Ruts around pasture fence

[WAR_GA]

I have two separate horse pastures in front of my home, with a paved driveway lined by oak trees between them. Of course, my horses like to walk along the board fencing and have created "ruts" - on their side of the fence -which ruin the pastures appearance.

Is there a standard way to maintain these areas that can improve their appearance?

 

[Jimbrown]

To the best of my knowledge there are only two ways to sovle that problem.
1. Sell the horses.
2. Pave the area.

 

[bigballer]

This is nearly impossible to get around and i have all but given up on the "look" but rotation does help. Ours are rutted closest to the barn which is where the food comes from. This summer I am going to put down some crushed rock gravel and pack the heck out it with a compactor, should keep the mud down during the wet times as well.

do you have horses in both pastures at the same time? maybe try putting them all in the same pasture, they like to herd and maybe are trying to get as close to each other as possible. If your pastures are grazed low, they will also try to get that tall grass just on the other side of the fence line.

otherwise, you could put up a temp interior fence to keep them off the wood fenceline but then again you'd just be moving the problem, depends on the amount of effort you want to put into it i guess.

 

[WAR_GA]

I guess an 8' concrete apron all the way around the pastures would look kind of nice!

Right now I have one horse in each pasture. I just purchased my 2nd horse, an older, perfectly docile horse that my wife can ride. The problem is, she got so attached to our young Tennessee Walker she was sharing the pasture with, she started acting crazy when they were separated. Friends suggested we separate them for awhile, thus the two pastures.

I started thinking about how folks till up fire breaks and how nice that looked surrounding wooded areas, and wondered whether that would work around a fence line.

Thanks for the comments!

 

[Z-Michigan]

I spent 10+ tractor hours (and many manual labor hours) fixing the problem you describe in our biggest pasture - had to chisel, disk, drag, plant seed, drag again, then water water water for weeks on end. Last fall it all looked pretty nice. Come springtime, the problem is instantly back because of the horse running along the fencerow. I'm not aware of any useful fix, but sure would like to hear if there is one!

 

[Soundguy]

Ditto waht the others said.. animals like to walk boundry fences.

I fthe rut makes a windrow on the pasture side.. you can rub by with a back blade and scrape it back into the rut.. kinda flattening it out.. but it is still de-grassed..

A hot wire will make the horses stay a varrying distance away from the fence.. this will alleviate the problem.. but is yet another system to maintain... choose your battles..

soundguy

 

[hunterridgefarm]

Growing up we had the same problem with our pasture fence. And since only a couple of sections of fence line was flat land the areas that were on an incline would tend to erode with heavy rains.

What we did was use 6' 1x2's, (later we changed to 6' PVC) we would screw them to the fence post about half way down at 90*. Kind of like an arm sticking out after we fixed the "horse path". This kept the horses away from the fence until the affected aera was repaired. Then once the new "horse path" 6' out from the fence line started to show we would remove the PVC and the horses would move back over next to the fence. We would repeat this about once a month or so. It worked good as long as you did not let a good rut start before you removed the arms.

We started out with an arm on every post, then every other post, some places we only had to attach every thrid post since the horses usually walked a straight line and did not weave in and out of the arms.

Of course we had wood post, for T-post you would need some kind of bracket to attach to.

May not be what your looking for but it worked for us. And it did not take long to remove or add. One person on the tractor to load the 1x2's or PVC, one person with a cordless drill.

 

[mjfox6]

Fill the ruts with pea gravel. You'll help your horses feet at the same time!

 

[ponytug]

I'll second that. Having pea gravel and rocks along the fence line will keep the ruts from showing and help your horses feet enormously.

There have been recent suggestions to create narrow strips along the fence line with an inner fence. This causes the horses to move from one area to the other along the fenced path and gets them more exercise. By nature, once horses start down a path they keep going.

I prefer to work with the horse, whenever possible.

Having pasture buddies is great for horses mental state. If you need to train a horse to get over its fear of separation, it is just a training issue. Personally, I'd rather have the horses happy. We often ride two horses, leaving one behind. Often, the left behind will scream, run up and down the pasture for a bit, and then settle down until the buddies come back, when he'll start screaming again. But we can hear him long before he can hear us, so when we come back, we know that he isn't having a melt down since it is quiet, much as he would pretend otherwise.

You might want to check out Pete Ramey's website for footing suggestions.

All the best,

Peter

Fill the ruts with pea gravel. You'll help your horses feet at the same time!

 

[andrewj]

To the best of my knowledge there are only two ways to sovle that problem.
1. Sell the horses.
2. Pave the area.

what would be wrong with spreading asphalt "millings" on the path? just make a 4 foot path the horses can walk on, it will be almost like paving.