How much space for 1/individual turnout

Jessey

Jessey

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Dec 20, 2004
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Jess is being a madam, literally throwing herself at either Niko or Hank when she’s in season, but not both, the other gets very aggressively chased off. When she’s not in season she’s all happy families most of the day but when she’s expecting haylage she is battering everyone 🤦‍♀️ I’m sure none of which is helping her soundness.
So I’m thinking I may have to separate her, despite my best efforts over the past couple of years, thankfully she’s normally quite content on her own as long as she can see the others.
My question is how much space does one horse need? I don’t mean for grazing and the old 1 acre per horse thing because she really can’t have grass, it’s more about physically how much room I’d need to allow her.
 
I'd always say as much space as you can possibly manage to keep grass free, the more space they have the more they move around and movement is good. If you can keep her ridden or walked out in hand daily then I'd be ok with a smaller space, but I'd want as an absolute minimum the size of two schools - sorry I don't know what that is in acres.
 
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When Ziggy was laminitic and had to have very severely restricted grazing I kept him on a part of the track. It was about 4 metres wide and maybe 50m long. He was quite happy there as long as he could touch noses with Mattie.
 
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A 20x40 school is about 0.20 acre.

My easy options are;

One long side of the track which is about 0.20 acre (130m long 4m wide track with a 20x15m paddock at one end and a 10x15m at the other), giving access to the new shelter and the sandy area in front, both of which I can split between them, and right down to under the willows which they all like in summer.

Or my roadside paddock which is 0.33 acre (40x 40m at one end, 30m at the other), but that will take away from the grazing I have for Niko and is separated by buildings for 3/4 of it's length from the rest of the field.

I can rejig fences if something different is better, its just more work. The track is currently just under 1 acre and I’ve got 2x half acre +ish grass paddocks and the third of an acre by the road also grass. I’d keep the track to eek out the grass and for Dan especially and Hank will need restricting too eventually as summer gets here.
 
Frances144 said:
Space - as much as you can possibly give her. Not the calories, but the space. Horses need to move.
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That’s my quandary, I don’t have a lot to start with 😒

I have however just tonight secured an extra 2 acres for a couple of months. The plan initially is just to take Hank and Niko down there but how manageable it will be having 2 places to go daily I don’t know but with the ASBO boys out on grass it will cut my work haying and it’s only a mile and a half away on a friends yard so hopefully doable for now🤞Im just trying not to think about the angst when it comes to reintroducing them after.
 
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