Keeping a horse on small acerage

Typically you figure 2 acres of grass/horse.

yup

I just think the whole thing sounds very unfair to the horse...

3/4 of an acre is TINY. I have 5 acres, and that's STILL small for 4 horses (city zoned it for 7 horses). I still have to pick manure, and I've run out of places to put it. We keep hay out, have good grass but it has to be supplemented with nitrogen and reseeded. The grass goes fast, as does the hay. Are you prepared for the winter when there will be NO grass and your horse goes through a square bale every day?

Does your horse have a buddy? Horses need companionship, and just you isn't going to quite cut it.

I wouldn't trust electrobraid....
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Depending on your horse and your location, you need 2-5 acres of well managed pasture, with pasture rotation techniques used to feed a horse without supplementing additional hay. Cavets being if you're in So-Cal of parts of Arizona or Texas with less dense & less nutritious grasses its not going to matter how much land you have if your grass sucks.

If you want to feed your horse with only the grass that grows on your property, you have to think of yourself as a "Grass Farmer" and care for the pasture as much as you do the horse that lives on it.

You have to implement rotational grazing areas, measure grass heights, harrow, aerate, dethatch, overseed and add compost and run hay reports.

It really isn't as easy as "I have 5 acres, I guess the horse is fed. " Without proper pasture management techniques horses can strip a pasture in months, making it uninhabitable for grass growths for years upon years.

We've all seen the farms that that do this. Pasture if shirt to no grass, mostly dirt and the only thing growing are islands of weeds. It takes at least 3 years to completely rehab a pasture once its been "desert-ified" by horses, to establish a healthy pasture, and that's 3 years of maintaining (all that work I listed above ) PLUS keeping the horses off of it (or less than 5 hours a week) durring those 3 years.

Be envious when you see lush green pastures, they are a TON of work.


You can find A TON of really really good resourses on horses, grazing and pasture rehabing resources here: King Conservation District Pastures
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Ps. I should mention I have 2 horses on 1 acre. And both of my horses have 1000 sq.ft mud-free sacrifice areas, and thanks to my County conservation district help developing my farm plan, I am allowed up to 5 per acre. I wouldn't do that, but that's what my farm plan says I can support on my land due to the best practices, I've implemented.

So it's possible, but like I said, its a TON of work, and you're going to have to supplement hay at some point.
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Why not?

Yes I have a horse and he has hay. I will fence as much pasture land as I can in summer. AND I will take care of it too. Right now he has enough room to zoom around when he feels like it and it dosnt look very small to me. He dosnt have a buddy. Maybe I will get another horse sometime....

Thanks I'll give it a try.

I don't trust electrobraid because I have seen horses get brave enough to go through it.;) plus, the grass is always greener on the other side...
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What type of fencing would you recommend?

Mango, clearly you have never been to Long Island. We have 25 horses on 8 acres. There's no pasture, but I would hardly call it "unfair". They all have room to move in fairly large paddocks that they share with one or two well matched friends. I know one places who's idea of "turn out" is a 12x12 corral, well I guess that's their stall too. That or they get turn ut into a 200x100 with 10 other horses. Now that's unfair!!
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