Tool
Horse grazing planner: make and print a schedule
This calculator is being revised. Its results use general rules that have not passed our source review. Do not use them as care advice for your horse.
What it does
- Works out a build-up schedule, from a quarter of an hour to hours.
- Adds the fixed rules: hay first, and mornings rather than afternoons.
- Prints as a list for the stable door.
What it doesn’t do
- Doesn’t know your field or how sensitive your horse is.
- Never says grass is safe today.
- Doesn’t take the weather into account; for that, use “What does today’s weather mean for your horse?”.
What happens to your input
What you enter stays in your browser and in the link, so you can keep or share the schedule. Nothing is sent to a server; we only count that the tool was used.
Why build up
A horse’s gut flora is set to what it ate in the past weeks. Going from hay to a day of young grass in one go is a different diet: lots of sugar, lots of protein, little fibre. That brings loose droppings, gas and sometimes colic, and in sensitive horses laminitis. Two to six weeks of build-up give the gut time to change along.
How fast you build up depends on your horse (breed, condition, history) and on the field (short, stressed grass holds more sugar than long grass). The three paces above are what vets, feed advisers and university extensions commonly advise; the “careful” pace is for ponies and for horses that have had laminitis before.
Questions
What if I miss a day?
Carry on where you were; don’t catch up. Two or more days missed: one step back.
How many hours is “enough”?
That’s your choice: 4 hours is a good end goal for many horses that also get hay; if you want full-day turnout, keep building to 8 or 12 hours. A horse living out 24 hours gets another week of build-up after the goal.
And in autumn?
After a summer in the field you don’t start over. But watch out: cold nights with sunny days make the grass in September and October as sweet as in spring. See the autumn grass page.
In Halster
Keep your agreed turnout plan
Copy your agreed turnout times into a personal note for your horse in Halster.
Install the test version through TestFlight.
Read next
Sources