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Saturday, February 16, 2013

Backyard Farming Problems



 by Uncle Dale

To manage my pastures better this year I am keeping the horses in a sacrifice lot during the winter so they don’t ravage the pastures. I feed the horses grain in individual buckets and hay from a single manger.  It was going well with Rebel, a gelding and Zula, a mare, until we got a pony for the grandchildren for Christmas. Hershey not only bullied his way to the top of the pecking order, but agitated Zula so they are both picking on Rebel and not letting him get to the hay. The end result is that Hershey and Zula are getting fat and Rebel is losing weight. Our barn and sacrifice lot are not set up to separate them so I built another manger to let Rebel get to some hay. If this doesn’t work I will have to do some creative fencing and building to isolate Rebel and ration the feed better. This is what backyard farming is all about. Problems arise and you have to solve them. What perplexing problems are you faced with in your backyard farm and how will you solve them?

3 comments:

teekaroo said...

Ponies are always trouble, don't let the sweet appearance fool you. :)

Liz said...

You can rig up a temporary electric fence system using electric tape (at least two using sheep standards and a portable electric fence unit to separate the horses during feeding out time. Ponies tend to get fat very quickly. I have one myself and he is a bully. The older horse we have is much bigger and keeps him in his place the miniatures we have though Ranger loves to pick on. You'd be better to isolate the pony so the other two horses can settle back into their normal herd routine. Electric fencing is the cheapest and quickest method to solve issues.

Mike said...

Our chickens have an enclosed coop and an enclosed run, yet over time we are losing them slowly. A few have been eaten by a fox who found a way in, our kids left the coop door open and a neighbor dog killed some. It seems like nature doesn't want us to have chickens.