How to Assess Grazing Lands for Horses
What is a "grazing land”? By the USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Services it is “for rangeland, pastureland, grazed forestland, native and naturalized pasture, hay land, and grazed crop." Grazing is important for horses to do, it helps with teeth and digestion. Horses are made to graze and live in an area where they can find suitable forage. Good pastures will provide protection from erosion, filtering rainfall and giving enough nutrients for animals to live off of. Bad pastures consist of bare spots, rocks, increased change of erosion and weed growth. This is normally from overgrazing and wear lines from horses walking.
When assessing the land you want to look for signs of erosion, bare spots, trees, bodies of water, and anything could harm the animals that would live there. Start but walking around and taking in the surroundings and plan. Things to think about are how big is it going to be, how much fencing will I need, where will the gate be, where can I put a water trough or there free choice water already and so on. A good idea might be to take a measuring tape and looking about every half inch and record what is there. By doing this you can get an idea what is in the field and the quality of the land. It is important to remember just because it is green and is in the area does not mean it is something animals will eat. Doing a field test in a couple different spots will give you a good idea the percentage of land that is actually graze-able. Having grass and weed identification with you will help figure out what is what.
If there is a pond, lake, creek or any open water, it may be a good idea to get it tested. In certain farm areas there can be high levels of insecticide, and fertilizer that could cause harm to the animals.
Some tips on keeping a pasture as healthy as possible:
-give it time to rest and regrow, having animals live, defecate and step on the grass and really hurt it. By rotating fields with the animals will give the grass to grow back.
-try to keep the grass above three inches this is make it easier on the grass to grow back and taller but not to taller because with height, stems will start to grow. (Stems do not have much nutrients.)
- cleaning the field every month or so to help keep the parasites to a minimum and allow growth under those spots.
-Get a soil test done, it will help if you want to fertilize pastures when they are resting
-be careful in spring and fall with horses, with new grass there is a chance of laminitis
When assessing the land you want to look for signs of erosion, bare spots, trees, bodies of water, and anything could harm the animals that would live there. Start but walking around and taking in the surroundings and plan. Things to think about are how big is it going to be, how much fencing will I need, where will the gate be, where can I put a water trough or there free choice water already and so on. A good idea might be to take a measuring tape and looking about every half inch and record what is there. By doing this you can get an idea what is in the field and the quality of the land. It is important to remember just because it is green and is in the area does not mean it is something animals will eat. Doing a field test in a couple different spots will give you a good idea the percentage of land that is actually graze-able. Having grass and weed identification with you will help figure out what is what.
If there is a pond, lake, creek or any open water, it may be a good idea to get it tested. In certain farm areas there can be high levels of insecticide, and fertilizer that could cause harm to the animals.
Some tips on keeping a pasture as healthy as possible:
-give it time to rest and regrow, having animals live, defecate and step on the grass and really hurt it. By rotating fields with the animals will give the grass to grow back.
-try to keep the grass above three inches this is make it easier on the grass to grow back and taller but not to taller because with height, stems will start to grow. (Stems do not have much nutrients.)
- cleaning the field every month or so to help keep the parasites to a minimum and allow growth under those spots.
-Get a soil test done, it will help if you want to fertilize pastures when they are resting
-be careful in spring and fall with horses, with new grass there is a chance of laminitis