Switching from dry lot to grass field

[Winchester Farms]

In a couple weeks I'll be moving my 12 yr old mare to a grass lot. She's been on a dry lot since she was about 5 months old, so I'm pretty worried about the switch over.

How long should I start her a day on the grass? An hour a day??

Thanks in advance for any ideas!!!!

 

[seattle]

With my two yearlings, I took a pretty cautious approach and started at about 30 minutes the first day, then an hour, then 90 minutes, then 2 hours, etc. until I was up at about 5 hours per day. After that I figured their systems had adjusted to the grass pretty well and I just turned them out for the whole day. There were no problems whatsoever!

 

[Marty]

I went through the same thing when I moved my quarter horses and pony from Florida to Tennessee. Our Florida pastures looked like the beach with a sprout of grass here and there if they got lucky.

I went super slow with the pasture introduction like an hour per day for the first week. Then I increased very slowly after that. It went very well but the problem was trying to catch them after that one hour! They were in grass heaven.

Oh also it could help if you keep it mowed down to the nubs.

good luck to you!

 

[Magic]

This spring I started my horses out for 20 minutes, twice a day, then 30 minutes, etc. I was super cautious but it's better to take it slow than to go too quickly and regret it. It helps if you start out by putting them in a smaller field, and leave their halters on if there is any question that they will be hard to catch. With such short start times I stayed out there and kept an eye on them, because generally I don't ever leave halters on unless the horse is supervised. With the numbers of horses I have (40) it was easiest to call them back in with grain, then I only had to go fetch the few stubborn ones. After they'd gotten to be out on pasture for over an hour or two at a time then they all came in great when I shook the grain for them to come in.