Happily I have lots of haylage this year… 5 left from last year and another 33 !!! Made this year. So no more grass for Dancer until after the upcoming ride. Of course a few days before I discovered she must have slipped with her near fore and was sore under her shoulder blade and between the front legs, no 40 km for her 😢

In this weather and with their protest of no more grass that bale lasted 11 days. Mind you there are only 7 horses here at the moment, four left recently.

Now they’re on their second bale. While I’ve been trying to reduce spray use and embrace regenerative farming… it’s all very well to not worry about weeds if you have cattle, but horses are such selective grazers that my lovely grasses were giving way to creeping buttercup. Yes I’ve put lime on but the buttercup is persisting so I got the neighbour in with his tractor and sprayer. So while I have lots of grass they can’t eat it right now.

Then there’s the weeds around the track… normally I cut them back with the scrub cutter… but broken leg, so they are all still there 🤦‍♀️

And lastly take a look in the comments how George loves to combat this heat! 😂😂❤️

05/12/2023

Fences

When horses are free to move along a track they don’t end up running into fences and having to stop suddenly, they’re moving alongside the fences not towards them. So there is much less chance of legs sliding into fences.

Even if the lower herd members find themselves in front they are able to turn aside at one of the wider spots or intersections without any more drama than having to run in front for a bit 😂😂

However there is a lot of fencing needed and I had a lot of high tensile wire from taking down all the previous paddocks before planting maize.

High tensile wire and horses are often not a good mix… how to make it safe?

So I tie it to the posts using baling twine. This is not good fencing practice as it does occasionally break from simply being tight and in the sun too long. But on the occasions when a horse has hooked a leg over a wire I usually have trouble finding out which horse did it.

The added bonus is, while breakages are more common, they are very easy to fix… no difficult knotting of high tensile wire, just take a new piece of baling twine, pull tight and retie!

I find that two wires, with the top one accompanied by some old electric fence tape for visibility, is plenty even with a mini. Beside the maize I have added a higher wire to stop them reaching over the top, and all three are hot. But on the other fences with no maize on the other side I generally only have the lower wire hot.

And just because you have post and rail doesn’t necessarily mean it’s safer… one horse smashed straight through a new piece of post and rail fence next to the barn and ripped her shoulder open 😩 … and smashed my new fence 😬😳

26/10/2023

Winter Feed Strategy

With the excessive growth of the older grass species during spring and early summer I make quite a lot of haylage. (25 big bales each year last two years) This has meant over the years that I have been able to move to a system where the horses eat mainly haylage and hay all winter.

Very little grass, just usually a day between bales to cheer them up! They do get super bored with just hay and haylage. This is good though as it helps prevent them getting too fat!

So most of the time they're around the barn... which has sand… so not standing in mud all day! So nice and good for their feet. It does mean a LOT of manure to pick up each day though, 11 horses make a lot!

They still get access to the track and spend quite a lot of time wandering around browsing the hedges and nibbling what grass there is. It gets a bit muddy in places but overall not too bad... I do keep them off the wettest sections, which gives them somewhere new to go during the occasional fine break if it dries up enough.

Morning and evening half the mob gets hay in slow feed nets. When the "A Team" (mostly my horses, older, have lived here longest so bossiest) have their hay they are shut away from the bale so the B Team get bale access without harassment. They get bale time like this twice a day as well as their own hay time - again separated from the A Team.

I am thinking a second bale feed station out on the track somewhere would make B Team feeding less intensive, but it's still in the planning stage. I expect the haylage would not last as long.

01/10/2023

Grazing non-rye/clover pasture.

I had a mixture of the old grass species planted - yorkshire fog, cocksfoot, fescue, brown top, timothy, prairie grass and oats.

The oats to give a bit more on the first winter as the pasture got going, it's an annual so wasn't intended to last. As it happened it's better to graze with cattle lightly the first few times - they loved the oats! 😂

I knew that it needed to be grazed differently from rye grass. Initially it was just a few patches and the track sown, which was lucky... those few patches were wonderful, and I overgrazed them and they disappeared.

Then my first two paddocks and I was more careful. I really thought I wasn't grazing them down hard at all... but looking back I still was. It's really hard to get used to going into grass over your gumboots and making sure you give them enough that they only eat about half of it. But everyone says this is what you should do and that it will recover a lot faster.

My grass expert did say you can afford to graze it hard once a year though. I use that as mowing for haylage.

That's another thing about the older grass species... they grown ridiculously fast in spring and early summer, then a bit over the rest of summer and not so much during winter. So I use that huge early summer growth to make lots of haylage.

I'm currently buying hay as the one time I made hay here it ended up being made late in a hot summer and then the paddock sat and did nothing except grow weeds until autumn. It was good hay but...

This year we're about to trial a small area planted especially to be mainly cropping grass with a view to replacing some of the maize with sell-able horse grass hay. Small steps and lots of planning, if it works then I'll need to build another barn!

29/09/2023

A map on a not-up-to-date photo, showing how the track has developed since that first perimeter track of 2019ish. Around that outside track is about 1.2km. I'm not sure of the other distances, when riding around the tracks I tend to GPS the overall ride distance rather than the track sections. The whole farm is about 30 acres.

It's not crucial to get all the track fenced at once. It's a lot of fencing which would be extremely daunting to plan all at once. My track has sort of evolved as I got used to the system, started sowing paddocks in low sugar grasses and then starting offering grazing to outsiders.

I'm up to year five and still working through and adding to my plans as you can see in the second photo... very satisfying to go back and add those ticks! Still haven't re-fenced Gully 1 though... oops.🙄

The central race was also part of that original track being part of the farm for many years.

Between paddocks 1 and 2 is a section paved with rotten rock, as this area tended to be very wet and so also had a nova-flow drain put through.

Added a small (20x40ish) sand arena, labelled but part of the photo

C1, C2 and 4 have remained in maize each year, with the track around C2 being added only a year ago to make break feeding paddock 3 easier. The track around paddocks 6,7 and 8 is even newer.

So the gist of it is... Have Plans... but don't beat yourself up if it takes a while to get there, you'll have more good ideas along the way.

One downside of track life - it can be hard to find the ponies! Especially when the maize is high...
Bonus of tracks - once you've finished with your horse for the day you can just let it go at the barn... no need to return it to the paddock - so satisfying - and interesting that even if you have just been riding around the track and passing the rest of the herd your horse does not always go the right direction when you let them go 🤣

21/09/2023

I started developing my track system about five years ago.
Went barefoot not long after.
Resowed my first pasture into horse friendly grasses four years ago.
I'm trying to do regenerative practices... but a lot to learn still.

Not regretting any of it!

Once you learn how relaxed and happy your horses are living in a group with the freedom to move and make decisions there's no going back.

Once you have discovered how calm your horses can be when they aren't eating high octane rye grass and clover you know to avoid it whenever possible