Equine Adaptive Grazing-Implementation and Learnings

We're now three paddocks, two moves, 8 days and a hurricane into my equine adaptive grazing experiment.

We are adaptively grazing the half of this pasture which is fartherst from the barn and water. We constructed an alleyway from the gate, water and through a bit of shade , similar to a track system. The alley leads to the back half of the pasture, where there is abundant grass but no shade.

To determine paddock size, I slid my grazing stick under the grass, along the ground to estimate ground cover (>90%), then measured average leaf height in the are I expected to graze (~10 inches). That gave me an estmate of 3000 lb dry matter (DM) per acre, 1/3 of which is my target for grazing during this semi-dormant dry season. At 1.5% of their bodyweight, my small herd needs about 45 lb DM per day. If I want to move the horses about every 3 days, that's ~.15 acres or 6500 sq ft.

I turned the horses out in the morning so they could get to know where the boundary was. My horses stay behind a 3-wire electric fence most of the time, so they also are already trained to the electric fence. However, they went through the single wire overnight the first night. It's possible they didn't see it at night. I've also since discovered that the battery on the fence charger is losing most of it's charge overnight. The first paddock was interrupted by the anticipated hurricane, but we did get a total of three days out of it. After the first night, I added a couple more posts and a second wire, so we have more visibility and more shock power.

Two of the key attributes of a regenerative farmer are being observant and being adaptable. That is certainly true here. I've been able to watch the horses from my office window. It's been important and instructive to see how much and which plants they've eaten, as well as notice how their grazing and movement patterns change as the strip gets eaten down. I was very pleased to see that once I moved them to the second paddock, they never went back to graze the first strip. However, by this morning, which was day three on the second strip, they were wandering back over the first strip as well. I've now opened the third strip and they're happily grazing the new area.

With a target of grazing about 1/3 of the forage, it's surprising to me how obvious the line between the strips is, even after taking the fence down. I am experimenting with not using a "back fence" to keep them off the old stuff. If we were more actively growing, I would probably need to, as that new growth would be enticing. Not only is that counter-productive to pasture recovery, it's also high sugar and not good for the horses.

I was pleased to discover some new plants during my endeavors, including Silver Beard Grass and Turkey Tangle Frogfruit (a type of verbena). Our pasture diversity also includes nettle and nightshade, so I've learned there's a price to be paid for wearing shorts. Parts of the ground were hard enough we had to use a masonry drill bit to get the "step-in" posts in. Perhaps in a rainy season they'll live up to their name, but for now they're mostly "pound in". For this experiment, we've made do with materials from 15+ years ago when we were more intensively grazing our own cattle. Seeing positive results, I've treated myself to a couple new reels for winding and unwinding the polywire and easy-on alligator clips for connecting the diving fence to the main fence. And a new battery is on the shopping list for next week.

Oh, and the hurricane was a fizzle at our ranch. 0.1 inches of rain and some wind. Thankful we didn't have any damage and my heart goes out to those who did.