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It's About The Horse
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wesleypoff
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Joined: 31 Jul 2011
Posts: 1
Location: Southwest Virginia
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 Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2011 2:35 pm Post subject: Paddock Paradise Feeding Question |
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I am looking to set up a Paddock Paradise. We will start with five horses but hope to have a total of eight on the track. The track will be approximately 1.4 mile long around five acres. We have another 1/4 to 1/2 mile we can add if necessary. For the feeding stations, we plan to use round bale feeders with covered hay and small mesh hay nets for slow feeders. My question is, does each feeding station need room for each horse? And, how many feeding stations to I need for the track. We planned on two or three round bale feeding stations. Would this be sufficient and does each station need to have room for all eight horses to eat at the same time?
Thank you for the help.
Wesley
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Wesley Poff |
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gaitinalong
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Joined: 29 Jun 2011
Posts: 81
Location: Tennessee
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| Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 3:11 pm Post subject: Re: Paddock Paradise Feeding Question |
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| wesleypoff wrote: | I am looking to set up a Paddock Paradise. We will start with five horses but hope to have a total of eight on the track. The track will be approximately 1.4 mile long around five acres. We have another 1/4 to 1/2 mile we can add if necessary. For the feeding stations, we plan to use round bale feeders with covered hay and small mesh hay nets for slow feeders. My question is, does each feeding station need room for each horse? And, how many feeding stations to I need for the track. We planned on two or three round bale feeding stations. Would this be sufficient and does each station need to have room for all eight horses to eat at the same time?
Thank you for the help.
Wesley |
Horses will share a roundbale according to the Buddy System - they will also NOT share a roundbale according to the Buddy System.
So, while you won't need a roundbale for each horse (lots and lots of waste there), you will need enough so that 3 or 4 horses can eat from the same roundbale.
That does not mean two roundbales because horses love to play musical chairs with hay piles.
I have four horses and when I first start throwing hay in the fall because the grass is disappearing, I throw at least six piles, twenty feet apart.
Six piles so the-top-of-the-pecking-order horses can "have their way" with the lower horses while assuring no one gets hurt and no one starves.
Twenty feet apart so no one gets kicked in the head.
You might start with three small rounds for the first five horses and study their pairing off to eat habits. You might have one that is so very passive that NOBODY will share a round with it and that horse will have to have it's own hay pile. I have a horse like that.
Add a fourth round when the other three horses come in but be prepared to see a shuffling of alliances when eating. Although it could, it doesn't necessarily mean a change in leadership but it may mean a change in who eats with who.
It should work out that everybody gets to peacefully eat from a roundbale somewhere on the track.
Hope this helps some:) |
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