Horse Fodder/Horse Friendly

Horses are fussy buggers! They get laminitis and staggers from too much or the wrong type of grass, and many other plants are toxic to them. Actually it’s not their fault, it’s ours. Horses have not evolved to be stuck in square paddocks of grass. They are adapted to the harsh dry climate and coarse vegetation of the steppes. If we are seeking to keep our horses in as natural a way as possible, the Paddock Paradise book (Jaime Jackson 2005) holds a lot of solutions. Horses are kept on a track system which keeps them moving round (ie exercising) in search of food and water. They can be let into ‘conventional’ grass paddocks as you see fit, to limit their intake. They are fed at hay stations around the track, and the track can be planted with medicinal and/or fodder species that they can browse, or that you can cut and feed out fresh, or store to feed out dry in winter (known as tree hay). The following plants that we offer are ones known to be safe for horses, either in bulk as fodder, or medicinally in smaller quantities.