Assessing Grazing and Pasture

The Saddlery Shop is especially interested in research into grazing and pasture, as many of our customers own barefoot horses and buy their hoof boots from us. Diet is key for all horse's health, whether shod or bare; however with the bare hoof there is nowhere to hide! In our latest blog we feature a post inspired by the article written by Dr Carol Michael, director of Life Science company Phytorigins, and published on farmersguardian.com, as well as a blog post by www.rockleyfarm.co.uk . Rockley Farm in Exmoor is run by Nic Barker and Andy Willis, and is a leading equine rehabilitation hub that aims to improve soundness by allowing each horse to grow the healthiest hooves possible. So let’s take a look at why not all grass is created equal – and why horses can have problems with grazing. Nic Barker from Rockley Farm says… “The research was flagged up in an article and one of the encouraging aspects is the acknowledgement that UK grass has the potential to be very dangerous for horses, particularly in spring and autumn. Of course we all knew that already but its great to see an article aimed at farmers pointing out that horses very often simply can’t tolerate the high sugar levels in our grazing. The research project set out to analyse sugar content of old pasture species from a hill farm in North Wales and compare the sugar levels with more modern types of grass such as perennial rye. Horses at Rockley can graze our grass very safely. We don’t turn them out 24/7 because its essential for their feet that they spend time on the tracks but most horses cope extremely well with grazing here, even those who have been diagnosed with metabolic problems or who can only tolerate very limited grazing back home. Like the hill farm in the study, our fields have a wide range of different plants and grasses in them and horses also have access to the hedges and some wooded areas while they are turned out – both on the tracks and in the fields. A study of plants undertaken by the National Park at Rockley some years ago found 38 different herbs and grasses in one field alone and – interestingly – noted that the scrubby, apparently “low value” grazing areas were favourite areas for the ponies who were kept here then. By contrast, many modern fields have a very limited number of grasses and so the biodiversity available to grazing horses is restricted. This can be a problem because horses, unlike cattle, have evolved to thrive on high fibre, low sugar diets and love to forage on shrubs and other plants rather than graze exclusively. Ryegrass is a favourite in modern farming because its good for producing beef and dairy cattle, but horses need a very different diet. For horses, the most dangerous part about ryegrass is the sugar levels and this is what the study was aiming to quantify. When they compared the fructose contents of the ryegrass vs the hill grasses the difference was shocking. The new variety of perennial ryegrass is the highest with a 332mg/g fructose content in comparison to 0.52mg/g in Meadow Fescue. So its pretty clear that horses who can safely graze old permanent pasture can quickly develop serious problems, especially as they love the sweet, sugary taste of ryegrass! And in a double-whammy the short, sweet grass often contains not just too much sugar but not enough fibre! This lack of fibre can lead to obvious, immediate veterinary emergencies like colic and laminitis but also slower, insidious damage which results from consistently high levels of sugar in the diet – metabolic problems like PPID (cushings) and insulin resistance which take longer to develop but are just as damaging. Its fantastic that research like this has been completed because for too long horses and their owners have been suffering from the consequences of inappropriate grazing but without having many solutions or alternatives, especially if grazing needs to be restricted. Now horse owners have a real chance to not only develop better management systems for our horses but also use better grasses and grazing so that they can be more safely turned out and have the sorts of lifestyles which they and we love.” A range of hoof boots and accessories are available from The Saddlery Shop, visit the website at www.thesaddleryshop.co.uk