Have I been doing winter strip grazing wrong?

[MrA]

I've always given ale a tiny new section of rested grass every day and despite being long grass (rested since last winter) by the next day the patch is trashed.

Is it indeed better to give a bigger area less frequently, it certainly seems to last longer without getting so trashed

I'm just about to finish grazing him across him summer field and so will then be moving him into his winter field and I'm wondering the best way to try and graze it to preserve it as much as possible.

I'll probably leave him with access to his summer field for the time being until the gateway gets too muddy. I can always fence off the bottom end of it to rest a little with the intention of him going on to the small track section and that end once the ground dries up.

Picture of rested section after a days grazing

 

[chunky monkey]

It depends how big your fresh daily strip is as to how much it cuts up i found.

Over the autumn i was putting the boys into a completely new strip daily. So i had three wires on the go. So i followed up behind. Honestly 2 days and it was cutting up.

I do find giving fresh grass daily kept mine more content than giving a larger area and then only giving fresh every few days or do.

Are you running up a fence behind or are you just gradually making the paddock bigger.

 

[Doodle92]

I couldn’t get it to work. We shut half the field and moved it each night so they had fresh rather than coming in. They forged and ate it down to roots and then trashed it overnight. The whole rested bit of field then got very wet and cut up over the winter. There was a clear line between relatively old field and trashed.

 

[Jessey]

The ground doesn’t look too cut up in that picture?
I rested mine all summer before strip grazing, so it was long with a lot of rough brown grass, and I didn’t close off behind so they had plenty of space. I found moving it more frequently better as they’d eat the best bits and go back for their hay and the less good bits protected the ground.
I found strip grazing ground that had been grazed at all after about July, it just didn’t hold up as well and I needed to be closing off behind to let it recover.

 

[Jane&Ziggy]

I'm experimenting with weekly strips. My problem is that it's easiest to strip graze my field from the east to the west. This means the new grass is on the western side of the field. The West wind prevails and horses turn their bums to it and poo on the fresh grass. I've never found a way to prevent that, but the longer strip lasting a longer time certainly seems to give the horse more options.