Re: RE: Re: introduction to pasture

["Sullivan's" <greymare@jps.net>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Marlene Moss" <marlene.moss@wcom.com>
> So far we have been working on the assumption that if they're out 24x7,
> they'll adjust at the rate that the grass is growing in.

This is pretty much what I do.  I have two pastures (dry)  The back pasture
the horses have access to all winter, so with them running and farting
around, it gets churned up a bit, subsequently grows some grass, but not
lush.  They graze the grass as it comes up..........my other front pasture
has much, much more grass, and so I leave the horses off THAT until the
ground is nice and dry and the grass matured some.....then some of them get
moved over there (some still stay in the diet pasture)

Then, for the hard keeper.......last spring I put in a small irrigated
pasture.  It is about 60 X 80 ft.  I have no irrigation well, so made it
small enough for me to be able to water by sprinkler.  I used a irrigated
horse pasture mix.  The one mare was let on when the ground dried some, in
20 minute increments.....now she has it full use, and FINALLY she is picking
up weight (despite oat/alfalfa/grass hay all winter and huge tubs of beet
pulp, mature horse and corn oil.  (she is also the one with encysted
strongyles; I am waitnig for the Panacur I ordered)

A good friend of mine has the opposite problem I do, her horse's pasture is
irrigated, so she has to pen them up as they are all too fat.  What I saw
last year, is that no matter how much or hard she rode her gelding, he just
kept the fat on, from being on that irrigated pasture.

I feel the irrigated pasture is a must.......it's good to have available
green grass for horses to have access to after a hard ride, or recovering
from colic.....It's worth dragging the sprinklers around all summer to keep
it green!

Karen (enjoying a gorgeous northern Calfornia spring-----when I look out my
windows, I seen GREEN)