# Winter pasture turnout in PNW?



## Acadianartist (Apr 21, 2015)

My horses are out in the pasture all winter. This year, there's not much snow so they can get around pretty easily. They have tracks they tend to follow, and I intentionally throw the hay all around the pasture to encourage movement. Some years, they just stop going in the pasture even though I leave the gate open because the snow is just too deep. 

When spring comes, and the ground begins to thaw, I will close the gate to the pasture and dry-lot them in my paddock for about a month. When things get too muddy in the paddock, I section off a small area of my pasture and let them in there. The grass won't grow, but it gives the paddock a rest and I can rotate so that the area they destroy in the spring is allowed to grow up again over the summer. 

I think it would depend on your climate. Once the pasture is frozen solid and covered in snow, then it's fine. But I have no idea what it looks like in the PNW. I find with a good rotation, and a lot of options (I have several areas they can go into when one area gets overrun), you can do a lot with a smallish property. I have 13 acres for reference, but a lot of that is wooded.


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## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

In the PNW, winter is pretty wet, and temps are usually in the 40s in the day and the 30s at night. So the ground never freezes, but rarely gets dry either. I thought that with it being so wet, everything would just turn into mud if I let them out there, although I will note that they range in size from medium pony to small horse, and none have shoes. In the PNW, grass grows in the spring and fall and early summer, but by mid-later summer it usually goes dormant because of lack of rain. I'm trying to remember from when we lived there, but I seem to recall the grass being green all winter, although maybe not growing a lot. The place where we will be is about 100 feet above sea level and maybe a mile from the Puget Sound, but even though it rains quite a bit, we are technically in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mts.

The "dry lot" will be a sand arena, so mud won't be a problem in there.


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## gottatrot (Jan 9, 2011)

I've learned a lot this winter on this subject. 

Many stables I've been to will say horses can't be turned out 24/7 on fields or they will be ruined. They will say you need to have a small paddock that has special footing so it doesn't turn into mud. My climate is the same as you are describing. We get about 75 inches of rain a year. For example, this winter there has been no snowfall yet and temperatures have ranged from 33 F at the coldest to the high 50s. As you said, the grass stays green all year, but is dormant in the winter and only grows a little. Probably from October to March.

How the pastures get ruined: 
First, many people put too many horses on the land. If you put six horses on an acre or two in the summer, especially without enough hay, the grass will get grazed down to almost nothing. Then in the winter it turns into mud. I had thought two horses on about an acre might be an issue but my field still has tons of grass. 

Another thing people do is create trampled areas. If the hay is put on the ground (even in the summer) or horses are turned in and out by a gate, those areas will get overused and muddy. You want to feed under a shelter with rubber mats. The shelter needs to have eaves that divert water away from the front where horses go in and out and the water has to drain away. If you feed enough hay that the horses don't eat the grass down, it prevents mud. 

If you are planning to turn in to a barn for feeding, then the area around the gate will need to be carefully planned. Horses will mill back and forth at a gate waiting to come in and overuse it. It needs to have some kind of protection such as a cover and rubber mats on the ground, or else plastic grid with gravel, etc. The water trough also needs to be somewhere away from the hay with good drainage. If it is too close the horses will walk back and forth frequently, creating a worn area and mud. When you dump it the water needs to drain quickly away.

If you want the field to stay nice, the whole winter turnout needs to be land that drains. It can't be close to the water table or swampy in the winter, preferably has a slight slope downhill and perhaps a few trees but not too many or it won't be grassy enough. 
Another option my last barn did was to put the shelters on top of sand on a hill. The horses walked down from the shelters into the fields and were fed up on the sandy area. Sand has to be picked up completely, or it will turn into mud when it mixes with manure over time. As long as they had one or two horse per acre, there was no mud.

For three horses, if you could put them on two acres that drain fairly well, the land should be fine. But you would need to keep the area around the shelters picked up from manure and also spread out any areas that built up in the rest of the field.


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## dogpatch (Dec 26, 2017)

Geology has a lot to do with how you manage. There's a thing called the Missoula Flood that happened about 50,000 years ago that flooded some areas up to 400 feet deep, leaving all sorts of different soils at different elevations. We're 200 feet above the Missoula Flood level, on the side of an ancient volcanic vent. We have soil that drains remarkably well. A few hundred feet below us there can be deposits of blue clay just under the surface that turn vast parts of the Willamette valley into standing lakes during the winter. That's one reason they grow so much grass seed here, the grass can stand to be submerged for long periods of time. 

My two horses are confined to oh, about 1.5 or 2 of our 10 acres. The traffic area to and from their stalls is hardened, but the rest of their area is never significantly muddy. They rarely have mud on their feet above the hairline, unless they've been rolling. I drive a lawnmower towing a small manure spreader around the paddocks every day without a problem.

The same can't be said for many other areas.

The problem here is laminitis. My horses are weeks away from having their paddocks reduced in size and will have to deal with that until probably June. Sometimes we get most of our rain in the spring. Mud is still not a big problem.


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## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

dogpatch said:


> The problem here is laminitis.


Yes, absolutely. I was so happy when we bought this place because it has these beautiful lush pastures, then I started to think about my fat Pony and what that would mean for him. I'm thinking he's either going to have to be in the dry lot part of the day year round, or maybe I will finally get that grazing muzzle.


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## proudfoot (Dec 29, 2015)

i live in southern bc, so similar climate to the pnw. my favourite way home from town used to be past two large fields who pasture board quite a few horses. in the fall and winter a lot of the fields are muddy. by around late spring the fields seem to recover and look quite good. probably not awesome pasture, but decent. i hardly go home that way anymore, because of the pandemic, there are only about a third of the horses left. it's just too sad.


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## dogpatch (Dec 26, 2017)

ACinATX said:


> Yes, absolutely. I was so happy when we bought this place because it has these beautiful lush pastures, then I started to think about my fat Pony and what that would mean for him. I'm thinking he's either going to have to be in the dry lot part of the day year round, or maybe I will finally get that grazing muzzle.


I have a way of guesstimating what the grass is doing as far as sugar manufacturing. It's called a Brix refractometer. I can squeeze a few drops of sap out of the grass with a garlic press onto the lens and take a reading on the spot. I have an upper limit beyond which I won't allow grazing (and it's very low). My experience is that spring, beginning in early March, maybe, is when the sugar begins to spike and it can remain in the danger zone until maybe early July, during which time I restrict their grazing even more than usual. When the reading falls below my comfort zone, I start creeping them out again. I always have such easy keepers though, I never give them access to the main field.

Fall can be a different story. Fall laminitis is usually metabolic, with the ACTH seasonal rise. The Brix reading on the grass, once things started greening up again last fall, never exceeded my max limit, so I never reduced their paddock size.

The Brix method has its detractors, as the device can detect other minerals, etc. in the grass, and is mainly designed to show sucrose content, and is ineffective for starch. A lot of cattle people use it though, especially the grassfed community, to gauge the energy in their grass. For me, it just gives me a snapshot of what the grass is doing at the moment. I haven't had a laminitis doing this. Maybe I'm just lucky, but I need SOMETHING that keeps me from just spinning in the wind, wondering from day to day if my horses are going to come down lame.


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## Avna (Jul 11, 2015)

dogpatch said:


> I have a way of guesstimating what the grass is doing as far as sugar manufacturing. It's called a Brix refractometer. I can squeeze a few drops of sap out of the grass with a garlic press onto the lens and take a reading on the spot. I have an upper limit beyond which I won't allow grazing (and it's very low). My experience is that spring, beginning in early March, maybe, is when the sugar begins to spike and it can remain in the danger zone until maybe early July, during which time I restrict their grazing even more than usual. When the reading falls below my comfort zone, I start creeping them out again. I always have such easy keepers though, I never give them access to the main field.
> 
> Fall can be a different story. Fall laminitis is usually metabolic, with the ACTH seasonal rise. The Brix reading on the grass, once things started greening up again last fall, never exceeded my max limit, so I never reduced their paddock size.
> 
> The Brix method has its detractors, as the device can detect other minerals, etc. in the grass, and is mainly designed to show sucrose content, and is ineffective for starch. A lot of cattle people use it though, especially the grassfed community, to gauge the energy in their grass. For me, it just gives me a snapshot of what the grass is doing at the moment. I haven't had a laminitis doing this. Maybe I'm just lucky, but I need SOMETHING that keeps me from just spinning in the wind, wondering from day to day if my horses are going to come down lame.


Where do you get one of those? I now have a mild case of Cushings on my hands and need to be careful with the pasture as I've not had to before. Keeping a grazing muzzle on her, I predict, will be a nightmare and a half, based on her general style.


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

Also, 'winter' is not all super rainy. Some months are worse than others In those times, I'd keep the three horses on a dry lot. Let's just say, it will be good for you to have a large , fenced paddock area with sand and gravel, next to the pastures, where horses can loaf the days that non-stop rain (like the last 5 weeks here in Seattle) makes the pastures vulnerable. Also, depends on how well you pick the poo and keep the pasture healthy during the summers, so the roots stay solid.


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## gottatrot (Jan 9, 2011)

I took some photos of my field today. It has had 2 horses out full time for the past 6 months. These pictures are after about three days of steady rain.
Here is the shelter area. As you can see there is some wear in front, but no standing water or mud. There is a spot about 3 feet out that the horses walk around because it does get an area of muck at times. That is because the previous boarder put in sand and let manure pile up and decompose with it. In the summer I will try to remove it.









This is the shed from the side and far away down the field. As you can see, the field is grass and not mud. There are divots here and there from horses running. 









The water trough is far away from the shelter and has worn down areas around it but no standing water or mud.









Another view of the main part of the field. To me this is very acceptable.









The horse in the neighboring field also has no mud. He has a good water trough situation and walks into an open barn to eat his hay. 









This horse has the water trough just outside the shelter. Her field has too many trees so does not grow a lot of grass in the summer due to shade. It is on a hill so can drain, but the setup does not work because too much traffic goes through a small area. Plus the water trough is dumped into a muddy spot.


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## ~Wildheart~ (Nov 17, 2020)

We keep them turned out all winter, it works fine


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## dogpatch (Dec 26, 2017)

Avna said:


> Where do you get one of those? I now have a mild case of Cushings on my hands and need to be careful with the pasture as I've not had to before. Keeping a grazing muzzle on her, I predict, will be a nightmare and a half, based on her general style.


They are cheap and plentiful on Amazon. Be sure to get one for fruit juice/wine, with ATC - automatic temperature compensation. I have a blog post about how I use mine, but have to figure out how to share it without breaking the rules.


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## beau159 (Oct 4, 2010)

When I lived in Oregon for 3 years, I found some lovely people with their own place with an "extra" horse to go riding with once a week. I'm not sure how many acres they had ... maybe 10? Guessing. They have the pastures split up into 3 or 4 different ones. The two boys in one and the two girls in the other. One of the boys needed a rain sheet most of the year or he would get rain rot. But they pretty much let the horses come and go as they pleased into the pasture or into their stalls. They would rotate access to the pastures. They did also have a decent sized indoor arena. It was a really nice place.


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

Dogpatch, why s laminitis a problem and when?


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## dogpatch (Dec 26, 2017)

AragoASB said:


> Dogpatch, why s laminitis a problem and when?


The PNW tends to have very leached soil due to millenia of high precipitation, as well as simply the makeup of the native soil. There is no natural function in place for re-mineralization to take place. Our soil, for instance, is described by the USGS as "10 million year old lava weathered to red clay." My old farrier said the old timers used to say, "You can't raise hell on this ground with two six shooters and a bottle of whiskey." There is a lot of potassium and iron in the soil, and a lack of critical minerals like calcium and copper. Extractive agricultural practices for the last couple hundred years complete the process of stripping natural fertility from the soil.

Grass has the potential to be a high protein producing plant, but requires about 20 minerals from the soil, in fairly decent balance, to complete the metabolic process of turning the sugar it produces via photosynthesis, into protein and other nutrients via the catalytic action of minerals it takes up from the soil. Thus you have a sugar factory that was supposed to be a protein factory, but is shut down partway through the metabolic process due to lack of raw materials.

I have no way of predicting when laminitis could attack but I think grass laminitis is more prevalent in spring and early summer. Metabolic laminitis is more prevalent in the fall.


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## Acadianartist (Apr 21, 2015)

I feel like if the ground doesn't freeze, the horses would churn it up pretty quickly. Consider finding an area that is not desirable for pasture, and using that as a winter turnout. It might have trees, weeds, shrubs... I did this with a small area that's probably no more than an acre, but is a long ribbon-shape with a loop at the end (so kind of a ribbon with a tear-drop I guess). There is a big apple tree in there, so they can't go in when there are apples, but once fruit season is over, I pick up the windfall apples and let them use it to save my other areas. They cross a little ditch with a bit of water, there are lots of spruce and dogwood. It was fairly easy to rope it off and I used an existing fence like on one side of it. We just put in a few posts and ran 2 strands of electric wire.

I find having a variety of turnout areas keeps them interested. They get very excited when they are turned out in this new section because it's something new. I sometimes just use it to add a couple of weeks to grazing season, to give another pasture a rest, etc.

Gratuitous photo of Rusty cantering in the side section. You can see some of the dogwood which they don't bother with, but I did section off some of the woods because there are so many deadfalls in there. It's kind of a fun little place for them to explore in the shoulder season.


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

Whats this other picture? Whats wrong with his sheath?


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## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

AragoASB said:


> Whats this other picture? Whats wrong with his sheath?











Weird symptoms... what should I tell the vet?


Rusty is having odd symptoms lately, and I can't help but think they're connected. Here is the list: frequent tail lifting as if he is going to poop, but nothing is happening (I examined his anus for melanomas and cannot see anything) smelly, dirty sheath (I have cleaned it numerous times, and...




www.horseforum.com


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## Acadianartist (Apr 21, 2015)

OMG, lol... so sorry. I am mortified now. Can a mod remove that? It got attached by accident. Technology isn't my friend lately.

Never mind. Was able to remove it. Apologies everyone.

Yes, Rusty's sheath is causing me all kinds of worry these days. He is being treated by a vet. But hey, if you want to head on over to my other thread and give me suggestions, I'm all ears!


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

My vet boyfriend once pointed out to me Excaliber Sheath and Pen-is Cleaner says on the bottle Leaves a clean fresh scent.


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

We just moved to Coos county (coastal Oregon) from Texas this year. My Saddlbred is at a training barn but 'Dinkus Maximus', mini stallion, is here at the barn we built. I feed him sm. amt. alfalfa at night and then he is turned out on pasture for the day. These cool season grasses are new to us. The grass pastures are also grazed by cattle during the year but they are back across the road being fed hay every day becaiuse it is hay feeding season. Just like on the Texas ranch you feed hay in the winter because animals will lose weight on the young grass.

The grass here died and dried up and turned brown in the summer but since it has rained it is green. Even now that the cattle are off it is short like a lawn. It is mixed grass and clover. The clover is very samll now. Dinky has never foundered in his 17 year life and it is not like he was just suddenly turned out on it. So I am wondering what to expect. The cattle will be back in here when the grass can support mama cows. The barn has a paddock wher I will feed the horses and also be able to keep them off pasture.

Her is my husband redoing the fence for horses while being inspected by curoious guineas. You can see Dinky off to the left.





















There are about 15 acres in 3 bottomland pastures.


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## gottatrot (Jan 9, 2011)

AragoASB said:


> We just moved to Coos county (coastal Oregon) from Texas this year. My Saddlbred is at a training barn but 'Dinkus Maximus', mini stallion, is here at the barn we built. I feed him sm. amt. alfalfa at night and then he is turned out on pasture for the day. These cool season grasses are new to us. The grass pastures are also grazed by cattle during the year but they are back across the road being fed hay every day becaiuse it is hay feeding season. Just like on the Texas ranch you feed hay in the winter because animals will lose weight on the young grass.
> 
> The grass here died and dried up and turned brown in the summer but since it has rained it is green. Even now that the cattle are off it is short like a lawn. It is mixed grass and clover. The clover is very samll now. Dinky has never foundered in his 17 year life and it is not like he was just suddenly turned out on it. So I am wondering what to expect. The cattle will be back in here when the grass can support mama cows. The barn has a paddock wher I will feed the horses and also be able to keep them off pasture.
> 
> ...


It would be very dangerous to leave the mini out on that much land. Managing a mini around here requires a very small field and/or dry lot with low NSC hay. This year it has been fine so far, but a couple years ago the grass had a sudden growth in January and many horses foundered. It's not about exposure time, but the grass will change suddenly and there will be lots of sugar in it. Minis will suddenly gain weight and get laminitis. My friends have been successful with having minis out on pasture about two hours a day. More than that is very risky. At times when the grass is growing quickly they just put the minis in dry lot. To be safe, you will want to keep a mini at a 5 body condition score maximum, 4.5 is better. 

It is good you are feeding hay to the cows. Even if cows don't lose weight on winter pasture, the rain washes all the vitamins and minerals out and cows can die from malnutrition.


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

Which kind of Brix meter do you think I should get?


Amazon.com : Brix refractometerwith ATC



And what about when the grass freezes in a frost? I have heard that when it first freezes and thaws it is poisonous to horses. Is that true?


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## Acadianartist (Apr 21, 2015)

AragoASB said:


> Which kind of Brix meter do you think I should get?
> 
> 
> Amazon.com : Brix refractometerwith ATC
> ...


If it were, my horses would all be dead. Happens all the time in the spring and fall. It's not poisonous, it's just that it increases the sugars in the grass so if you have an insulin-resistant horse, they should not eat it until the sugars get used up again by the plant. This is common in cooler climates: the plant grows during the warm days and stores sugar, the cold nights stop growth so the sugar gets concentrated in the plant, and in the morning, when it warms up again, it uses the stored sugar to grow some more. I'm probably not explaining that very well, but they generally recommend keeping horses off grass for a few hours when this happens. I wait until about 11 am before turnout. Mine are not IR, but I feel like Harley could become IR given his age and breed. Plus, it gives the grass a chance to regrow and recover from the frost. But once the plant has thawed out a bit, they eat it just fine.


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## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

A mini on full-time pasture, I'd be worried about. He's never foundered, but he's been on Texas grass for most of his life, right? While there are a lot of factors that go into how much NSCs will be in a given piece of grass at given time, taken as a whole cool weather grasses (like what's in the PNW) have more sugar than hot-weather grasses.
OK I've done a lot of research into laminitis and I'm typing this from my general recollections. Maybe we could start a new thread on it? I just might. Other people have additional insights.

Factors that can contribute to NSCs in grass:

temperature
time of day
moisture (how much it's rained and how recently or, in the winter)
type of grass
pasture nutrients
if grass is stressed, including by drought or over-grazing
I was trying to look up some of the resources I found for this. Here is one:


https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e7fddf934de306c2b8cc313/t/5e874889179d333a49726d79/1585924236921/pasturemanagementminimizerisk.pdf



Things you can look for to see if your horse has low-grade laminitis, besides the obvious severe pain / founder stance:

rings in hooves
cresty neck
hoof capsule seems to get longer, hoof sole seems flatter (can indicate coffin bone descent)
general ouchiness, seasonal
lots of body fat -- this isn't a sign of laminitis per se, but it's a sign that your animal is at greater risk

What you can do to help your horse

Use a grazing muzzle
Limit turnout
Turnout on poor fields
Look into getting low-NSC hay. There are hay sources in Washington state, at least, that will give you guaranteed analysis of hay NSC
Supplement with copper and zinc; these minerals are good for hooves and will sort of counter the iron-rich soil you have
Look into other supplements for strong hooves (biotin? magnesium?)
Get him tested for insulin resistance. Do it now so you have a baseline, and maybe get it done every year with your vet check


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## dogpatch (Dec 26, 2017)

AragoASB said:


> Which kind of Brix meter do you think I should get?
> 
> 
> Amazon.com : Brix refractometerwith ATC
> ...


Any of the wine/fruit juice types. I like my wine at a "7" on the Brix scale! "Poisonous" is an overstatement. I think there is concern over nitrate spikes in frozen grass but I'm not aware of any danger from that in the PNW. The leaves of the grass will retain the sugar they've manufactured during the day if the temp drops below 40 at night, so sugar content can go up in those circumstances.

When I "Brix" the grass, I pull a small handful of it, pat it dry with a paper towel if necessary, and squeeze a few drops of sap out of it with a garlic press onto the lens of the refractometer. I have an absolute maximum of 3 before I start confining them more closely. They live on a very eaten down paddock but coming up very shortly, that grass will start growing like mad and I may cut their paddock size down within the next few weeks. I have seen the reading jump 100% between morning and afternoon. The grass growing cycle in the PNW is about to amp up. Growth will increase on a fairly steep trajectory through May and will pretty much start to slowly slack off. Sugar production will increase with the angle of the sun.

I usually start creeping my horses back out onto their paddock with moveable electric fence in early summer. I start Brix-ing again when the rain returns in fall.

Please understand that I am the only person I know who uses a refractometer to monitor the grass. It is not an accepted or guaranteed way to avert laminitis and my maximum Brix of 3 is just my own experience.

But if I was you, I would definitely be making arrangements to restrict grazing for the mini. And be on the hunt for a supplier of low carb hay.

Welcome to Oregon!


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

Thank you for the advice of all of you. I have Dinky for one thing because I raised him from a colt and I love him. His personality is more like a dog than a horse. The second reason is he is to be the friend of my Saddlebred who is in training in another county (Linn). Arago has never been here. When we bought this place in Coos county and there was no barn and the fences were a joke. So Arago has been having a fine life and getting good care at the training barn for now. I have fenced off horse safe about 4 acres of grass. At the moment the grass and the clover is very short and is not growning. One side (not the perimeter side) is electric tape to keep them out of the woods.
I have built a paddock around the barn that connects to the horse pasture. This is the barn. It is made of two 10'x20 portable buildings. Dinkys stall is on the side with the hay room. The other side 10'20' is Aragos. Because of mud avoidance I will feed them separately in their stalls. For one thing if I don't, 'Dinkus Maximus' (stallion) will take Arago's food. Arago eats alfalfa and high fat grain. He is a hard keeper. Dinky is not fat and he lives on oat hay and a little alfalfa. Arago is a Saddlebred and a sort of high anxiety indiviual. He is a cribber and wears a strap. He is on ulcer preventative. So how to manage these two in a way that is best for both of them?


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

What if Dinky wears a grazing muzzle? (good luck)
Can the Saddlebred be OK gazing with Dinky if I test the grass sugar several times a day and he already has a belly full of hay?


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## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

I'd try the grazing muzzle. I've got a few more years before the move, but I am also trying to figure out to have Pony (fat) and Teddy (hard to keep weight on) out together. At least Teddy is the boss, so if I only gave them one pile of supplemental hay, he's the one who'd get it.


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## dogpatch (Dec 26, 2017)

AragoASB said:


> What if Dinky wears a grazing muzzle? (good luck)
> Can the Saddlebred be OK gazing with Dinky if I test the grass sugar several times a day and he already has a belly full of hay?


When you get your meter, you may possibly drive yourself nuts for awhile, going out and testing the grass a million times a day. But that's okay, it's fun. You can chart your results and get a real feel for what your grass is doing, then you can relax. You will get higher readings on sunny days. A generally accepted window for grazing is between 5am and 10am. By 10, photosynthesis is in full swing. Our dreary weather keeps sunlight/photosynthesis to a minimum through the winter, but the grass never really goes dormant. My latest reading was something like 0.9, but things are starting to look shaggy in the yard, so it's a sure bet the little sugar factories are waking up.

Grazing muzzles are certainly a means of restricting grazing, but I don't trust them much after a food-crazed Morgan mare I had broke hers within an hour of first wearing it.

My experience with my easy keepers is that they get what I call grass fever, when the green-up starts. They will leave their hay and go hungry if there are fresh sweet sprigs of grass to nibble. Very possibly, one of your best tools may be to have your horses tested for insulin resistance regularly, to help you judge their susceptibility to carb-induced laminitis, and formulate your management plan with that information. My history here in Oregon has been with easy keepers, and I have simply learned to treat all my horses as though they are insulin resistant. My Walker mare is Cushing's, so she's now at extra risk.


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## dogpatch (Dec 26, 2017)

I also want to mention that you can find informative articles by extension offices, etc. about using a Brix refractometer on pasture grass. The grassfed farmers need to know the carb status of their grass to judge energy available for lactation and fattening.


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## dogpatch (Dec 26, 2017)

Here is part of a blurb I wrote on using the BR back in 2017:


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## gottatrot (Jan 9, 2011)

In my experience, keeping easy and hard keepers together 24/7 will be to the detriment of both. In the worse case I saw, a very old thin horse was kept in with an insulin resistant, obese horse. The overweight one was very frustrated, wearing a grazing muzzle day and night while the very thin one kept getting pushed off the hay and lost more weight.

There are a few different solutions I can think of:

One is to get another mini to be friends with the little guy and another larger horse to be out with the bigger one. 

Another solution is to fence separate smaller areas around each shelter area. Then have both horses in the smaller areas with separate rations of hay at night. The mini could have a smaller turnout area attached to but separated from the large field so the horses could be next to each other when out during the day. The mini could go on the big pasture with the big horse for a couple hours a day. When I had a hard keeper and easy keeper (2 Arabs), I fed them in smaller corrals with shelters and hay/feed at night and then turned them out together on pasture during the day. 

Putting the mini out all day on the big pasture would most likely cause laminitis or founder, even with a grazing muzzle. Without one it would be very dangerous. Studies have shown that ponies taken off pasture for part of the day will increase their eating rate up to double, and can for example eat 24 hrs worth of grass in 12 hrs. 

I can't think of any solution that would put the two horses out together all the time. There could be creative fencing solutions where the mini could be close to the big horse all the time, such as making a narrow track around the big field so the two horses could stay close to each other while the mini was separated by a fence.

Clover is unfortunately known to be a culprit for making it more likely for an insulin resistant horse to get laminitis. Clover is high in potassium, which causes an imbalance that makes horses low in magnesium. Low magnesium worsens insulin resistance, so makes horses more susceptible to laminitis. A mustang I know foundered when put on a pasture with a lot of clover in it. It would be a good idea to supplement magnesium if your field has a lot of clover.


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## gottatrot (Jan 9, 2011)

I forgot to say...have you been feeding oat hay for long? To be safe, I'd check into the NSC levels for the mini as well. In general, oat hay is known to be one of the least safe hays to feed ponies or minis. Sometimes it will have an NSC level of over 20%. We had a few bales we fed to horses once when that was all we could get. They went crazy over it, and we couldn't figure it out because it was very yellow. But it tested very high in sugar/starch so it was like candy for the horses. 

On the coast here we have a few very good hays that tend to be very low in NSC. Good quality timothy or orchard grass from Eastern OR or WA is usually very safe, with a NSC of less than 11%. Some of the local grass hays can be high because they come off these same fields that horses are having issues with. It's very helpful to feed hay from areas that have the drier, hotter weather. 

From my experience with minis (several friends have minis and I've been very involved in their care, including rehabbing some minis rescued from a petting zoo that foundered from being given grain), they don't get to eat much as it is. Their genes have made them insulin resistant, because they come from small horses that developed on areas with very sparse feed that could not sustain larger horses. If you can give them low NSC feeds, it will help them be able to eat more hay safely without getting obese and suffering from laminitis. 

Not trying to be rude here or anything. I have been sad seeing so many ponies and minis founder in OR. My aunt has personally foundered at least four ponies. She puts them all on pasture and believes most ponies will founder at some point and live out their later years tottering around lame.


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

A couple of days ago a lady stopped by our Coos county gate to ask if I would sell Dinky. (thats kind of a compliment, isn't it?). She said she wanted a pasture companion for her mare. I told her Dinky is a stallion and she said she could just put a fenceline between them. Then she realized.....oh....
She was surprized that Dinky had never foundered, like this is unusual here.


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

My trainer has a fat 20+ year old mini mare that gives begining riding lessions to little bitty kids. She is a loved pet that she wll never sell. The little mare is sound and looks like she has never foundered. All this pony gets is alfalfa. I wonder if I could just feed Dinky alfala and nothing else. He gets a peice of alfalfa every day with the oat hay. Actually I buy the oat hay to feed my cow.


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

I would probably wear out a Brix meter.  Nurses love and are obsessed with health gadjets. Also, I make wine and hard apple cider. This last batch was mostly hard and hardly any cider.

I intend to feed both of them separately in their stalls anyway, so with close brix monitoring and fenceline sepratation when pasture is too sweet it might be doable. What do you all think?


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## dogpatch (Dec 26, 2017)

I just took a Brix reading of the grass at around noon. We have partly sunny, 45 degree conditions. It got down to 28 degrees before dawn. The reading was 1.9, up 100% from last week on a cloudy day with above 40 degree temps.

This is exactly why I say the BR has value when the experts scoff at it.


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## dogpatch (Dec 26, 2017)

AragoASB said:


> I would probably wear out a Brix meter.  Nurses love and are obsessed with health gadjets. Also, I make wine hard apple cider. This last batch was mostly hard and hardly any apple.
> 
> I intend to feed both of them separately in their stalls anyway, so with close brix monitoring and fenceline sepratation when pasture is too sweet it might be doable. What do you all think?


Hubby just bottled the 2020 crush. It was 7.5. I could taste the difference with the .5 higher reading, but it was so apple-y, I said It's Time!


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## dogpatch (Dec 26, 2017)

AragoASB said:


> I would probably wear out a Brix meter.  Nurses love and are obsessed with health gadjets. Also, I make wine hard apple cider. This last batch was mostly hard and hardly any apple.
> 
> I intend to feed both of them separately in their stalls anyway, so with close brix monitoring and fenceline sepratation when pasture is too sweet it might be doable. What do you all think?


Please don't blame me if the meter doesn't prevent problems!


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## dogpatch (Dec 26, 2017)

AragoASB said:


> My trainer has a fat 20+ year old mini mare that gives begining riding lessions to little bitty kids. She is a loved pet that she wll never sell. The little mare is sound and looks like she has never foundered. All this pony gets is alfalfa. I wonder if I could just feed Dinky alfala and nothing else. He gets a peice of alfalfa every day with the oat hay. Actually I buy the oat hay to feed my cow.


I've browsed some sites for information about ESC in alfalfa and it's all over the board, so who knows without testing. There's some concern that the calciumhosphorus ratio would be to high with straight alfalfa.


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## gottatrot (Jan 9, 2011)

dogpatch said:


> I've browsed some sites for information about ESC in alfalfa and it's all over the board, so who knows without testing. There's some concern that the calciumhosphorus ratio would be to high with straight alfalfa.


Right, you could feed it with a phosphorus supplement to correct the calcium, but that's why it's usually good to not feed straight alfalfa. It does tend to be low NSC. Since minis eat so few calories, I always think a low calorie grass hay is great just so they can eat more. Many of the ones I know are around 250 lbs so they only get to eat about 5 lbs a day.


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

I know a Brix meter is not the be all and end all tool. But it is great for getting some kind of idea what is going on.

It is possible to get east Oregon orchard grass hay. Dinky could eat half orchard and alfalfa. But none is available around here now. But who knows what the NSC of the grass hay is?

Speaking of keeping them in the paddock when the grass is too sweet, it will become a mud hole. I need to spread gravel on the whole paddock, not just around the barn. To put the gravel to level the isle of that barn, before the connecting roof was put on a 10 yard dump truck drove between the buildings and dumped 10 yards. Then we got another 10 yards and did the perimeter because these are heavy floor portable buildings up on runners. This we (mostly me) did with a wheelbarrow and shovel.


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## dogpatch (Dec 26, 2017)

AragoASB said:


> I know a Brix meter is not the be all and end all tool. But it is great for getting some kind of idea what is going on.
> 
> It is possible to get east Oregon orchard grass hay. Dinky could eat half orchard and alfalfa. But none is available around here now. But who knows what the NSC of the grass hay is?


You would have to check around your area, maybe even Craigslist for suppliers. More suppliers are offering tested hay but it just depends on your location. We're more in the Portland area and central Oregon Orchard is usually widely available. There is always soaking hay if you get really worried.


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

Soaking hay?


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## dogpatch (Dec 26, 2017)

AragoASB said:


> Soaking hay?


Um, this must be getting really weird for you. The best way to soak hay — Safergrass


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## gottatrot (Jan 9, 2011)

Eastern Oregon orchard grass is widely available pretty much anywhere in Oregon. Any town with a feed store should have some in. Even a town as small as Reedsport has a lot of it at the feed store, so Coos Bay and other large towns in Coos county should for sure. I've had batches tested a few times, and the NSC was always less than 10%.


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

Maybe Currydale Feeds in Curry county has some. There is only one feed store in Coos county>Milk-Y-Way. Isn't that a cute name for a feed store in dairy country? Milk-Y-Way has not had orchard or alfalfa either since last summer. The only other feed store in Coos Bay closed in 2010. I must learn to pack the hay room with 3 tons in the summer.


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

Dogpatch, there are a lot of different Brix meters on amazon. What brand of Brix meter do you have?

That is a great hay soaking article.


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## dogpatch (Dec 26, 2017)

AragoASB said:


> Dogpatch, there are a lot of different Brix meters on amazon. What brand of Brix meter do you have?
> 
> That is a great hay soaking article.


The author is probably the first person to put the method out there for the public.

My refractometer doesn't have a brand name. They're all coming out of China. It's manual, not digital. All it says is Brix refractometer homebrew kit (0-32%) New


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## gottatrot (Jan 9, 2011)

AragoASB said:


> Maybe Currydale Feeds in Curry county has some. There is only one feed store in Coos county>Milk-Y-Way. Isn't that a cute name for a feed store in dairy country? Milk-Y-Way has not had orchard or alfalfa either since last summer. The only other feed store in Coos Bay closed in 2010. I must learn to pack the hay room with 3 tons in the summer.


That is a cute name.
I thought there was one called Cascade Farm in Coos Bay?
Not sure how far Roseburg is for you but they have a Coastal Farm store. Langlois isn't too far from Bandon and it has the B & B farm store. Otherwise, if you ever get to Eugene they have several feed stores.


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

Is this it? 








Homebrew Guys Refractometer Kit (0-32 BRIX) with Automatic Temperature Compensation. Easily Measure Sugar levels of Juice, Home Brewing Beer & Wine Making Complete with Accessories and 12 pipettes: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific


Homebrew Guys Refractometer Kit (0-32 BRIX) with Automatic Temperature Compensation. Easily Measure Sugar levels of Juice, Home Brewing Beer & Wine Making Complete with Accessories and 12 pipettes: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific



www.amazon.com





I have to drive down the coast on 101 tomorrow and get my second covid shot and will be going right past Currydale, B and B and Gold Beach Hardware in Port Orford. One of those will have orchard grass for sure. Once I have a meter I will be able to feel what it's like to be a helicopter mom.


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## Vervain (Sep 14, 2018)

At my current boarding situation, if there isn't standing water in the pasture, she gets turnout, otherwise she's in. She's churned it some from getting amped up when her buddy is taken away to work but it's mostly holding up fine. At my last place, the horses got turnout daily in the winter but the pastures were not large enough and it was always a mud bog by the gate.


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## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

Vervain said:


> At my current boarding situation, if there isn't standing water in the pasture, she gets turnout, otherwise she's in. She's churned it some from getting amped up when her buddy is taken away to work but it's mostly holding up fine. At my last place, the horses got turnout daily in the winter but the pastures were not large enough and it was always a mud bog by the gate.


Thanks, that's very helpful!


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## dogpatch (Dec 26, 2017)

AragoASB said:


> Is this it?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That should do just fine.


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

Well, on the way back from the second vaccination I bought 2 bales of Orchard grass in Curry county that weigh about 150lbs each.

After getting vaccinated people have to sit in a waiting room for 15 minutes observation in case they fall out. So the nurse that gave the shot came in and started asking me her list of questions--- Do you feel faint when you stand up? Is there swelling inside your mouth? Do you feel numbness or tingling in your arms and legs? Well, I said, What about uncontrollable dancing? and started dancing around. Do you feel a chill? Only when I wave my arms around. Do you have hoarseness in your throat? No, I croaked in a choking voice. 

It will be nice to not have to worry about Dinky foundering. I guess sudden and sweet grass pasture is like a pony breaking into the feed room and pigging out on sweet feed. The owner of the store said most of the people buying this Orchard grass are feeding ponies.


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

Hey DogPatch and everybody, my Brix meter came today. It's been dark and rainy for the last several days and at 4 in the afternoon the grass Brix was 1.5 the first time and 2 the second time. Does that seem about right? So Dinky can graze since its not more than three. When the sun comes out things will change, right?

How do I clean and take care of this really cool instrument? I rinsed the grass juice off with a few drops of the distilled water I used for calibration, then dabbed it dry with the cloth that came with it. I put it up in a dry place with the box open so it won't mold and covered it with the cloth. Does it have to be calibrated every time?


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

boot


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