Fencing

Horse managers tend to have limited options for rotational use of their pastures or paddocks because of a lack of fencing to subdivide the areas. Besides, many horse managers want one pasture for one horse or herd of horses. It is difficult or impossible to manage pastures and implement any form of rotational use under these circumstances.

Part of managing a rotational-grazing horse pasture approach is having pastures divided into smaller paddocks because rotational use of pastures is vital for stand maintenance, production, and overall degree of pasture success. More subdivision is needed in most cases, but traditional horse fencing is costly. Managers may consider cheaper, more convenient means of interior fencing to allow necessary subdivisions for better forage management.

Some alternatives might be as follows:

1. various good-quality electric fences, such as ribbon, and other polywire or polyrope made by high-powered electric fencing supply companies (but use only white-colored wires for visibility against a green or brown pasture background, and use an alternating dark- and white-striped polytape for visibility where snow is common)
2. smooth multiwire high tensile fencing (high breaking strength), 12-gauge
3. smooth conventional hardware store wire (low breaking strength), 12-gauge
4. smooth conventional wire topped with an electric wire, 12-gauge
5. PVC fencing, which is expensive compared with the other choices

Some of these fences can be managed very well for strip grazing or breaking up paddocks.
Some electric fences cost only about four hundred dollars per mile for materials and are very effective if properly installed and managed. Using one to three lines of electric temporary or permanent fencing is suggested only for interior fences. Exterior fencing should be good conventional nonelectric fence or multiwired (four to eight wires) electric high-tensile smooth wire fence.

Stock, including horses, need to be trained to the electric fence under controlled circumstances before being turned out to paddocks made of these fences. All electric fences should be made visible by using white polytape, white polyrope, and white signal strips as necessary. These fences should be constructed to break easily to prevent injury if a running horse encounters the fence.

Horse Research on Forages
Practical use and common-sense judgment has shown that horses can survive and do well on forages alone. There are ranges of survival and ranges of just how well horses do on various forages. It has only been recently that research and demonstration work has set out to define these ranges and how they can fit into the nutritional needs of the horse, which vary enormously. The following comments are based primarily on winter forages and bermudagrass, with additional information on other forages.

Performance on Bermudagrass, Winter Pastures, Kliengrass, and Alfalfa
The quantity of forage available influences gain of livestock, including horses. Grazing that allowed 60 to 100 pounds or more of dry matter pasture per 100 pounds of body weight resulted in maximum individual performance, according to Aiken et al. (1985) and Roquette (1985). In our experience, good thick bermudagrass for one 1,000-pound horse per acre meant only 4 to 6 inches of growth above the soil line. For our good small-grains-based winter pasture, we would need 6 to 12 inches for one 1,000-pound horse per acre for upper-level gain. If the pasture is shorter and the quantity lower, the horse must have more area to get 60 to 100 pounds of forage per 100 pounds of body weight and reach top gains. At least two more acres are required in some cases. If the forage is extremely short, that expanded acreage still will not allow convenient intake for upper-level gains.

In a 201-day trial, yearling horses produced 1.12 and 1.46 pounds of ADG from pasture only versus pasture and 8.3 pounds of 14 percent crude protein feed per head per day (Roquette, 1985). The pasture was sod-seeded winter pasture of rye-ryegrass-clovers in bermudagrass and then pure bermudagrass during summer. The winter pasture phase lasted two to three months in early spring, with the bermudagrass continuing to October. The horses on pasture and feed gained their advantage during the high-quality winter-pasture phase, with ADG the same on pasture only versus bermudagrass pasture and feed during the summer. Horses on winter pasture only may not have reached their forage gain potential because of the high moisture content of the winter forage, which is often 80 percent or higher. Horse growth, other than pounds of gain, was essentially the same in both treatments. Horses had body condition scores of 4.2 versus 5.9 from pasture only versus pasture and feed.

With advances in age and stage of bermudagrass growth, there was increased selective and spot grazing. This phenomenon is often seen in pastures, and although it was not quantitatively measured, forage managers understand that plant selection and spot grazing results in reduced quantity and quality intake and therefore lowered performance. Spot grazing can be defined as overgrazing and reduced quantity available per body weight unit. Stock, including horses, tend to try to get their fill on that short spot, cannot, and to an extent then go hungry. They will not eat the taller, less preferred areas. One reason for rotational grazing and management is to limit selective and spot grazing, thereby creating more uniform grazing, better forage quantity and quality control, and better stock performance.

Figure 2. Relative horse average daily gain (ADG) on bermudagrass at various stocking rates (Aiken et al., 1985)

Horses on pasture and feed tended to wait for feed and not graze actively, a common characteristic of forage and feed situations. Unfortunately, it likely limits performance from the pasture itself.

Aiken et al. (1985) compared horse performance from stocking rates on bermudagrass. The data showed that, in general, the heavier the stocking rate, the lower the horse gains. Daily gains ranged from a loss at heavy stocking rates to 0.95 pounds of ADG at light stocking rates. Frame growth was the same from all stocking rates. At a certain point, lighter stocking rates induced selective or spot grazing and then lower gains, apparently because of lower forage quality (figure 2). The greater the forage volume per acre, the greater the spot grazing.

Some related information by D. E. Johnson et al. (1982) and B. L. Koller et al. (1978) showed that digestibility of hay was 12 percent less in horses than cattle and that horses consumed 40 percent more dry matter per unit of body weight than cattle. This restresses that both quantity and quality have an important influence on horse performance from forages.

Webb et al. (n.d.) reported that yearling horses grazing bermudagrass gained 0.92 pounds per day, while those on kleingrass lost 1.56 pounds per day. The apparent reason for the negative performance was kleingrass's low palatability for horses, which resulted in an intake only 19 percent that of bermudagrass. Horses do not like mature switchgrass.

Evaluation of alfalfa for yearling horse pasture by the Noble Foundation and Oklahoma State University illustrates some of its potential. In the twenty-five-day test, horses in continual grazing gained an average of 0.52 pound per day, whereas horses in a six-paddock rotational grazing unit gained 1.30 pounds per day (Freeman et al., 1987). Other growth characteristics were satisfactory, and there were not any forage-related horse problems.

Whether any of these gains and other performances are acceptable depends primarily on the goal for the young horse. Some goals may be met from pasture only, with adequate frame growth and an ADG of 1 pound per day, while other goals requiring a higher gain and condition performance mean some feeding is necessary.