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