[shoffman]

Hi everyone, right now we are grazing horses on marginal areas on the farm (basically grass that the dairy herd manager does not wish to graze) using the standard polywire-post temporary paddock method (new paddock every 1-3 days, depending on what the grazing strategy is for a given area) and a portable solar charger. For the most part, horses are brought in for work in the morning and brought back out at night, but if I know I want to work a team early the next day, I will often leave them in tie stalls in the barn (where they have hay and automatic water bowls) overnight. Unlike Donn, the horses we don’t work on a given day stay in the paddock. We are working on setting up a fenced area in a covered barnyard that is very close to our tack room so the horses being worked early the next day can run around at night instead of being tied. Again auto water and feeding hay in that scenario (although it will represent some increased manure management time).

Scott
Essex Farm

[shoffman]

does it work well for backing up, too? I guess it’s no different than a standard evener in that respect but I’m envisioning a scenario where your middle horse gets pinched (but I guess line pressure would keep them even enough when backing so that it’s not a problem). Nice design overhaul, regardless.

[shoffman]

Not that I subscribe to the planetary alignment theory, but one of our mares who has never exhibited that behavior before walked away from the other teamster at Essex while he was harnessing around May 18th. Just saying.
I have also found this to be a very useful thread, thanks to everyone for posting.
Scott
Essex Farm

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