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Thoroughbred Aftercare Summit: A Good Pasture Is Key To Trimming Horsekeeping Costs

As many people continue to struggle with economic uncertain or job instability due to COVID-19, university experts say one of the best ways to cut costs of horsekeeping is probably right outside your window.

In the first session of this year's virtual Thoroughbred Aftercare Summit presented by the Retired Racehorse Project, Krista Lea, research analyst at the University of Kentucky Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, said good pasture management is key to trimming budgets. Pasture is a cheaper feed source than growing or purchasing hay when it's maintained properly. On one acre of pasture, every inch of grass growth is equivalent to roughly 200 pounds of dry matter, or four 50-pound bales of hay.

“That may not seem like a big deal, but if you look at it across the entire pasture and how many inches there are, it adds up pretty quickly,” said Lea, pointing out that six inches of growth adds up to 24 bales per acre of pasture.

One of the reasons pasture is a better option than hay is that a considerable amount – up to 60 percent – of hay can be lost in the storage and feeding process, which leads to a lot of wasted money, particularly if hay prices are high in your local area. Proper pasture maintenance can not just improve the quality of the grass grown, but extend the growing season. Dr. Jill Stowe, associate professor with the University of Kentucky Ag Equine Programs, found that even assuming a cheap hay price of $4 per 50-pound bale, extending the pasture grazing season by a week can save up to $28 per day per horse.

Lea is frequently called out to consult with horse farms on the best ways to improve their pasture quality and said she finds a few common, costly mistakes. Many people will skip fertilizing their pastures, which ends up costing more in the long-term than it saves in the short-term. Pastures need a replenishment of nutrients, particularly nitrogen, in both spring and fall. There are horse-safe pelleted fertilizer products that can be used on actively grazed pastures as long as they're well-distributed.

Reseeding is also an important aspect of improving pasture, and it can be one of the more costly tasks at up to $150 per acre. To maximize germination success, Lea suggests planning reseeding timing at least a month ahead of time to ensure you have the right mix of seed and have completed your preparation in plenty of time for the seeds to take. Complete reestablishment of a pasture that needs to start from scratch should be planned six months out.

Over-mowing can also be a common error.

“The ultimate goal when mowing pastures is you're mostly mowing off the weeds and seed heads and leaving as much grass as you can for the horses,” she said.

With winter coming, establishing a sacrifice area from a dry lot or area around a gate can be a good way to keep horses from beating up so much ground during wet winter conditions. Adding gravel to a flat space and feeding/watering in this area will keep horse traffic more focused and help combat mud.

Each state has a cooperative extension service, which can provide free educational resources for best pasture practices, and Lea said there are government programs that can help horse owners defray the costs of pasture maintenance, too. The County Agricultural Improvement Program is a cost share program that can provide reimbursements for new fencing and waterers. The Natural Resource Conservation Service also offers a similar program, since properly-maintained pasture is beneficial to the ecosystem.

The most important thing Lea recommended for managers and owners is an open mind.

“So many times I get on horse farms and we've found a problem and we're presenting solutions for it and they say, 'That's just not how we do things here, we can't do it that way,'” she said. “The truth is, that costs you a lot. I think one of the best ways we can improve the way we manage horses is being more open to new things, whether that's being open to new grasses that are out there or new ways of managing our horses.”

Lea suggested that cattle farmers are particularly attuned to pasture management since there is such a direct correlation between pasture quality, weight gain, and final price for their cows. While cows can and will eat some plants horses will not, the basics of the educational resources offered to cattle farms can still be helpful for horse owners.

Other ways to cut costs

As an economist, Stowe is a fan of budgeting as a way to restrict costs. Excel offers simple, free templates for personal budgets that can be easily modified for a hobby horse owner, while for-profit operations often need more complex software. She also recommends weighing options for mortality and other types of equine insurance or establishing an emergency savings account, along with a series of emergency action plans. Now is the time to decide what you'll do if your horse needs colic surgery and your finances are still tight.

Keeping a record of your expenses is an important way to help you decide where you can cut your budget – even if your horse isn't a for-profit entity.

As COVID-19 remains a threat, this is also the time to make a care plan for your horse should you or your family become ill and prevent your being able to provide feeding and turnout. Stowe suggest having feed requirements and pasture assignments written out in a clearly visible location and clearly labeling things in the barn in case a substitute carer needs to find supplements or medications.

If you're worried about budgeting, Stowe said it's best to prioritize your horse's needs, keeping in mind the requirements for forage, friends, and freedom. Those are likely the most important things to the horse himself. Besides water, good quality forage is the most important part of the diet, so Stowe doesn't recommend cutting back on hay or pasture. You may be able, with guidance from a cooperative extension agent or veterinarian, to trim costs when it comes to concentrate and supplements.

“We have so many feds and supplements to help our horses in every way possible,” she said. “I think when finances are tight, it's important to sit back and think about which of these are absolutely critical to the health of my horse. I've got my horse on one or two things that it makes me feel better that he's on them. I don't know if there's a benefit or not. I think it would be really wise to give as objective a look as possible at what your horse is eating and what he or she really needs.”

Watch the complete session below. Virtual Makeover Week webinars continue Tuesday at 7 p.m. Eastern, where a panel will field questions about Thoroughbred behavior.

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Pasture Renovations Will Help Spendthrift Farm Implement Rotational Grazing

Spendthrift Farm is one of Lexington's iconic Thoroughbred breeding and racing operations. Due to recent expansion, the farm wanted to renovate some unused fields and develop them into pastures to use in a rotational grazing system. They turned to forage experts with the Horse Pasture Evaluation Program in the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and Environment for their recommendations.

“The Horse Pasture Evaluation Program is a good tool for all horse farms to use,” said Robbie Moreland, Spendthrift maintenance manager. “It gives us options and guidelines that we can use to develop the land to suit our needs.”

Spendthrift Farm has worked with Krista Lea, UK research analyst, and Ray Smith, UK forage extension specialist, for a number of years to evaluate and renovate fields on their main farm through the program.

“They have done a good job of implementing grazing rotations, as well as removing fescue from some key broodmare fields and having good success with over seeding,” Lea said. “This was our first endeavor with them trying to completely re-establish a pasture.”

The pasture renovation that began in summer 2019 includes 130 acres of an adjoining property the farm purchased a few years back but had not fully incorporated into their operation.

“The land was physically rough, and the grass was consumed by weeds. We decided the best thing to do was just to start completely over again and develop a grass pasture,” Moreland said.

Farm management wanted to establish pastures that were healthy and beneficial for their horses and good for the natural environment. In 2019, they opted to kill off the existing vegetation using tillage, rather than a traditional field burndown with glyphosate. They reseeded the fields with a mixture of bluegrass, orchardgrass and perennial ryegrass. Even though Central Kentucky experienced a drought last fall, the seed germinated and created a lush stand of grass.

Moreland said Spendthrift plans to start fencing the renovated pasture and building a barn this fall, with the goal of allowing horses to graze in the pasture in the spring. Moreland said it was important to the farm to slowly and methodically prepare the ground for grazing.

“We would like to keep these pastures lush,” Moreland said. “To do this, we are going to use it as a pasture rotation with our main farm. The new pastures and barn will be used for our mares and weanlings.”

Spendthrift Farm is just one of the farms the Horse Pasture Evaluation Program advises each year. From its beginnings in 2005 to 2019, the program conducted more than 250 evaluations on horse farms of all sizes and breeds. In 2020, Lea and her student interns have evaluated nearly 30 farms. This is the highest number of operations they have serviced in any one year.

“A high-quality pasture is beneficial to both horses and the environment,” Lea said. “It allows horses to select the best possible forage and stay away from undesirable weeds. We know that good quality pasture maintains a lot of cover, and that reduces soil erosion, prevents nutrients from leaching off that pasture and maintains the soil that is there.”

More information about the program is available here.

Research Project: Do Horses In Central KY Seek Shade At Specific Temps And Times Of Day?

In the last Equine Science Review, an undergraduate independent research project that examined shade seeking behavior in Texas was discussed. A similar study was done in Central Kentucky by Kassie Rutherford, an undergraduate equine junior at the University of Kentucky. Rutherford completed an independent research project observing horses in Midway, Kentucky. She also worked with Camie Heleski, PhD, senior lecturer within the equine undergraduate degree program, on a quest to learn more about horses' desire to seek shade during different times of the day.

Rutherford conducted this research primarily at Heronwood Farm and surrounding facilities because of their wide array of breeds, ages and disciplines.

“Right now I'm still on my horse, and I'm looking at two horses that belong to a racehorse trainer, two other horses that belong to the owner and I'm looking at a different property with mares and foals. That's what was so great about where I was at, because I could collect information while I rode,” Rutherford said.

“I loved how Kassie incorporated her data collection into moving around the farm, sometimes exercising her horses simultaneously,” Heleski said. “She was really diligent about entering the data into her cell phone so she could do both.”

During her project, Rutherford observed at what point of the day was it hot enough for horses to seek out shade. This was to establish if there were temperature or time of day patterns. Like Underwood in the Texas study, Rutherford was interested in seeing if the horses would seek shade in temperatures greater than 85 degrees Fahrenheit.

“Some of it was a pattern, but I think it had a lot to do with where the sun was, what the actual UV-Index was and if there were clouds covering the sun. Because even in the morning when it was full sun, they were almost never in the shelter,” Rutherford said.

When asked about her findings, she said that she believed it wasn't necessarily due to the positioning of the sun in the sky, but more so the hottest point of the day.

“What I found was that it wasn't where the sun was the highest in the sky, it was actually the hottest part of the day, which is typically, from what I found, between 3 to 6 p.m. It was between those times that the horses started to seek out shelter,” Rutherford said.

“This echoes my casual observations over the summer,” Heleski said. “Kassie seemed to see that sometimes it also had a lot to do with the group dynamics of the herd on a per pasture basis; sometimes it seemed that the heat was eliciting shade seeking behavior in one pasture, but just one pasture over, it might be that none of the horses were seeking shade.”

Rutherford was also interested in learning if there was a preference in types of shade. For example, if horses would seek out manmade shelter versus trees, and what the difference between those might be.

“I would walk out to my horses' field and I would stand in the shelter with a thermometer, and there were several days that it was 8 to 10 degrees hotter within the shelter, even though it was shady. So then, they would rather stand under tree shade because of the breeze and the fresh air that they got that was inhibited by the shelter,” Rutherford said.

“I do feel this is a very important point; some people who build sheds for their horses get frustrated that the horses don't seem to use the shade much in the summer. But, unless we know the actual temperature inside the shelter, it's hard to say the horses aren't using common sense by avoiding the shelter during peak heat times,” Heleski said.

When asked about Underwood's findings about the horses seeking shade due to the UV index, Rutherford agreed that it could be a possible explanation, but that it wasn't something she directly measured.

“You know how there's days where it's bright outside, but it might not actually be full sun? It could be that those are the days that the UV index is a little bit lower. I would agree with her that the UV index plays a role if they want to be in the shelter or not,” Rutherford said.

Rutherford said her experience with undergraduate research has strongly impacted her life and future decisions.

“I definitely found myself outside of my research looking at farms and how their horses were responding to the heat, if they were seeking out shade,” she said. “One of the things that I've found with this degree, is that even if I don't get a career in the equine industry, everything I learned, I can apply to my own life as a horse owner. This research has already helped me to decide what kind of shelter I want to have for my horses on my own property.”

She said that the level of responsibility that is given to students in undergraduate research is extremely important.

“First of all, you're accountable for something that's more than just homework. It's under your prerogative to find that research, find the horses that you are looking for and do it. It just gives a certain level of responsibility to undergrads doing this research, so I think it's really good. It's good to have a project that you don't have a lot of guidance on, it's up to you how you conduct it,” Rutherford said.

University Of Kentucky Launches New Equine Research and Outreach Newsletter

The University of Kentucky Ag Equine Programs has launched a new monthly newsletter, the Equine Science Review, highlighting UK equine research and outreach efforts.

The free newsletter comes out mid-month from the UK College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, which is home to world-class research and service excellence in equine health, safety, nutrition, pasture and forages, economics, engineering, environmental compliance and many other areas of interest. Programs at UK offer the depth and breadth of scope that is fitting of its location in the heart of horse country.

“Reporting completed projects and exciting new knowledge is obviously important, but the Equine Science Review also enables new ideas and 'work-in-progress' stories to be shared,” said James MacLeod, UK Ag Equine Programs director and faculty member in the Gluck Equine Research Center. “Awareness of efforts at these earlier stages also has value, providing information on new and innovative approaches being used by students and faculty to address critical challenges. We might not have the answer yet, but such stories convey reasons for the equine world to look to the future with hope.”

The July issue of the Equine Science Review can be read via Issuu here or as a downloadable PDF here. Contents in the July issue include a story about promising developments in the quest to prevent catastrophic racehorse injuries through an mRNA study; a look at equine markets during the COVID-19 pandemic; an exciting report regarding an absence of any equine lepto abortion cases at the UK Veterinary Diagnostic Lab for first time in 30 years, which is likely linked to use of a new vaccine; pasture renovation information; advice about whether or not rained hay is any good and much more.

“I am very pleased to see the successful launch of the Equine Science Review,” said David Horohov, chair of the Department of Veterinary Science, director and Jes E. and Clementine M. Schlaikjer Endowed Chair and professor in the Gluck Center. “The ESR provides an excellent opportunity for faculty and staff in our college to reach out to our equine stakeholders, both professionals and horse enthusiasts, and inform them of our important work.”

Subscribe to the publication here. Past issues can be found here.