Forage Focus Friday - Newly Reformulated Horse Pasture and Paddock Mixture - Speare Seeds - Grass, Forage, Corn, Organic Seeds in Harriston Ontario

Forage Focus Friday - Newly Reformulated Horse Pasture and Paddock Mixture

by Speare Seeds

on December 1, 2023 @ 8:39am

Horse Pasture and Paddock Mixture

NEWLY REFORMULATED ALL GRASS mixture that will tolerate close grazing and trampling
CLOVER FREE mixture reducing the risk of photosensitivity
HIGHLY PALATABLE grasses that remain productive throughout the grazing season
Contains ENDOPHYTE-FREE soft leaf tall fescue, enhancing palatability and safety for brood mares
Formulated for UNIFORM GRAZING
Ideal for establishing new pastures or as an overseeding mixture

Thick, productive horse pasture and paddock areas can provide a large percentage of a horses’ nutritional needs during the growing season. This reduces both grain supplementation and purchased hay costs. It also extends the horses’ grazing and social time which is a health benefit, especially for horses with reactive airways from winter hay feeding.

Knowing Horses

Horses are flight animals and are very sensitive to movement and sound so when they start “horsing around”, their hooves can cause damage to the existing pasture sod. Horses also have both upper and lower teeth so when they do stop and graze, they graze the pasture close to the ground. Horses are also “selective grazers” meaning they will graze preferred species and leave less palatable, sharper leaved grasses. This is why sowing the right seed mixture is very important. In small paddocks, these non-grazed areas sometimes get used as areas where they defecate. This further increases the non-grazed, non-productive areas. Lastly, as pastures thin out, annual weeds can get established and clovers will tend to take over and compete with more productive species. Clovers, especially in small paddock areas, should be avoided to reduce the risk of equine photosensitivity (slobbers).

Planting the Right Seed Mixture

Our newly reformulated Speare Seeds Horse Pasture and Paddock “all grass” mixture (SS HPPM) contains the right blend of the best pasture grasses: perennial ryegrass, Kentucky bluegrass, endophyte free tall fescue, timothy, orchardgrass, and festulolium. The endophyte free Soft Graze tall fescue provides a highly palatable grass with added safety for brood mare owners while the forage Kentucky bluegrass produces underground rhizomes that fill in hoof damaged area. The remaining grasses are blended at the right ratio to provide highly palatable grasses that promote uniform grazing throughout the season.

Seed Establishment

Are your equine pastures old, thin and worn out? Speare Seeds’ Horse Pasture and Paddock mixture can be used for new pasture fields or as an overseeding mixture. Grasses establish quicker than legumes in cooler soil temperatures so the SS HPPM can be drilled in the spring or fall of the year using a no till seed drill. It can also be broadcast seeded provided the soil is disturbed enough to provide good seed to soil contact. Allowing the newly formed grasses to grow to six inches before the first grazing will assist with a stronger root development. Not allowing the grasses to be grazed below three inches will help ensure more productivity and continued summer growth.

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