# best fertilizer for horse paddock



## wo7777 (May 17, 2021)

Hi

Does anyone have a recommendation for a fertilizer i can apply to a horse paddock ( liquid ) to grow the grass a bit while the horse is in the paddock?

thanks


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## waresbear (Jun 18, 2011)

For anything to grow, you have to remove the horse until a root system establishes and grass grows strong. Otherwise your horse will stomp it down and pull up any new growth. Last summer it was very rainy here, there was a paddock I wasn't using. I threw some pasture mix seed in there, by the fall, it was pretty lush. Put a horse in there, took him less than a day to mow it down and he wasn't in there full time, there was access to the big pasture through the gate.


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## wo7777 (May 17, 2021)

ah ...ok....thanks.


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## Acadianartist (Apr 21, 2015)

Do you mean a pasture? Because a paddock, to me, means a small fenced-in area. No grass will grow in a small area that has a significant amount of foot traffic. And yes, you should always remove the horse for a while, though it largely depends on what you use. My paddock is about 70 x 120 feet and nothing grows in there. My pastures are respectively a couple of acres each (I have two large ones, plus a smaller area). I move my three horses around to rest each area and allow for growth. 

I applied lime and nitrogen to one of my pastures, for example, and the minimum period to let the horses back on is 14 days. However, I plan on giving it a couple of months so the grass can grow and establish a good root system. 

Trying to grow grass under a horse's hooves is a futile exercise. You could try to rope off an area at a time and do it that way, but you need a fair amount of space to do that. If space is severely limited, then I'm afraid you'll have to resign yourself to having a dirt paddock.


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

Acadianartist said:


> Do you mean a pasture? Because a paddock, to me, means a small fenced-in area..... My paddock is about 70 x 120 feet


Interesting differentiation. Paddocks to me, aka "pasture' if it's full of grass, come in any size from say 1acre up to 1000's & I'd call your 'paddock' a yard or pen.


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## walkinthewalk (Jul 23, 2008)

@Im with @Acadianartist On the definition of a paddock - it’s a small “sacrifice” area used to contain the horses when we don’t want them in the pasture

My paddock is 100 feet X 24 feet. It is between the barn and the main pastures with a tractor gate to close the horses out of the main area. 

It doesn’t get maintained, except for mowing the weeds down during mowing season

This is my paddock With Rusty standing at the tractor gate waiting for the boogie men to emerge from the trees up on the ridge, lol


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## Rudytoot (Feb 14, 2020)

When you fertilize pasture, if you are not following a re-seeding of the pasture, you can put the horses back in the field as long as there are no pile ups of fertilizer. The only time you remove the horses from the field is when you plant new seed in the field. At that time, they have no roots established, and will be pulled up by grazing animals. I am a farmer and have raised cattle for a long time and horses as well, and it is fine to put the animals back on the pasture as soon as the fertilizer truck leaves as long as there are no pile ups of fertilizer. If this happens, just be sure to pick these up and distribute it around like salting your food. A little bit of fertilizer goes a long ways in pasture and if over done can turn your fields yellow or cause die back from buying your grass. 

When you fertilize existing grasses and legumes, they have a very strong root system and cannot be pulled up by horses or cattle.


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## Acadianartist (Apr 21, 2015)

Rudytoot said:


> When you fertilize pasture, if you are not following a re-seeding of the pasture, you can put the horses back in the field as long as there are no pile ups of fertilizer. The only time you remove the horses from the field is when you plant new seed in the field. At that time, they have no roots established, and will be pulled up by grazing animals. I am a farmer and have raised cattle for a long time and horses as well, and it is fine to put the animals back on the pasture as soon as the fertilizer truck leaves as long as there are no pile ups of fertilizer. If this happens, just be sure to pick these up and distribute it around like salting your food. A little bit of fertilizer goes a long ways in pasture and if over done can turn your fields yellow or cause die back from buying your grass.
> 
> When you fertilize existing grasses and legumes, they have a very strong root system and cannot be pulled up by horses or cattle.


I think it depends on what type of fertilizer you are using. We used pelletized nitrogen. Horses should not graze the area until the pellets have completely dissolved, which can take 2-3 weeks if you don't get a lot of rain: Fertilization Tips for Horse Pastures


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