Improving the productivity of your pasture offers several benefits. Pasturing can:
Reduce the amount of purchased hay. If you have only a few acres to dedicate solely to pasture, the total substitution of pasture for purchased hay may be an unattainable goal. However, you can reduce the amount of purchased hay by improving the productivity of your pasture.
An ideally managed, highly productive pasture can potentially provide a large portion of a horse’s forage requirements from May through September.
- Distribute manure in the field and reduce time spent cleaning stalls. Horses grazing managed paddocks will drop their manure in different parts of the pasture instead of concentrating it in stalls, feedlots, exercise lots, and loafing areas. This reduces the volume of manure in stalls and lots as well as the time needed to clean these areas.
- Reduce the labour and equipment used to harvest forage. Think about your pasture as a crop that horses harvest by grazing. When grazing, horses eliminate the time needed to cut, rake, bale, store, and feed the forage and the cost of buying, operating, and maintaining machinery.
- Reduce the amount of purchased fertilizers. Manure recycles nutrients beneficial to pasture plants. The more nutrients manure provides, the fewer pounds of supplemental fertilizer are required. To ensure that pasture plants can more easily use the manure’s nutrients, frequently drag or rake the manure deposited in the pasture. This will more evenly distribute the manure and promote its breakdown while also reducing the potential exposure of horses to internal parasites.
- Enhance community viewsheds. The term “viewsheds” refers to fields alongside roads in primarily residential areas that allow drivers and residents to enjoy open views of bordering landscapes. Providing a bucolic scene like horses grazing on pasture can build goodwill with neighbours.
Pasturing horses also has some disadvantages. It can increase time and expense of fencing, monitoring pasture growth, and moving horses; potential for neglecting horses; risk of danger to horses from toxic weeds, escape, or injury on fencing; potential for horse damage to trees; and potential exposure to internal parasites, disease-carrying insects, ticks, and mosquitoes.
TIP: To protect water quality and shorelines, horses should not have free access to waterways, ponds, lakes, or wetlands. Do not allow animals to graze in public waters. Check with your local government about regulations governing acceptable sites for pastures.
Pasture Improvement:
Horse pastures must be carefully managed in order to maximize their productivity. Some things to consider:
Soil fertility:
Fertility refers to the level of essential nutrients present and available for pasture plants (forages). You can test your pasture’s soil to determine if additional nutrients must be applied to yield the volume of grasses and legumes desired. If a soil test reveals a deficiency, you will need to apply additional nutrients using horse manure and/or commercial fertilizers.
You can get a soil test kit from any University of Minnesota Extension office or private soil testing laboratory. Follow the instructions for collecting a sample to send in for analysis. Request tests that measure the levels of phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), soil pH, per cent organic matter, and soil texture.
Note on the test form whether the pasture consists of grasses or a mixture of grasses and legumes. Additionally, provide a desired yield goal (tons of forage per acre) for the pasture. Two tons per acre is an easily attainable yield goal.
The test results will include fertilizer recommendations in the form of nitrogen (N), phosphate (P2O5), and potash (K2O). Pastures may need additional nutrients that are best applied in early spring (mid April to early May). You may need to add lime to acid soils to adjust the pH.
Although fertilizer application should be based on a soil test, Figure 4 offers some general guidelines for the amount of fertilizer to apply to a primarily grass pasture. Most of the phosphorus and potassium consumed by horses will be returned to the pasture through their manure. Periodic soil tests on the pastures will confirm this nutrient recycling. Nitrogen will likely need to be annually applied to pastures consisting of primarily grass with few legumes.
Weeds:
Weeds compete with legumes and grasses for soil moisture, sunlight, and nutrients. Grazing will keep some weeds out of pastures, but cannot eliminate all weed problems. Positive identification of weed species is the first step in determining the appropriate control strategy.
Horse owners should be most concerned about toxic weeds (e.g., hoary alyssum) but should strive to control other weeds in order to further improve their pasture’s productivity. You can control weeds by rotational grazing, mowing, hand pulling, or chemically treating weeds when the horses are elsewhere.
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