This message is from: "Teressa" <tere...@kodiakfishco.com>
I'm in your neck of the woods - just 10 miles south of the Canadian border in Ferndale, WA. We have mud, clay soil, lots of rain too. Two horses in a 2 acre pasture will strip that pasture in fairly short order. It's best to insure you have a fairly roomy paddock that is barren so when the grass is rich and growing you have bare ground to rotate the horse to (and to allow some grass to grow). We also have lots of creeping buttercup. One sacrifice pasture that we had was only green from the buttercup patches. My horses have never eaten it - but can nibble all around it to get everything edible. Our bare paddocks stay mud free only because they were built with several layers of sand, gravel, road fabric layers and hog fuel on top. The pastures though get awful muddy in spots and, since are all on sloping terrain, there can be some pretty good skids going in when the horses are playing. If you put gravel down on top of the mud, it won't take long before the gravel disappears into the mud. Doesn't matter how much gravel you put in, it just goes away somehow. Teressa in NW Washington -----Original Message----- From: owner-fjordho...@angus.mystery.com [mailto:owner-fjordho...@angus.mystery.com] On Behalf Of Alice MacGillivray Sent: Monday, February 07, 2011 7:20 PM To: fjordhorse@angus.mystery.com Subject: Setting up a paddock This message is from: Alice MacGillivray <al...@4km.net> I'm setting up a small paddock area for the arrival of my fjord (yeah!) in a few weeks. We just moved to a property that can accommodate a loafing shed and small paddock. We're on a Canadian Gulf Island (similar climate and vegetation to the San Juan Islands in the Pacific Northwest). We get very little snow, lots of rain in winter and dry, mild summers. I would really value advice on how best to set up the paddock. I have lots of info about fencing. Mud is an issue here (I plan to put some gravel in at least part of the paddock, but it isn't easy on the property to get in with equipment so some of the work will be hand work). The questions I know I have are around vegetation. We don't know the property well as we just moved here and have not had a year in which to see what grows. Will a fjord have any common sense about what to eat or not eat (assuming she has good hay etc.)? I can try to remove all plants, or all plants I know are toxic (such as an introduced buttercup that grows all over here), but plants thrive in this climate, and I can't imagine keeping totally ahead of a grazing animal. To complicate the situation, the property had a lot of flower gardening many years ago, so we're not just dealing with native trees, shrubs and herbs (which I know pretty well). I saw lots of daffodils sprouting up on my walk of the property today. I will be talking to the local horse vet. But I expect that some of you have dealt with similar situations, regardless of whether you live near here or not? Apologies for the cross-posting in two listservs, and thank you in advance. Alice MacGillivray Important FjordHorse List Links: Subscription Management: http://tinyurl.com/5msa7e FH-L Archives: http://tinyurl.com/rcepw Classified Ads: http://tinyurl.com/5b5g2f Important FjordHorse List Links: Subscription Management: http://tinyurl.com/5msa7e FH-L Archives: http://tinyurl.com/rcepw Classified Ads: http://tinyurl.com/5b5g2f
