Stocking Rates

This topic has come up but not frequently. I take care of some pasture ground for various people around town, liming fertilizing mowing etc. The people next door no longer have horses, but friends use their barns and pasture. Between two ladies there appear to be five horses there now on a five acre pasture. I limed it last fall and ha a lengthy conversation with one of the ladies about making the field more productive. She was looking forward to having it grow much faster with the fertilizer application. Yesterday I applied fertilizer, and she happened to be there, and when I finished she asked me how long to keep the horses off. Well, they had already put the horses out there as soon as it greened up and a lot of the grass was grazed down to a half inch. So I explained to her as I had last fall that it needs a chance to grow, and that without leaves the grass cannot take in sunlight, and without sun, there is no photosynthesis and very little growth. So I urged her to keep the horses off until the grass is six inches high and then take them off when they have eaten it down to four inches. This seems to be a difficult concept for people to grasp. I had described subdividing the pasture to her last fall but the landowner wasn't receptive to a portable dividing fence.

Most horsey people are just naturally ignorant about stocking
rates... 5 acres around here generally means 8 horses, 3 goats, a
burro or 2, and some geese, some dogs, oh, and blame the
contractor when there is not a blade of grass to be seen on the
property...

Neighbor has 7 acres, maybe 4 of that is pasture, with 12
horses.

It looks like you would imagine.

Paul

Guy up the road from Mom and Dad is to be the head
horseman with a large Ohio government agency.
He has the worst looking over run pastures you have
ever seen !

Sounds like the land owner is also on the ignorant
side.

What Diydave said. I don't own horses but from observation and talks with horse owners it seems that in this area of SC a horse needs 3 to 5 acres to support its self by grazing. My neighbor across the road has an estimated 5 acres fenced for a horse and the horse is in good shape, but it keeps up with the grass pretty well. I'm sure stocking rate varies in other states.

KEH

My experience as a land owner renting to horse people.

I NOW manage my land and have dry lots to keep animals in
when pastures needs a break. I fertilize, over seed with
Bermuda as needed, and seed Ryegrass in the fall so they
have good grazing over the winter. I spray for weeds and mow
as needed to keep it looking good.

Most horse people can't afford the hobby. All of my tenants
have or will get behind on rent. They feel abused when I ask
them to pen their horse up and feed hay. Especially when the
grass is 3-4" high. They really get pissy when I keep them off
it long enough for the grass to go to seed.

Back when I Iet them manage my pastures:

These same people will complain, after letting their animals
eat all grass down to dirt, about my "bad" pasture. Then ask
for a reduction in rent due to all the hay they have to buy. If
you don't they will get behind on rent then leave.

I now have a reputation as a hard azz. BUT. My tenants
animals are healthy, slick and fat. I have a waiting list for
additional tenants.

I saw a yearling Clysdale eat 10 acres of grass in a few weeks, grass was at least a foot high when they turned him, 5 or 6 months later he had about starved to death. The people then decided they couldn't afford to keep him. They gave him to another unsuspecting idiot. We find people that own horses cant afford to pay for LP gas, make car pmts, and usually are behind on their rent.

Never works, I remember renovating pastures at the other place, with minimal equipment, tools and resources, busting ones proverbial @ss to get it done aside from the regular days work, then setting up a hose to water it, I even mulched it with the manure spreader and some 2nd cut hay that had lots of clover heads in it, moisture in the arena ruined that hay, which I also painstakingly put up, cut, raked, baled, stacked on wagons, then loaded the tandem sileage body truck and delivered it 30 miles away, but let the help unload, I handled it enough already LOL. It had no weed seed in it, just clover heads, this stand would have been a thick lush crop for grazing if they gave it some time, never happens though. I even said, why don't you just shut the place down, get these things caught up, then gradually bring them back, manage what you have, sorry we are not that intelligent, can't think that way LOL !

With all said and done, and the grasses coming up with a cover crop of oats, I even spread lime on it heavier near the pine trees, it was coming up well, finally rained, but like you said, it needs time to grow and establish, my father told them to turn horses out into it and all that hard work was for nothing, last time I ever do that, by June, it will be all plantains bare spots, and nothing of feed value. At times there are too many horses and we have some nice grazing, but it just gets hammered, the one large field was a nice stand of orchard, timothy and clover, and rebounds nicely, but its a mess when overgrazed, some people just don't get this, very simple premise too, but they can't get it through their thick heads that you have to rotate and care for what grows, these darned animals have voracious appetites.

Most horses used recreationally need to be in a corral and allowed on pasture for only a couple of hours a day. They are not being worked hard and will eat themselves fat out of boredom. Continuous grazing is the best way to create a weed patch which, in my experience, most horse owners believe is how a horse pasture should look. Grass is tough but there are limits to the abuse it will take without proper rest.
They can "mob graze" it in small paddocks and it can be quite productive but horse can"t be grazed continuously at those stocking rates without damaging the resource.