Preventing Pasture Disasters: Five Spring Pasture Maintenance Tips for Healthy Horses

As the chill of winter fades and the green grass and budding trees of spring emerges, horse farm owners are presented with the perfect opportunity to rejuvenate their pastures. Spring pasture maintenance is crucial for ensuring lush, nutritious grazing and promoting the overall health and well-being of horses. 

Here are five essential tips to guide you through this seasonal transition:

1. Begin by assessing the condition of your pastures. Look for signs of compacted soil, weed growth, bare spots, and soil erosion. Identifying these issues early allows you to address them promptly. Overseed bare or thin areas with horse-friendly grass seed mixes suited to your region's climate and soil type. This helps prevent weed invasion and promotes dense, healthy pasture growth. Be mindful, if you have a breeding operation, that fescue can be toxic to pregnant mares. 

According to the Oklahoma Stage Agricultural Extension, “Unlike ruminants, such as cattle, horses are limited in their ability to utilize forages that are low in nutritive value.  Therefore, forage production for horses  demands a higher level of management than is generally required for other livestock operations.  When managed to optimize forage nutritive value and production, improved pastures can generally meet the nutritional requirements of mature, nonproductive horses with little or no supplementation during most months of the year.”

2. If you are in a dry climate, or are in a period of drought, you may need to irrigate. If you have small paddocks you may be able to use a lawn sprinkler, or if you have a larger acreage you may need a water truck, or a water tank on the back of a tractor or truck to irrigate select areas. A permanent irrigation system can be useful if you live in a particularly dry climate.

3. When fertilizing pastures, according to the Penn State Extension, a good guideline is to apply 50 pounds of nitrogen per acre at the onset of the spring growing season and then restrict subsequent applications to 30 pounds per acre to match forage growth. Use a pasture aerator or harrow to break up compacted soil in high-traffic areas such as gateways, around water troughs, run-in sheds, and in feeding areas. Aerating improves water infiltration in the soil and encourages root growth of pasture grasses. 

4. Prevent weed infestations by mowing weeds before they flower and go to seed. Consider spot-treating persistent weeds like thistle and poison ivy with herbicides labeled safe for use around horses, following manufacturer guidelines carefully. Keep a close eye on pasture growth and horse behavior. If horses are over grazing parts of the pasture, you can fence them off or adjust grazing schedules and management practices as needed. This will help to maintain optimal forage quality.

5. Rotational grazing, or moving horses from one pasture to another, to give the grass a break, can help new pasture growth have time to get established. You can divide your pasture into smaller sections, which allows recovery of grazed areas while promoting even forage growth and minimizing soil erosion. Electrical tape can be a useful fencing material to temporarily reduce your horse’s turnout area and let pastures rest and recover.

By following these spring pasture maintenance tips, you can create a healthy, sustainable environment for your horses to thrive throughout the grazing season. Investing time and effort into pasture care now will pay dividends in the form of happy, healthy horses and verdant pastures down the road.