Pasture: Evaluation and Design, Management and Sacrifice Areas - Second Article in a Series of Two on Pasture

Spring is in full swing now and with the rain and heat come more worries about pasture, including pasture management and the development of sacrifice areas for those horse owners who want to provide the best possible pasture for their horse. Last time we spoke about pasture planning, seeding and early turn-out. This month, in the second of two articles on pasture, we will focus on pasture evaluation, management and sacrifice areas.

Evaluation and Design

Begin by evaluating your pasture. Move hay and water troughs every year to encourage even plant growth and reseed with grass species that can stand up to horses' hooves as mentioned in my previous article. When planting, check to see if bare areas are heavily compacted. If you can't push the blade of a trowel into the ground, loosen the soil with a tiller before reseeding. Next, eliminate areas of standing water by regrading the area or installing drains after checking with your local government environmental agency to be sure that it is not a wetland. Eliminating standing water will not only benefit the surface of your pasture, it will also be an aid in disease control, since mosquitoes and other insects tend to breed in standing water. Identify plants in your pasture and see if what you seeded for last spring is present. If plants you seeded for last spring are not present, you need to reevaluate your seeding methods and try planting again. You also want to remove poisonous plants with an herbicide as discussed in the last article.

When designing your pasture, consider putting lanes on high, dry ground, you will probably need to do maintenance and improvement on muddy, wet areas. Put south facing slopes in one paddock and north facing slopes in another paddock. South facing pasture often will grow first in the spring providing early spring grazing. Provide water in paddocks. Put slow growing areas in one paddock, fast growing areas in another to help provide continuous grazing.

Management

Resting pastures is critical! Recovery time for grasses ranges from 10 to as many as 60 days, depending upon season, weather, and soil characteristics. Generally expect to wait at least 14 days for grasses to regrow to grazing height in spring, and 30 or more days in summer. A good rule of thumb for grazing in Connecticut is to avoid exceeding 7 days on any one paddock. To do this, divide your total pasture area into a minimum of 5 paddocks, and rotate animals to a new paddock at least once a week. This system will allow each paddock to rest for 28 days.

In springtime when grasses are growing quickly, you may need to move horses through the rotation faster in order to prevent plants from getting too mature and unpalatable before they've been grazed. If you make hay, you may choose instead to withhold 1/2 of your pasture from your grazing system so that you can harvest a first cutting from it. After regrowth, this area may be added back into your rotation system.

Experiment with portable electric fencing systems to subdivide pastures into paddocks. Ensure that the permanent perimeter fencing is sturdy and reliable. Portable or temporary fencing allows flexibility in how much area you give your horses daily. It also facilitates mowing and haying operations due to the ease of picking it up and getting it out of the way. Over time you may find that you are placing your fences in the same places, and choose to erect permanent fencing in its place.

Keep grasses in their "vegetative" state with a combination of grazing and mowing. Harvesting grass before it gets too tall will prevent it from becoming reproductive, also known as "going to seed." Mature grass is coarser, stemmy, and not as palatable or nutritious as leafy, actively growing plants. Clip weeds before they form a seed head to reduce the weed seed store in your pastures and control woody plants such as tree and shrub seedlings, which may invade open areas. Ideally, a paddock should be mowed as soon as possible after every time animals are removed and rotated on to the next paddock. If mowing is delayed for many days, new regrowth that occurs in the interim will be clipped off and wasted.

Soil test pastures to determine the need for fertilizer and lime, and follow recommendations. If pasture is new or has not received lime and fertilizer for many years, you may wish to test for 2-3 years in a row to establish a healthy fertility level. After that, a test every 3 years is sufficient. Remember that if soil pH is too low, any fertilizer you apply may not be accessible to the grass, resulting in a waste of money!

"Drag" or chain harrow pastures as needed to break up and spread manure piles. This will help manure to be broken down more quickly, spread fertility more uniformly, and dry out parasite eggs more quickly. During wet weather, parasites may not be controlled by this method. Be sure to follow a regular deworming program and consider lengthening the period between grazings.

Animals should be fenced out of wetland areas, because they can cause damage to these fragile environments. When thinking about fencing, you should consider safety first. Fences should be clearly visible to horses and not located at the base of a hill where horses can easily run into them. Fences should be designed so that corners are rounded rather than square so that horses that are lower in the pecking order are not trapped in a corner by a "bully" horse. Some good options for fencing are small wire mesh, post and rail, PVC, white tape, and electric fencing. Fences should be designed so that horses cannot get their hooves caught in the openings. Barbed wire should never be used around horses.

Sacrifice Area

The cutting and compacting action of hooves can easily damage wet pastures. During a hot, dry summer, grass growth may come to a complete halt, and horses may chew plants right down to the soil surface. Having a sacrifice area at your facility will allow horses to be turned out during these sensitive times without wreaking havoc on pasture. A selected area is sacrificed from the grazing system and is used to confine animals in order to protect pastures from over-use at critical times like during winter months, mud season, and times of slow pasture plant regrowth. A sacrifice area is also a good tool for managers who must limit the amount of grass their animals get, and for those who don't have enough acreage to support long hours of grazing.

The benefits of a well-planned sacrifice area include: hoof friendly surface for better horse health, reduction of mud and ice, ease of manure removal/management, improved aesthetics, reduction of manure- or soil-laden runoff to water bodies and reduction of fly-breeding habitat.

Minimal size is one feature of a well-planned sacrifice area. Reducing the amount of bare soil on your equine facility will help you protect the environment and decrease distance for manure removal. Create an area that is no bigger than what you require after considering the space needs for your particular herd, groups, or individual, and the amount of pasture and riding exercise that supplements their turnout time. Keep in mind that there are limits to a particular property's ability to support animals. In some cases this challenge may be answered by drastically reducing turnout time and space, combined with meticulous manure management and disposal.

A good surface is another feature of a well-planned sacrifice area. You may need to remove as much of the fine-textured "topsoil" as is practical, and replace with 8-12 inches of well-draining gravel. Compacting the gravel well with machinery will help to lock the stones in place. Gravel should have an assortment of particle sizes from sands and fines up to stones of one inch in diameter. Larger stone size may be detrimental to hooves, and even a base containing 1" stone may need to be covered to prevent bruising. You may wish to top with stone dust or sand for a hoof-friendly footing. A good surface is a key part of any mud-reduction plan. Some areas may require subsurface drainage where seasonal high water tables exist. Spots that are particularly troublesome due to heavy traffic or wetness may benefit from the use of geotextile covered with 8+ inches of gravel base and your choice of surface material.

Location is another important feature of a well-planned sacrifice area. The most convenient areas are generally near the barn. However, it is most important that the sacrifice area be located away from wells, wetlands and water bodies. Strive for a minimum of 200 feet separating distance between a sacrifice area and a water body. Slopes of 2-4% will reduce ponding of water, and will have less erosion than steeper slopes. A slope of 2% means that over a distance of 100 feet, the elevation will change by 2 feet. Grade the area to drain away from barns.

Daily manure removal is the final important feature of a well-planned sacrifice area. Regular removal of manure from the lot surface will result in less polluted runoff leaving the site, and will help to prevent the incidence of mud. Left in place, organic matter in the form of manure or wasted feed and forage will get churned into the surface, increasing the water holding capacity of your lot, which means more mud!

If you are currently doing all of these things to manage your pastures, or are interested in learning what you are doing well and what you should be doing better, consider participating in the Connecticut Horse Environmental Awareness Program. This is a coalition of federal, state, and local agencies and horse owners and businesses interested in promoting good stewardship of the land. The Horse Farm of Environmental Distinction Awards Program is administerd by this organization. See their web site at http://www.ct.nrcs.usda.gov/horse/ for more information, or contact Mark Cummings at (203) 284-3663 for more information.

I hope this series has helped you to improve your pasture. Good luck with your pasture, and feel free to call or email with any questions you have about pasture: (860) 486-4471 or jnadeau@canr.uconn.edu. Also, check out my web site http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~jnadeau for more information on upcoming horse specialist events and information and reprints of this article. Thanks, and have fun with your horses!