From: Dawn
Hi Jessica,
I am bringing my horses home in 2 weeks to my property which I hope I have set up well thanks to your consultation, archives, and the resources you directed me to. One more last minute question. Each horse will have a 1/2 acre paddock (fenced with Centaur HTP) off of their stall. The area was a corn field and the farmer has used a disc once after harvesting. However, it is now very wet out there and there is still corn stalks and moldy corn on the ground which I have been trying to rake up. How should I prepare the ground so that there is no chance my horses will be harmed from the moldy corn and stalks that are on it? Is raking it up enough? Should I have someone clear the top inch or so? Besides the two 1/2 acre paddocks, there is 8 acres of field that will be their pasture in a year. Do I need to have this all cleared also so there is no chance of moldy stalks blowing into their paddock before there is a snow cover? I dont have a tractor yet but can hire it done if I know what I need to do. Thanks for any advice you can give me. Also, thank you for the wealth of information you provide all of us. Without the newsletter, I wouldnt have had all the information I needed to make the right decisions for my horses' safety and health or the confidence to bring them home.
Dawn
You'll want to get the corn residue out of your horses' paddocks before you put the footing down, because horses are curious and perpetually hungry animals, and they're going to want to investigate whatever organic matter is lying around. Much corn residue - the downed ears, husk, leafs, and stalks that remain after the field has been harvested - is palatable to horses, but it's not a good idea to allow them to graze it. There's a condition called 'moldy corn poisoning' (equine leukoencephalomalacia or ELEM) that involves a fungus typically found on moldy corn stalks. It can also be found in corn that has been stored wet, but most of the cases I've heard of involved horses that were turned out to graze moldy corn residue (which, if you think about it, would certainly qualify as 'storage under high moisture conditions'). Don't take the chance. If you hang out at the local feed mill and talk to the old-timers, you may hear about horses that developed "foraging disease" or "blind staggers" - it's all different terms for the same condition. It's a very serious problem, horses with ELEM generally end up disabled or dead... and the mortality rate is very high.
I suggest that you get advice from your veterinarian before bringing your horses home, and that you get your county extension agent to come out and look at those paddocks with you - s/he will be able to advise you about the risks, including the possibility of mycotoxins in the corn residue. Not all molds lead to mycotoxins, but you can't afford to take chances with your horses. Another subject you'll definitely want to discuss - you'll need to get some information from the farmer who was growing the corn - is which chemicals were used on the land, and in what quantities. Your extension agent can give you a good idea of how long those chemicals are likely to persist in the soil, and what effects they might have on your horses. And you'll want to discuss crop-growing conditions, as well. You didn't say where you are, but if the cornfields were affected by a drought this summer, it's possible that the lower portions of the stalks contain more nitrates than you would want your horses to consume.
If there's a substantial amount of corn residue, and if nitrates aren't a problem, you could safely graze cattle (borrowed from a neighbour) on the corn residue - many farmers routinely do this if they have both cornfields and cattle. Corn residue isn't suitable for horses, but ruminants can do very well on it. (This is why, when your local farmers tell you "You can just turn your livestock out there, they'll clean it up and you'll save on hay", they're right - PROVIDED that your livestock consists of ruminants! You can't afford to extrapolate from cattle to horses.)
It sounds as though you're planning to use these turnouts as sacrifice areas anyway, which is sensible. Since you'll probably want to add some sort of footing for the horses, you might want to take the opportunity to have the corn residue scraped away before you add your footing (or your base and footing, depending on how much rain and/or snowmelt and/or runoff you anticipate, on the type of soil you have, and on the layout of your property). In some dryer parts of the country, sand over dirt may be enough. In others, sand or wood chips or over compacted gravel or aggregate may be preferable, some very wet areas, especially if the location of the paddocks makes them drain badly, may require drains and/or a layer of geotextile!
If all of this comes as a shocking surprise, don't panic - for now, just keep your horses off the corn residue, and start taking notes about the way your paddocks drain when there's heavy rain or melting snow (assuming that you get those in your area). Once the corn residue is gone, the mud will be your biggest problem, and THAT can be managed at your own pace. In fact, you may find it most useful to live there for a year or two and take notes before making any major modifications.
As for the eight-acre field that you'll be converting to pasture, congratulations again! Scraping eight acres isn't practical, so your best bet there would be to allow a local farmer to graze cattle on the corn residue, then chisel or disk and harrow the acreage to break up and bury as much as possible of the remaining residue before planting your pasture. Corn residue, as I've said, is persistent - it takes quite a bit of time to break down completely. I just converted ten acres of cropland to pasture, and although I was lucky enough to be able to wait a year so as to follow soybeans instead of corn, there is still some corn residue underlying the bean residue... but at this point, all of it is serving to protect the newly-planted pasture grass, and in another year, which is to say, at the earliest moment that we could possibly begin using the pasture for grazing, most of the residue will be gone. So don't panic, but be careful - and be patient. Projects like these often take two or three or five times as long as you thought they would when you first began planning them.
Good luck! Bringing your horses home and creating a horse farm out of acreage previously used for growing crops is complicated and time-consuming, but it's very rewarding, and the important thing is to keep your horses safe whilst you make the necessary changes and improvements. Take photographs as you go, so that you can track your progress - and when you begin to feel overwhelmed, it's very nice to be able to pull out the photo album and look back at the changes you HAVE made over the last six months or the last year or the last four years.
Someday, perhaps, we'll meet for coffee and compare notes! In the meantime, enjoy having your horses at home with you, and I'm very glad to know that I've been able to help you along the way. ;-)
Jessica
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