How much land for 4 horses?

Ginger Thing

Ginger Thing

Active Member
Jul 10, 2003
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Staffordshire
I know there are 'rules of thumb' regarding acreage for horses, but those are textbook figures, and I know people manage on different amounts of land....so, I have seen a field for sale locally, it's 3.5 acres - in actual, real life how many horses (16-17hh TB's) would this support? I would expect to lose close to half an acre for stable block, school, storage and parking (is this realistic?). They could come in at night in winter but I would want them out 24/7 in summer, and would rotate the grazing.

I really have trouble visualising acres (haven't seen field yet) so any pics of 3 acres would be useful ;):D

We have emailed seller to ask if any more land would be available - we have 2horses now, would like another and a livery so we're not entirely on our own, so really need to be able to support 4 horses. Don't mind supplementing the grass with hay/haylage, but wouldn't want the ground ruined. When you section fields off, how big is each area?

I know 3 acres for 4 horses isn't really a good idea, but land is so rare round here I'm trying to convince myself it will work :rolleyes::D

Any advice gratefully received :)
 
The yard I'm at has 12 1/2 horses (I don't count miniture shetland as full horse:p) and there are around 14 acres of grazing.

Summer is fine - plenty of grazing but in the winter some of the fields get really churned up as the drainage in 2 of them isn't great.

Y/O has added hard standing to one of the field and will provide hay if needed.

Hard standing may be an option for you or smaller/all weather turnout areas for winter?
 
The pic is of our newly topped field so it looks huge (well it does to me!) but thats around 2 1/2 acres to give you an idea. The pic is a maybe little misleading now I look at it again - our field is not up to the shelter you can see - only half way - if you squint you can see the fence line at the top and the long weeds along the fenceline - the horse is in our far corner.

We have 2 horses on there and I think it would easily take 3 but thats because its an old cow field with really good lush grass and loads of clover - nightmare in the summer but great in the winter! They live out 24/7 and I am not expecting to feed anything more than a vitamin supplement and maybe a bit of hay by February but not before.

Our neighbours have 5 horses on the same size patch and they are having to hay already because they are pretty much all out of grass. They havent wintered like that yet but I am expecting a mud bath!

We are also lucky in that the fields are pretty dry all year round so dont have to worry about loosing any areas to water logging etc

Hope that gives you a bit of an idea :D
 

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I used to have 4 acres for 4 horses, I used to split it in half and grow half for winter, they were always fine in it.
 
I have a feeling it's going to look a lot bigger than I think!

The field our horses are in is quite big, they have been in it summer and winter for the last few years, never rested. The 2 mares and 2 lami-risk geldings have small electric-tape sectioned off paddocks, the rest of the field has 5 geldings out 24/7 at the moment, with another 2 joining them in the daytime. I honestly have no idea how big this field is, to me it seems huge, I would guess 7-8 acres but maybe it's only about 4 :confused::) There is enough grass to keep my skinny TB looking good out 24/7. I think I will have to ask YO how big it is, and also go and have a look at the 3.5 acres for sale - if I see it I will be able to compare it to what they're in now.

Any more pics welcome folks ;):D
 
A few months ago I moved my two (both 16.1hh) to a field I share with my friend. I have just under 3 acres. I think it depends on the quality of the grazing and how the land stands up in winter months.

My old paddock was dreadful - full of ragwort seedlings (not evident when grass was long, but as soon as horses grazed it down I was appalled!), very poor quality of grass, and it would get really poached in the wet weather.

My new field is fantastic - has always been topped, fertilised and rested, and the soil is very sandy so it never gets muddy. I've got enough space to divide the area up in to 4 paddocks, and so far have only used the first two. And if the paddock is rested for 2 weeks the grass actually grows!! (It would never grow in 2 months at my last yard as it had been seriously overgrazed!)

So I don't think I will have to feed hay for quite a while - still lots of lush grass in half the field!

Good luck. I think if you have stables and a school it is managable. You can always turn them out in the school for a leg stretch if the ground gets very wet. I don't have any stables or a school.
 
i have 5 acres and 2 horses. It's fine in the summer but in the winter we do run out of grass rapidly and certain areas end up really poached. i did have 2 (1 horse and 1 pony) on little over an acre but never again. Was a lot of work fertilising and reseeding and not ideal.
 
We have four acres for the three mares from Jun-Dec, and then about 5/6 acres for them Dec-Jun, and 7/8 acres for the four geldings. The geldings field could probably take another one, but our YO is EXTREMELY cautious when it comes to over-grazing.
 
what soil base have you got i.e. clay,sand, marsh etc as you can be restricted depending on your soil base and quality of the grass. I have 5 acres and im on clay as its clay it can get poached but i have the field maintained and therefore can keep 5 horses (3 welsh sec ds 14.2hh a welsh sec a and falabella)

Thoroughbreds arent hardy and prone to mud fever, as well as suffer from poor grazing therefore they may need to be supplimented by hard feed if you have more then the grazing can take. i would suggest 1 horse per acre but thats me and depending on the quality of the grass. you can take a sample cost 40pounds to send away and you will get an analylis of the grass nutrients and then you can say the horse and its work load etc and amount of horses breed etc they will give you the approx amount of horses you can have and inform you of the suppliments needed or chemicals that can be put on the field to improve the ph levels

hope this helpsx
 
we have 22acres for 8 horses :eek: it may seem excessive but it means all year round grazing and paddocks can rest, plus we can cut our own hay. TBH alot of our horses are 16h plus and i think they quite like having the room to have run about and the TB's need alot of grass to keep their condition. I dont think 3 acres will support 4 Large Horses :o i think you will end up with massive feed bills and hay/ haylage bills trying to keep their condition. i'm not trying to rain on your parade:o, its just that grass needs to be rested and if you are resting half of it at any one time it will mean you are keeping 4 horses on 1.5 acres , not sure if its a good idea :o im not trying to be harsh :o
 
I rent 3 acres which really isn't that big, I keep 2 large ponies on this and owner has just agreed if my 2 shetlands come of loan I can put them on it.
The owner of the land would not allow any more than that as land is clay and would get trashed.
 
We have around 7.5 acres grazing for 2 horses and a Shetland.

We have great grass quality and growth (too much grass mostly!) and so they are quite able to live out all year. Our land is also mostly sloping and well draining (loam type soil) so doesn't really get poached or overgrazed.

It depends how much you want them to live out / type of soil/quality of grazing etc. I know a friend with twice the acreage we have for 5 horses but they struggle to keep their grazing nice due to the soil conditions and grass quality.
 
I think it really depends on how much work you're prepared to put in to maintain your fields, how much money you're prepared to spend in supplementing diet, and whether you want them out all year round (albeit coming in at night).

I've seen horses survive on a postage stamp relatively, but the owners have had to be bang on with their pasture management, usually with a sacrifice area for winter, and have still spent in providing forage.
 
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