Turnout Tips for Spring

Below are some turnout tips to help you make the transition as easy as possible.

Monitor your horse’s weight.

One turnout tip is to prepare for the upcoming spring grass by monitoring your horse’s weight. Horses and ponies should naturally lose weight over the winter months to prepare for the high sugar and calorie content of spring grass.

Introduce grass slowly.

This could be by hand grazing or allowing short timeframes of turnout (around 30 minutes). By letting horses graze for short periods of time, gradually getting longer, this helps to build up a tolerance to the change of fibre source.

Start turnout either early in the morning or late in the evening.

This is a great turnout tip, as it helps to avoid high fructans* that are produced by grass and leaves in the photosynthesis during daylight hours.

Choose a paddock with longer grass rather than shorter.

If you have a paddock with long grass rather than short grass, then this is the pasture to use for your turnout straight from the stable; long grass contains far fewer fructans than short grass.

Feed a low-sugar-soaked feed.

This turnout tip helps to stabilize the ingestion of sugars present in the spring grass and slow down your horse’s grazing.

Try a grazing muzzle to prevent overindulging.

Grazing muzzles are an option to prevent horses and ponies from overindulging on grass if you don’t have the option to use the gradual turnout method. Horses and ponies can still drink as normal but can only take small bites of grass, which can reduce pasture intake by around 30–80%.

*Fructans are short chains of a specific sugar molecule called fructose that cannot be broken down by the stomach or small intestine. Instead, they are fermented in the large intestine and are not tolerated well by some horses or ponies, who often end up with colic or laminitis!