From: Liz
Dear Dr. Jahiel,
Our horses are on a 3000 acre ranch in Colorado near Denver. A total of 43 horses, two of which are mine. We usually rotate the horses on 300 or 400 acre pastures. Do to the drought we have made a sacrificial pasture one of the smaller ones maybe 100 acres? It has become a dust bowl. We feed hay by driving a truck and trailer and throwing flakes of hay about every 6 feet every which way. The herd comes running as the truck keeps moving. Horse members/other owners have been discussing buying feeders. We are worried about the horses digesting sand and more manure/parasites accumulation in the pasture. I also am worried about horses biting and kicking each other if we go with feeders. There are some very dominating horses that are real aggressive. What are the risks of getting injuries vs. eating to much sand/parasites. Is there a style of feeder you would suggest for a herd situation? We work in teams of two families feeding for one week at a time. We are a club the land is owned by the company we or our spouses work for. Our horses look very healthy and have lived on this ranch for over 40 years. There is no barn or shelter, we have never picked up manure. I would say there is one pile of manure about every 10 to 15 feet apart in the more common areas the horses gather in this is the most we have ever seen because usually we move the herd once a month to a new pasture. If we have feeders I think we would have a lot more manure piling up and I would imagine we would have to haul it away this would increase our work load and would have to be voted on as well at purchasing the feeders. Your advice would be very much appreciated. I hope the drought will end soon.
Thank you, Liz
In nature, horses don't choose to eat and defecate in the same small area. They walk and graze, defecate and move on, and by the time they return to the area, the manure is reduced to dry powder. It sounds as though this is more or less what's happening with your horses. As long as your horses are on the move from day to day and month to month, you're minimizing the chances of them picking up parasites. And if all the horses in the group are dewormed regularly and appropriately, and the group remains stable over time (this wouldn't work if horses were being added and taken away constantly), your horses should be healthier than most. ;-)
I tend to agree with you about the feeders, as well. The system you're using now has worked well for you in the past, and your concerns about crowding, injuries, and parasites are well-founded. Providing several more piles of hay than the total number of horses, and spreading the piles over a considerable area (allowing 20' or more between piles) is the best way I know to feed large numbers of horses in a single pasture without setting them up for squabbles and possible injuries, and you're already doing that.
Pasture feeders are very useful if you have a few horses in a relatively small pasture, and if you want to be sure that all the horses always know where to go to eat, and if you are concerned about leaving out large quantities of hay that may be pulled around scattered, and soiled by bored horses that will then lose interest in it. Since you distribute hay across a much larger area, feeding by truck, your horses know to watch for and meet the truck. Since they're in a large space, they can keep moving freely, day and night - and since it's a "dust bowl", they're hardly likely to be eating so much grass that they lose interest in their hay. And from your description of the horses, it sounds as though they're all well-fed and well-exercised.
Sand ingestion and sand colic can definitely be a problem if you live in an area with a lot of sand or very sandy soil, but it's not clear that putting feeders into the pastures would improve the situation. Horses are grazers, and not the tidiest eaters in the world when it comes to their hay. Most horses will pull a mouthful of hay from the ground, haynet, or feeder, eat it, then pull another mouthful of hay and eat that. In the process, many of the leaves tend to fall off the stems and onto the ground - and the horses usually make a point of seeking them out and eating them. Some horses shake their hay into loose piles before eating it, which spreads the leaves far and wide. People who use feeders of any type will tell you that at mealtime, there's a steady flow of hay-leaves from the feeder to the ground under and around the feeder. Keeping the ground under and/or around your feeders free from sand, if you're in a sandy area, just isn't practical unless you keep rubber mats under and around the feeders, and sweep them frequently.
Why not check your horses' manure for sand content, and then talk to your vet about whether the amount you find is a cause for concern? It may not be. If it IS cause for concern, your vet may be able to suggest a prophylactic feeding protocol such as feeding the horses psyllium for a week or ten days out of each month.
Whatever you decide, good luck! I know you are still short of snowmass in Colorado, and I hope that you get enough rain to see all of your horses safely through the summer. "Should we or shouldn't we use feeders in our pastures?" is a much more pleasant question to discuss than "Where can we find hay for the horses?" or "Where can we find water for the horses?"
Jessica
Jessica Jahiel's HORSE-SENSE is a free, subscriber-supported electronic Q&A email newsletter which deals with all aspects of horses, their management, riding, and training. For more information, please visit www.horse-sense.org
Please visit Jessica Jahiel: Holistic Horsemanship® [www.jessicajahiel.com] for more information on Jessica Jahiel's clinics, video lessons, phone consultations, books, articles, columns, and expert witness and litigation consultant services.