Horse pasture provides a number of benefits to the horse and horse owner:

• exercise
• nutrition
• social interaction
• a respite from the dusty air of the barn
• save a tremendous amount of money
• less stall cleaning

This article addresses how to go about planning and establishing a pasture with links provided to fencing and maintaining your pasture..

With all this benefit why do so many horse owners continue, year after year, to have such poor pastures? Perhaps understanding right up front why so many pastures turn out bad might help you prevent this. The reasons are many but could be summed up:

• Never properly established
• Poorly maintained
• Over grazed

Of course drought is beyond your control, but what you do during the drought effects the long term value of your pasture. Proper initial planning and patience can prevent most of these problems but pastures already over stressed can be renovated through aggressive management.