When it comes to taking care of your horses, bigger farmland doesn’t always mean better. If you’re looking for acreage for sale in Langley, BC, don’t leave out smaller lots. In fact, small pastures can still offer all the advantages of sprawling acreages if well-maintained and properly managed.
Here are some helpful tips and tricks for taking care of small pastures for horses:
Create an efficient grazing system
With small pastures, it’s easy for grassland degradation and overgrazing to occur. To maintain high-quality grassland and pastures, utilise a grazing system. For easy pasture management, you can opt for continuous grazing. This is when horses are free to roam the whole pasture and graze wherever they want. This technique’s drawbacks, however, include expanding roughs and minimising lawns.
Rotational grazing, on the other hand, requires more work than the previous option. You have to divide your pasture into different sections and rotate your horses through them, giving each section time to regrow. When done properly, this technique can provide the best forage.
Try out different grazing techniques and evaluate their effectiveness. Understand, though, that grassland isn’t just one big flat lawn with uniform grass. Some sections could be different from the rest, given various factors like bodies of water, terrain, and the local flora and fauna. Thus, make sure to take such factors into consideration when assessing the results of each technique.
Put up quality fencing and create restricted areas
Do vehicles pass through your pastures? If so, these could tarnish the grassland and make the soil denser. Limit both human and vehicle traffic in your pastures by putting up fences and creating restricted areas. Choose fences that can easily be installed like poly-tapes on fiberglass or wooden posts.
For those doing rotational grazing, fences will make the said system run smoother. Moreover, if you have other farm animals, fences will distinguish their area from that of the horses.
Protect the pastures and encourage growth
Overgrazed pastures and/or those with too-compact soil will make it harder for grass to grow. Soil compaction can be caused by too many horses staying in the same area. As the soil constantly gets trampled by hooves, it becomes denser and less manageable.
Keep your pastures in tiptop shape by reseeding bare spots and fertilizing the area thoroughly. Scattering fertilizer around the pasture helps control parasites and pests. It also minimizes the occurrence of bare spots. For the best results, have your soil tested and ask for soil amendment recommendations.
Control the weeds
Weeds are a bane to any pasture. Left unchecked, these will overwhelm your grass. If your horses ingest these, you may be in for more headaches as some weeds could be harmful to their health.
Mowing can prevent weeds from spreading. This also creates a uniform pasture so the grass can grow healthier.
If your weed problem becomes too much to handle, your pasture has to be sprayed with herbicide, tilled, and reseeded. Find an expert and ask about the best products you can use to solve this issue.
Explore your real estate options and acreage for sale in Langley, BC with me, Don Munro. It will be my pleasure to help you find the perfect property! Get in touch with me today by calling 604.817.7338, or send an email to botsoldmunro(at)gmail(dotted)com.