Paddock Paradise

I’ve had some requests to show some picture documentation of my ‘paddock paradise’ here at Resting Heart Farm. This all started when I found myself collecting horses, lol. I went from 2 to 6 horses over the past year and have only about 12 acres of pasture for grazing (4 or so are not even mine). After reading Jaime Jackson’s book of the same title, I used some (not all) of his ideas to create a network of fencing alleys that do several things…. Right now in winter, it is a simple track around my main field. It allows the horses 24/7 access to the main barn and stalls, but keeps them off the main pasture and on the perimeter only. The circular nature is great for keeping them moving…in contrast to a small paddock approach to winter. This is particularly useful with youngsters as they get pretty bored very easily. So I’ll give you a tour…

Here I am standing at the barn looking down the track. The water trough is at the bottom of this limb to the left. I put it there so the horses have to walk down to get water in stead of having it in the barn where they can be lazy. The horses you see are around the corner and in a secondary feeding area.

The water trough and mom’s dogs (they enjoy running the track too)

Now we are turning the corner to a secondary feeding area. Its important to keep food along the track to encourage movement from place to place. Miss Molly in the foreground, Peanut behind her.

You can probably see there are some gates in this area to other paddocks. In the summer I open and close different gates depending on where I want the horses to graze. I change the configuration every 4 to 5 days. And the great thing is that I don’t have to move any horses…they move themselves.

This is the Lounging Rock at the far corner of the track. Its where the horses hang and discuss important things, sort of like town meetings. This spot offers a view over the rest of the property and has a perch for the little guys. Magic is up on the rock in this photo…part goat I think.