# Should I let my pastures degrade?



## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

You all know that Pony is fat and Moonshine is not exactly svelte. Teddy is something of a hard keeper, but manageable. 
The new place we bought has beautiful grassy pastures full of no-doubt high-sugar rye grass. Right now I'm thinking I'd have to keep them in part of the day, or even finally get that grazing muzzle.

But then I thought, could I let the pastures degrade? I could let the horses over-graze them and then the only thing left would be weeds they wouldn't eat, right? I mean, as long as SOMETHING was growing in there so it wasn't muddy. Is this a possible solution for keeping an easy keeper on pasture?

I know I'd then have to buy hay, but at least I could ration it.


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## horselovinguy (Oct 1, 2013)

No, do not do this...
Make a sacrifice area but do not destroy your pasture and what it does for your farm.
Erosion control, holding soil from blowing and covering everything else are tops on my list to prevent.
Find someone who will cut and bale your pasture and if you don't want to feed it to your current horses, then pay you for it...yes revenue made to help pay some of the expenses of upkeep on the place...
Worst is you just mow it...but please don't ruin the grass and what is protects the environment with.

I know you also have said forever home, but...you may add more to your herd over time and other animals may be able to enjoy that pasture.
Otherwise, think about discing the ground to turn the rye under and plant pasture mix but no matter what you do, you have 2 horses currently that border or topple into obese and restricted space a sacrifice area offers is where I think I would be plan making instead, saving that pasture for future haying and land preservation.
🐴.... _jmo..._


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## Woodhaven (Jan 21, 2014)

I keep my horse at my sister's and they have about 7 - 8 acres of pasture for 3 horses and two ponies and there is just too much grass. the mini gets practically no grass, was able to be out on pasture when it is covered with snow. All have to have restricted hours in the summer as they put on too much weight.
She doesn't do anything but keep the pasture clipped in the summer, if there was less grass that would be good; We don't keep them off the pasture in the winter, spring even if they chew it up pretty good hoping that will decrease the amount of grass available to them.
I would say it depends on how many acres you have and the quality of the pasture. Horses were meant to wander here and there picking and nibbling but now we seem to have too much lush green grass for them to chow down on.
Right now the snow has all but disappeared and the horses walk right by the hay and head out to grass, this is early for us but there is grass there. We had a fairly mild winter this year.


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## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

The place is 10.5 acres total, but I'd say the pasture area is more like 6-7 acres. I have three horses but am considering getting a fourth, like a rescue or someone that needs a soft landing, or someone who can just be a pasture pet, when I move.


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## Acadianartist (Apr 21, 2015)

No, don't let your pasture degrade. The stress caused to the grass actually makes it store more sugar. 

A better solution is either a paddock paradise, or do what I do, and add some temporary fencing inside the pasture to do either rotational grazing - where you split the pasture in sections and let them on one section at a time, or strip grazing, where you rope off a large section, and move it back by a few feet every few days. 

I'm not ambitious enough to build a paddock paradise, so this year, my plan is to create a large rectangle in the middle of the pasture which is roped off. That way, they have to move all around the rectangle, eating on the outer edges, which should also encourage lots of movement. A lazy person's paddock paradise  And every few days, I'll move one side of the rectangle in so they can strip graze a bit off one side. This should keep them interested while preventing overgrazing, but still providing them with grass. Rusty and Bella will likely wear a grazing muzzle part of the time, and if things get really bad, I may dry lot them part of the day with slow-feeder nets. It's crazy how fast they fatten up.


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## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

Yes, I was planning on cross-fencing and rotating, but then I thought, hey, this would be a whole lot easier.

I'm interested to hear more thoughts. I didn't think this was a great idea but again, it's a super easy one LOL.


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## QtrBel (May 31, 2012)

You could go back to native grasses. That would help. May still be a bit much but would be better than an improved pasture. There are native mixes and you can find those that are suitable.


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## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

QtrBel said:


> You could go back to native grasses. That would help. May still be a bit much but would be better than an improved pasture. There are native mixes and you can find those that are suitable.


Yes! That was one thing I had considered. I got in touch with the county extension agent to ask about that last year, actually, now that I think of it. But he wanted to come see the place, and we didn't get up there last year to meet him. Maybe this year!


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## dogpatch (Dec 26, 2017)

If you're talking about your PNW property, It's almost certainly "degraded" already, even if it looks lush and green. There's a deception in the lush greenness of the PNW. We grow cellulose and sugar - trees and berries. Proteinaceous foods such as hard white wheat and to a large extent, alfalfa, are not widely grown on the west side because they will not persist. The soil isn't strong enough. The soil has been subjected to millennia of leaching from high rainfall. The soil is left with too little of some minerals (copper, zinc, calcium, maybe magnesium) and too much of others (likely potassium, iron, manganese). The result is that the grass gets stalled at making sugar and starch, and other nutrients are absent.

The first thing a grass plant does when it starts to grow is make sugar and starch for its own energy and growth. It takes 18-20 minerals from the soil to catalyze the sugars and starches into other (nutrient) compounds. The process requires a robust population of soil microbes, and the soil microbes are inactive during cold periods and absent if the mineral content of the soil is poor. 

I don't actually know what constitutes a "native grass" in the Maritime Northwest, except for very poor types that can scavenge limited minerals. It is not a region that is particularly noted for large grazing wild animals. Which is a signal that it's not great habitat for horses.

Some horses can handle the PNW grass, a whole lot can't. Just plan on being very watchful.


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

I was actually thinking the same thing: that I don't think there ARE any native grasses to the West side of Washinton, at least not up north where your new property is. Another thing is, once degraded, things like Tansy Ragwort can start to take over, or blackberries. yuk!


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## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

Yeah, there is already about an acre of blackberry bushes that I'd like to reclaim; I don't need more, despite what husband and child think. That's discouraging about no native grasses. I wonder if there is something that would be similar enough. I mean, aren't there native grasses in the UK? The climate is very similar.


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## dogpatch (Dec 26, 2017)

ACinATX said:


> Yeah, there is already about an acre of blackberry bushes that I'd like to reclaim; I don't need more, despite what husband and child think. That's discouraging about no native grasses. I wonder if there is something that would be similar enough. I mean, aren't there native grasses in the UK? The climate is very similar.


The UK has problems similar to the PNW. It's not that there are no native grasses, it's just that those native grasses didn't necessarily evolve to feed large herbivores. They have their own niche in nature. There's a saying among the grass farmers - the people who raise grassfed meat and dairy - "Just because you have grass doesn't mean you have grazing."


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## gottatrot (Jan 9, 2011)

Even though you don't want to graze down to a dry lot, the horses I see doing the best in the rainy NW are those on smaller fields. So not getting down to mud or very short grass or super weedy, but also not a huge, lush field. 

Because as was mentioned, the grazing is not nutritious but it provides sugar calories, so you need to be able to feed hay all year to keep horses healthy. 

If you have the ability to rotate through fields, that would be ideal. But keeping in mind you want the fields small enough that they won't contain enough grass to make feeding some hay cause obesity. I think of a field as snacking and then feed hay balanced with vitamins for nutrition. 

The horses I see that are doing the worst are the ones on either very large, lush pasture or those who are on pasture but are also being fed large amounts or free choice "low quality," meaning cheaper, yellower hay that tends to be higher in sugar and lower in protein. 

In my opinion, since the grass has low nutrition, the worst thing to do is feed hay with low nutrition also.


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## Avna (Jul 11, 2015)

First, it is absolutely not true that there are no PNW native grasses. However, re-establishing native meadows is neither easy nor inexpensive, and I wouldn't bother with it in your situation. 

Second, and I cannot emphasize this enough, the soil and its flora and fauna is our LIFE. We destroy it because we are stupid greedy humans who cannot see beyond our immediate desires. It is the Ecosystem, the thin skin of the planet without which no life exists. There is simply nothing more important in the entire world. When I hear "just let it degrade" I get physically ill. As a trained organic farmer/gardener, one of the most difficult things for me about horse people is the way so many treat their land. 

There are many ways to restrict grazing access for overweight horses, and there are many ways to nurture your pasture land. Some of the former include grazing muzzles, the paddock paradise idea, rotational grazing, and custom grazing (renting the pasture to other grazing animal owners but only at peak growth times). Mowing helps the grass, it won't help your grazing issues. 

Blackberries can be controlled by goats, by the way. They prefer them over grass, and will kill them over a few seasons -- they can't eat the canes but will eat all the leaves off until the plants die. 

You really should get the ag agent out, and also run a soil test (this is usually a university extension service and is cheap).


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## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

Avna said:


> Blackberries can be controlled by goats, by the way. They prefer them over grass, and will kill them over a few seasons -- they can't eat the canes but will eat all the leaves off until the plants die.
> 
> You really should get the ag agent out, and also run a soil test (this is usually a university extension service and is cheap).


The goats thing is a whole other issue. I really want goats -- I feel like they would be complementary grazers to the horses and, as you pointed out, eat blackberries. However, I have to be honest that I'm not sure I'm ready for them. I can't imagine fencing in 10 acres with goat-proof fencing. I'd want pygmys but we have mountain lions in the area, and I know one of the neighbors lost a goat to a mountain lion several years ago. I'd like to create some kind of enclosure for them at night and let them free in the day, like I did with my chickens, but then the enclosure has to be made, and made predator-proof as much as possible (predators around here are black bears and the aforementioned mountain lions; I know that no enclosure will really keep out a determined bear, but I'm hoping that I can make it strong enough to deter them, since there won't be anything they'd really want to eat in there). Is it possible to keep them on our land without spending a ton on fencing? Personally if they wandered off into the small road that's on one side of the property, and ate all the weeds in the verge, I wouldn't mind. But if they wandered off and ate the neighbors' roses, then what?

There are a ton of questions I need to ask about goats.

The ag agent is willing to come out, but he wants me to be there. Hopefully that will be possible this summer.

ETA I totally understand your point about maintaining the soil and its flora and fauna, but the pastures as they currently exist are not natural to the area. Letting them degrade to the point where they are just mud is not what I'm talking about; I mean letting them get weedy. Of course a lot of the weeds up there now are also not natural to the area, but perhaps more native weeds could be encouraged. Yes a pasture full of mono-cultured non-native grass is better than 10 acres of dirt, but is it better than 10 acres of partially native weeds? I mean in terms of preserving ecosystem?


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## QtrBel (May 31, 2012)

Even though many of the natives may not be suitable there are natives that are. Soil type and conditions will determine what could be grown there Yes, establishing pastures can be expensive. It doesn't matter whether it is native or not. Sometimes just adjusting ph can discourage certain plants and encourage others. Same with different management practices. You are creating an ideal environment for what you want while those same practices discourage what you don't.


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## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

QtrBel said:


> Sometimes just adjusting ph can discourage certain plants and encourage others. Same with different management practices.


Yes, liming the pastures is something I expect to do. It's so funny because here in central Texas our soil essentially IS lime -- the idea of wanting to add lime to the ground still strikes me as strange.

@Avna this is what I would like to achieve (picture): lots of weeds but a little grass. If you think that this is significantly worse than monocultured non-native grass, can you explain why?


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## Avna (Jul 11, 2015)

ACinATX said:


> Yes, liming the pastures is something I expect to do. It's so funny because here in central Texas our soil essentially IS lime -- the idea of wanting to add lime to the ground still strikes me as strange.
> 
> @Avna this is what I would like to achieve (picture): lots of weeds but a little grass. If you think that this is significantly worse than monocultured non-native grass, can you explain why?


No, monoculture grass is doing the earth no favors. 

It all depends on what you are calling a "weed". In my book, there are no native weeds. Only non-native invasive weeds. We should remember that natural grasslands are rare both where I live, New England, and where you live. Here, the original human inhabitants used controlled burns to keep areas open to native grasses, and I would not be surprised if the same was true in your part of the world. Something that was sustained for many thousands of years. So, in order to have grassland at all, where there would naturally be forest, there is always some kind of human intervention. 

Thoughtful, mindful intervention, but intervention all the same.


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## Avna (Jul 11, 2015)

As to goats, what you need is electrified portable sheep/goat netting. It keeps out all the predators of goats, even bears, and it keeps goats in. Premier One is the best company and their website is full of excellent information. 

Another thing to remember about goats is that unlike horses, and sheep, they cannot tolerate getting wet. That being an issue in the PNW. They always have to have shelter.


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## QtrBel (May 31, 2012)

I've used Premier for 30 plus years now. Great product. Great service.


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## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

Avna said:


> Another thing to remember about goats is that unlike horses, and sheep, they cannot tolerate getting wet. That being an issue in the PNW. They always have to have shelter.


When you say that, do you mean they just have to have shelter available, or that they will have to be forced into it when it rains? Rain in the PNW is usually what people in other parts of the country would call very light rain or just heavy drizzle.


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## gottatrot (Jan 9, 2011)

ACinATX said:


> When you say that, do you mean they just have to have shelter available, or that they will have to be forced into it when it rains? Rain in the PNW is usually what people in other parts of the country would call very light rain or just heavy drizzle.


Most goats I know around here have a shelter so they can go into it when it rains, but they don't have to be shut into it. Goats really dislike rain, but tend to actually go under shelter at about the same sensitivity as horses. Meaning, when I've watched goats in fields next to horses in fields, when both have shelters, the goats and horses both run for the sheds at about the same level of rain. They'll stay out for misting or sprinkling, but neither appreciates a harder rain. It was funny sometimes to watch two fields, one with mini horses and one with goats. They would all run in together if it rained, then drift back out as it eased up, then run back in when the rain picked up.


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## Avna (Jul 11, 2015)

Goats don't need any guidance about rain. Or anything else, according to them. 

My horses will graze peacefully in a rain that will sent my goats to the shelter. I've seen them out there unconcerned in sleet and snow. The goats will stay out for awhile (they love the horses and want to stay with them) but the weather will drive them in eventually.


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