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 I Chore in Chucks
Posts: 2882
   
Location: MD | We are deciding what we want to do so I'm just casually looking at houses and lots. How many acres do you think is a bare minimum? 2-4 horses with room to run a bit, I don't want them in tiny pastures. Looking more because I don't know how to figure in how much space a house and a barn would need added on.. |
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 Swiffer PIcker Upper
Posts: 4015
Location: Four Corners Colorado | 10-15 |
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 Expert
Posts: 1718
Location: Southeast Louisiana | I live on three acres. That's house, three stall barn, shed, run-in shelter and we have a pretty big front and back yard that the horses don't use. Horses are probably on two acres. The general rule is 1 acre per horse, I think. Before we bought this place, I didn't think you could do much with three acres, but I've been pleasantly surprised. We have two horses, but the grass never gets over grazed. We could definitely keep three, probably four if they all got along. Some things to consider are upkeep and fencing cost. Larger acreage is nice, but with both my husband and I working full time, it's all we can do to keep up with keeping the grass cut on this place. Smaller acreage does take a little more management. Someone on here posted some nice pics of their smaller acreage set-up. Maybe they will post again, I'd love to get my place looking as nice. I think it was someone in California where land costs are ridiculous. But, point is, you can do more with a smaller place than I realized. |
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I Chore in Chucks
Posts: 2882
Location: MD | Nita - 2015-07-18 9:25 AM
I live on three acres. That's house, three stall barn, shed, run-in shelter and we have a pretty big front and back yard that the horses don't use. Horses are probably on two acres. The general rule is 1 acre per horse, I think. Before we bought this place, I didn't think you could do much with three acres, but I've been pleasantly surprised. We have two horses, but the grass never gets over grazed. We could definitely keep three, probably four if they all got along. Some things to consider are upkeep and fencing cost. Larger acreage is nice, but with both my husband and I working full time, it's all we can do to keep up with keeping the grass cut on this place. Smaller acreage does take a little more management. Someone on here posted some nice pics of their smaller acreage set-up. Maybe they will post again, I'd love to get my place looking as nice. I think it was someone in California where land costs are ridiculous. But, point is, you can do more with a smaller place than I realized.
This is why I asked! I was thinking a 5 acre lot would be absolute bare minimum and it would still be tight! We've already made jokes that we would probably fence the majority of the place anyway to cut down on the amount of mowing, lots to think about! |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 520
| We have 8.3 acres with 2 horses on it (and 3 goats). I wish some of it was wooded because I end up mowing so much. I'd say about 4-5 acres is pastured right now, and I have it separated at the moment as its too much grass for just the 2 easy keepers we have. I'd be more than happy with 5 acres of open land plus some woods.
Edited by Buckles 2015-07-18 10:04 AM
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I just read the headlines
Posts: 4483
| If you are wanting to leave them out 24/7, then for horses I would want at least 20 acres. |
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 Extreme Veteran
Posts: 473
| I have 11 acres in Florida with 8 horses, mostly out 24/7. No problem.
I had 12 here at one point, again - it wasn't a problem. As long as they get along. It's four paddocks, with about one acre of yard that I'll sometimes turn 1-2 horses out in.
Edited by AfleetEquine 2015-07-18 10:41 AM
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Expert
Posts: 1718
Location: Southeast Louisiana | Buckles - 2015-07-18 10:03 AM
We have 8.3 acres with 2 horses on it (and 3 goats). I wish some of it was wooded because I end up mowing so much. I'd say about 4-5 acres is pastured right now, and I have it separated at the moment as its too much grass for just the 2 easy keepers we have. I'd be more than happy with 5 acres of open land plus some woods.
We leased a little over thirty acres once. It was a job keeping it up. More work than I want. I want to be able to enjoy it some of the time. I'd like a bigger place, but we will keep most of it wooded for privacy and live on 3-5 with maybe a few acres in hay so we can bale our own. There again, that gets expensive buying equient, fertilizer, etc.
I'm I a neighborhood right now and as soon as I can afford it, I'm going to put up privacy fence on both sides. I like my neighbors, I just don't want to see them every time I walk outside. We have also had a problem with neighbor dogs. I couldn't put up just a rail fence because I had to fence out the loose dogs. But, that's more specific to the location we're in not the size of the place. |
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 Accident Prone
Posts: 22277
Location: 100 miles from Nowhere, AR | My bare minimum would be 10. We have 54, but have only actually done anything with about 14 of it. We're still working on it tho. Our land adjoins my family's farm land, so I've got several hundred acres to ride on and that has me spoiled. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1131
| I have one horse on 4 acres and there is more than enough room for 1-2 more. So I would say 1 acre of grazing space minimum. So for 4 horses, thats 4 acres and then add on how much you need for amenities, like the barn, arena, etc. |
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| Buy double or triple the land you think you want or need ...
fence it in with four strands of barbed wire and keep the
bottom strand 16 inches off the ground ... this is the wire
that horses get hurt on and at this height .. they cannot get
a foot over it ..
The reduction in your feed bill will pay for the additional land ..
20-30 acres is my minimum ... and never buy a mobile home ..
Build you a 3-4 car// tractor shed and live out of it temporarily or forever
.. don't call it a house when building or it will cost you 10x more ... lol
Foot traffic of horses do more damage to a place than what they eat ..
even though horses can nip the grass off at the ground due to having
top and bottom teeth where cattle only have bottom teeth and cannot
nip it off at ground level ..
There is nothing worse than trapping yourself on a place that is too small
and/or stacking your barn, house and other buildings too close together
and no place to turn trailers around etc etc ... then there are round pens,
a walker, runs at barn etc etc .. planning your layout before building anything
is crucial ....
drive tposts and hang baling twine AROUND each item and drive
a trailer, truck etc to get a true picture what kind of mess you are creating ..
and of course pay attention to how the water flows and build your pads up
at least one foot before you build.... even if you live in the desert ...
Use 40 inches of rainfall per year as a guide line for number of acres per horse ..
4-5 acres per horse is my guide line ... smaller amount of land means old horse
is eating more worm larvae than they are grass .... less rainfall .. the more land
you need ...
A major key on pasture care is a spray rig to kill the weeds ...
spray the pasture before you see any weeds ... you can use
a lawn mower rig or use a ATV or pickup to drag sprayer with ...
FYI: weeds sprout in the winter time and grow a big long root
so when hot weather wakes it up ... it grows an instant 3 feet .. lol
So spray during April or the first two weeks of may ... BEFORE
YOU CAN SEE THE WEEDS..
Check into using these 12x21x8 carports at $800 for temporary cover
for hay or whatever ... they are easily moved later on for pasture sheds.
HAVE FUN ...
Edited by BARRELHORSE USA 2015-07-18 3:46 PM
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 Life Saver
Posts: 10477
Location: MT | A lot of it depends on the carrying capacity of the land where you are buying. In much of the western part of the country you will need way more ground if you plan on having any summer grazing for your horse at all.
I've kept horses in Utah on a 1 acre place, had one big lot for all of them basically. And our place we sold last fall was 10 acres in SW Montana. It was not nearly enough to expect to graze it with all 3 of our horses. We needed something along the lines of 80-100 acres there if we were going to do that.
Now we are living on a 60,000 acre ranch in SE Montana and that is PLENTY of room! The ranch's horse pasture is 4,000 acres and there are only 14 horses on it. 
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 Roan On The Range
Posts: 7889
Location: Stephenville, TX | Anyone on small acreage want to share some management tips? I'm mainly concerned with ways y'all manage the accumulation of poo if it gets to be too much volume to just let it decompose naturally. Compost it somehow or just pile it up and haul it off periodically?
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 Regular
Posts: 76
Location: North Carolina | I have 6 horses on 10-15 acres of pasture & they can NOT keep up with it! It has to be periodically brush hogged To keep it down & they're on it 24/7. I live in TN.
Edited by Panther14 2015-07-18 5:35 PM
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 Shelter Dog Lover
Posts: 10277
| We had 6 horses on 10 acres and had to bush hog it regulary through the spring and summer, they had plenty of grazing. We had a 2800 sq. ft. house, barn and a big arena, plenty of room for all. We had a 4 rail wood fence on 3 sides, left the barb wire fence on the side we shared with the neighbors cows and my horses never got caught/cut in it. We built the house and barn bad about 2 feet up and graded around it where you could not tell.
Edited by rodeomom3 2015-07-18 6:49 PM
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 Expert
Posts: 1395
Location: Missouri | 5....and that's how much we have right now. We only have one horse, but feel we could have two if we managed it right and still keep it looking ok. I wouldn't want any less, personally. BUT. That said, sometimes you do what you gotta do! We wanted 10 before we bought and couldn't afford it so were making the best out of 5! |
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 Strong Willed Woman
Posts: 6577
Location: Prosser, WA | It really depends on the land. My in laws have 5 acres with about 3 in pasture. It is irrigated and they keep 2 or 3 head of yearling cattle on it with 3 horses from May through October. On unirrigated land around here you would need about 20 or 30 acres per head. |
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 Money Eating Baggage Owner
Posts: 9586
Location: Phoenix | The guy where I keep my horses, he's on two-acres. House sits in the middle; driveway on far right hand side; 3 large pens on the upper right hand corner, 8 stall barn along the back, 150x250 (ish) arena in the upper left corner long-ways down the left side; square turnout in the bottom left corner, and a round pen next to the turnout but more along the front of the property. The front fence line has some foliage but you could easily add some pens if you wanted. For how much he has on there, it's pretty well laid out. The horses are turned out on rotation.
Or if I weren't in AZ, I'd want more like 3 acres. Back when I was younger we lived on ~10 acres and we had 5-12 horses at any given time and that worked for us. |
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Miracle in the Making
Posts: 4013
| i live in ga i figure 3a per horse but i left mine hou 24/7 maybe thats wht my horses were healthy had 1 colic in 40 yrs none of this stuff i hear about course now i am old fart and in a chair
m
i think u need to figure where u live what u are comfortable with me i love my dirt i am or was land hungry |
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  Twin Sister to Queen Boobie
Posts: 13315
Location: East Tennessee but who knows?! | At one time we had 8 horses and a little less than 5 acres. We rotated and we always had a little grass.
Now we have 8 horses and about 10-12 acres cleared with about 10 more acres un-fenced in woods. Ideally I would love to have all of it cleared and fenced but it's a lot easier than where we were before!
2 mares are turned out full time with a run in shed. The rest are turned out at night. I don't have to feed hay during the summer months but I do during the winter.
Ideally, for full time turnout, I would want a minimum of 2 acres per horse.
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