# Acreage, but not acres per horse.



## Agent Smith (Jul 11, 2021)

As of now I have my horses on my inlaws 30 acres, my house is on 3 acres, which is why they are at my inlaws. Looking to buy/build on some more land. My real question is, how much acreage is really needed to allow a horse to gallop, have fun, and so on? I realize a pasture that is 208' x 832' is different than 416' x 416' even though both are 4 acres. 2 horses, maybe 3 btw. Is 5 acres mostly cleared sufficient? 10 acres? I'm trying to fine tune because I work about 50 to 55 hours a week, and in the late fall/winter I'm only home when it's dark except Sunday and Monday. More land means more maintenance, more fencing, but I know not enough land also means as much maintenance. Also, I supplement the pasture grazing even while they're at my inlaws, so whether it's 7 or 12 acres, they will get hay/feed. Is half an acre for the house, half an acre for the barn area, an acre sectioned off or opened up, then 4 acres for pasture/activity area enough to be enjoyable with 2 horses? Thanks for any responses.


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## Acadianartist (Apr 21, 2015)

There are a lot of questions in this post. You're asking how much acreage horses need to gallop. I'd say 4 acres for two horses is definitely enough for them to stretch their legs. However, you need to keep certain things in mind like how close you can actually put the fence to the house, the neighbors, and the road. Rules on those things vary a lot so you'd have to inquire locally. Here, for example, you cannot have a barn situated within 90 feet of a well. We have 13 acres of land, but had to be strategic and move the barn back from the road a bit because otherwise, it was too close to the well that belongs to the neighbors across the road. Then there's the septic tank and field where you're not supposed to graze horses. My point is that if you're thinking of 3 acres of land as being mostly for pasture, that might not be possible. 

I think that two horses would do ok on 3 acres of pasture in total, but you'll still have to deal with manure. 30 acres, then you don't have to worry about picking it up unless they decide to use an undesirable area as a bathroom (which they almost always do). 

The other thing you bring up is that you want enough room to enjoy with two horses, which I'm interpreting as wanting to ride on your property. So you should consider creating a riding ring which means losing some of that pasture space, or figuring out where you can ride on trails. Because we have 13 acres, for our two small horses and a pony, we are able to have about 5 acres in total of turnout space (this includes a 120' by 90' arena which we also use as a sacrifice turnout in the winter when there is no grass), and can use some of the land for trail riding since we have a couple of loops that also cross into the neighbors' land, and they have graciously given us permission to ride there. I still wish I had longer trails to ride, and my daughter wishes we had a bigger/better ring. But it works. Oh, and I pick up all the manure in the pastures and compost it. We lime and fertilize, as well as seed the pastures. They provide enough grass to keep our horses fed from about May to October.


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## Jules Horsewalker (Oct 4, 2014)

We have 22 acres fenced for the horses, 10 of which are only open during the winter. I run an ATV and chain drag regularly on the 100% available woods, pasture acreage that also contains our training ring (120 feet). The 10 acre pasture is open in Nov and closed in March. I personally think that the more space you can fence off, the more available space the horses can run in, the happier they are. It's a pain, but with a 6 joule fence you can create a huge space if you have 5-6 acres. Me, I like having more open space for the horses to destroy LOL. Anyway, my two cents.


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## stevenson (Sep 12, 2011)

You want to be able to have cross fenced areas. You don't want to overgraze. You also do not want horses on wet pastures. They tear up the ground and grass with their feet besides eating it down to the roots. You do have to be mindful of the rules and laws in your area. Distance from homes, wells and septic areas and roads. Also it depends on how long you want to spend time getting a horse out from a pasture. Barns need placed so water drains away from them so you have to figure the wind and rain direction and any low spots on the property. You also need to make sure if your property is on a well that water has been tested and if you need any cleaners. You also need to know what the recharge rate of the well is.


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## walkinthewalk (Jul 23, 2008)

You will get as many different answers to this as there are horse owners AND land variation.

I have 24+ acres with excellent natural drainage. We can have frog strangling rain for three days straight and the two inches of mud going thru the main pasture gate will be dried up in 72 hours. That’s not the case at the bottom of my road where it’s low land.

Even though I have a lot of cross fencing it never had anything to do with rotational grazing and everything to do with separating someone if I had to.

These days I am down to my last two horses. I have to keep them separated as one is a bully and the other one has serious health issues.

The IR/Cushings horse has his own six acres. If we have a dry Fall, he will eat up that six acres in a hurry. I get my hay tested due to his insulin issues, so I let him have access to all the hay he wants at the barn, as his six acres becomes mostly for exercise and the horse version of gum chewing by November.

The 27 year old has the other 18 acres and it’s a good thing because he STILL runs everywhere he goes. That horse has barely slowed down since I bought him as a 2-1/2 yr old. He can’t walk anywhere unless there’s a saddle on him.

Your first consideration is going to be how valuable the land is as grazing pasture. The higher the ground and the better quality the pasture means you could get away with less acreage, as long as you don’t put too many horses on a small plot and turn everything to dust.

From my perspective and having been raised on a farm, that means five acres per horse. More acreage means more fence and more mowing & bushogging but it also means less finite management of the land and the feeding of the horses. They should do fine with a good sized run-in, provided everybody lets everybody in the shelter. My bully horse won’t even let the other horse under the overhang, so that’s one more reason they are separated.


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## Zimalia22 (Jun 15, 2021)

How one answers this really depends on what part of the country you are in. 
Where I am, there is no such thing as too much land. As I said in another post, I stopped counting miles of fencing at 15, I just didn't want to know after that. Work? You bet, but it's worth it. 
When I first heard of people mowing their pastures, I was shocked! See, my place is out in dryland. You get your pasture once a year and it has to last. But folks in wetter areas have to mow to keep it from getting too lush and going to seed. 
My best advice would be to get as much land as you can comfortably afford. 
There's not such thing as too much land.


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## Agent Smith (Jul 11, 2021)

Thanks for the input everyone. The reason I ask is because because I was looking at a property that is set up in a similar way to how I described at the bottom of my post. It's actually 9.5 acres, but the rest of it can't really be set up for turnout. The other 3.5 - 4 acres is too terrainy. Would make for nice trail riding, but there's a big Gulley going through the middle of it that serves as a floodway area for the creek. The barn it already has is another story. They put particle board as flooring for most of it and only left one of the stall for a horse. They segmented it for other smaller animals it seems. Outside of the barn/stable needing work, there were other issues with the house. 

As far as wet or dry area, we had 61" of rain last year, and 58" the year before. I'm so tired of rain the last few years, lol. Average is 47", so we get more than the notoriously wet places like Portland. I'm in the foothills/piedmont area of NC btw.


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## walkinthewalk (Jul 23, 2008)

@Agent Smith, I believe many of us are seeing above average rainfalls this year. I’m in southern Middle Tennessee and have been really happy to sit high with great natural drainage. My really huge manure pile was almost completely under water on the last big rain.

We have a gorge of sorts below the barn. It’s about four feet at its deepest point and maybe 200 feet long. It runs East-west and gathers the water running from the south and the north. It is fenced off from the horses mostly because there were cattle on this land years ago and I have found remnants of two loading shoots, plus barbed wire everywhere. Just when I thought I had all the barbed wire, the garden tractor mower blades caught some, so it got fenced off and the area became the Pet Sematary.

Describe your version of “terrainy”. We have very hilly terrain and the one spot that is even dangerous to bush hog because it’s so steep, the horses have never traversed it. I go up it on the 4-wheeler but, if I didn’t pay attention, it wouldn’t take much to flip the 4-wheeler backward.

Because we live on a quiet old farm road and nobody cares, my yard is also fenced in; it was fenced from the day we bought this land because this was all cow pasture at one time. That means my horse with the health issues has the yard as part of his six acres.

Is the gully on the property you’re interested in, in a low lying area that is always swamp? If so, yes the horses would need fenced out as swamp means always sinking and maybe sinking in too much mud. And if the gully runs thru the property, splitting it in half, that’s a big drawback and a huge loss of useable real estate. The price per acre would have to reflect that.

The barn, as you say, is fixable provided it is structurally sound

Although two horses would be good, you could probably manage 3-4 with rotational grazing and knowing you would have to feed hay all year.

I have often read that Cherry Hill is the go-to for keeping horses on small acreage. Her book may help you



How to Think Like A Horse: Essential... book by Cherry Hill



Much to think about but first and foremost, make sure the land isn’t in a low-lying area. Even if it isn’t in a designated flood zone, it can still flood when the rains last for a few days without let up. Flood insurance doesn’t always cover all the costs, and even if it does, what about the next time? A town two hours NW of me went under water a month ago. They had never flooded before but their area of the county had 17 inches of rain. They are still cleaning up, we had more rain these last two days and part of their area flooded again.

The moral of that story is Buyer Beware and don’t be conned into buying the property because it may be cheap, do your homework - twice


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## Agent Smith (Jul 11, 2021)

By terrainy, the lower parts of the Gulley appear to be about 8 feet below the trails on the sides with pretty close to 90 degree drops in places. Other spots my be 4 feet lower that the trails with about 45 degree sides. It's swampy enough for there to be cat tails. The drops and swampiness are the reasons I wrote it off for horses, outside of the trails around it. The trails are more of rolling hills, with berms around a lot of it.

The price of the property is outstanding. Is a 1500 square foot house, with the barn, 2 small guest houses with shower, sink and toilet, a barn house with a sink and cooktop/range and a covered 2000 Sq ft covered venue thing for parties or whatever. Appears to have been rented out for weddings and things like that. Asking price is $360,000, but appears they would take $275,000. I'm not going to do it though, the last 4 owners have used it as a business "farm" for a petting zoo and party location, and rented the main house and the guest houses, it's more of a Fixer upper than I want to deal with. I did that with my current house when I was younger. If I was looking for an investment property it would be worth it without the house even being there. The main house needs some floor work, the power supply for the well is a spliced/taped drop cord run from the house, and the ac unit is non functional. It's so old that it has one of the old school condensers (with kids names scratched in, ha) outside the house with the unit under the house. Septic tank is only 1000 gallons with 8 renters living on the property right now. Not interested in buying it and seeing what else I find the next couple of years. The plumbing under the house looked shoddy to me too. 

With so much work in the house and the barn, I'd just rather avoid it. As I get older I find myself not wanting do build/repair as much as I used to but I also don't want to pay anyone else to do it, lol. So I'm trying to avoid too much of it. Also, you can't view the two guest houses due to a stipulation with the renters.


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## horselovinguy (Oct 1, 2013)

Might I suggest if you find property really interested in you do a search of GIS mapping of the area.
In that you can designate flood zones of often, seldom and how large they are and where....
Most of the country has undergone recent rezoning of the land so ....believe it or not.
I would also take a trip to the county land office where permits and such are issued from.
That office could tell you where you would find recent maps and information about rain and the lay of the land since with building comes changes of water abatement.
If they don't have that information they should know who does and can tell you that a local surveyor does have that and it would be accurate.
Don't believe what a realtor tells you....they are looking to make a sale and the seller is looking to sell so _*do your homework*_ and use all media you can find to find the hidden truth about those or any properties.
🐴...


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## Agent Smith (Jul 11, 2021)

I checked the zoning maps and with the county office, that's how I found out about the overworked septic tank. Looking at the 10 year flood maps, the property doesn't flood, even in the gulley it doesn't do much. It mostly drains onto the property below it. But, the creek and spring feed into the gulley, so it mostly stays wet. I'm not interested in the property after all though due to the reasons above. Thanks for the input.


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## stevenson (Sep 12, 2011)

oh You also have to pay attention to Property Taxes ! While you may able to afford the taxes on that land now, you have to figure they raise the Assessed land value which raises your taxes. Also any school bonds water bonds etc that pass will increase the amount you pay on taxes. On my current tax bill there are 13 different school bonds , 4 different bonds for the community college. A water storage cost, a vector control cost, a cost for the county dump, some people pay a cost for garbage collection a cost for recycle collection


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