RE: [RC] Limited pasture/horse and hoof health - Paul Sidio
Kristi,
RE: "I wish I had some rugged,
rocky, hilly sparsely grassed land!"
Sorry, but my place isn't
forsale:)
The Ozarks has a lot of
that kind of conditions. We run our 5 horses on 40 acres of up and
down rocky hillsides. There are about 25 acres of open land which I have
limed and seeded and fertilized (every third year). In spring and summer, I have
to dry lot up two of the horses for part of the day, because they get way too
fat. Right now in the hard part of winter, I am feeding a total of about 30
pounds of hay per day, and only giving my endurance horse any grain.Three of the
non-grained horses are really still too fat. The 34 year old gelding is in just
about the right weight condition.
Horses spent millions of
years adapting to life outside with free movement. Whenever we try to
change them into a confined indoors animal, we have to deal with the
effects of that confinement. With my horses, I have not have to give a
shot for snotty nose, coughing, fevers etc in over 10 years. They have a
shelter to come in during bad weather, but you will not find them there. In the
middle of a nasty freezing rain or snowy blizzard, they will be on a lee
hillside with their butts to the wind. I used to try and drag them into the
barn, but 5 minutes later they were on the sheltered hillside again.
They evolved as grass eaters
that covered a lot of ground each day. Not heavily fertilized grass, just
regular meadow grass. The more you can provide that environment, the better off
they are. I understand that is not possible for some people, but it is something
to be aimed at.
Paul N. Sidio
From our 40 acres in Spokane MO, that
would be over 50 acres if you could flatten it
out.
