Horses, Bugs and Beetles Fact Sheet 1

Horses: Bugs & BeetlesSustainable ways to keep your horse www.horsesa.asn.au

Horses, Bugs & BeetlesFact Sheet 1: Integrating pasture management, pest & parasite control,

horse health and soil health

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No 1: Integrating horse care

No 2: managing small horse properties

No 3: dung beetles and their benefits

No 4: gut parasites of horses

No 5: pests of horse pastures

No 6: reducing external parasites of horses

No 7: management of horse manure

No 8: threats to dung beetles

The Horses: Bugs & Beetles project has produced eight fact sheets for horse owners

This presentation is based on Fact Sheet 1. Integrating pasture management, pest & parasite control, horse health and soil health


Challenges

Limited land availability requires horse property managers to be more proactive with day-to-day horse care while at the same time actively working towards long-term environmental sustainability.

Challenges include:

• providing for the physical, social and

psychological wellbeing of your horse

• managing the threat of chemical resistance

• establishing and maintaining productive pastures protecting watercourses and promoting biodiversity

• promoting a healthy dung beetles population


Responding to the challenges

There are many things you can do to foster the good health of horses, pastures and soils.

Establish or renovate pastures

Establish a grazing schedule (possibly with supplementary feeding) that avoids overgrazing pasture, reduces erosion and allows pasture to prosper

Establish shelter-belts to provide protection from sun, wind and rain

Subdivide horse paddock(s) and establish a management plan to rest pasture. This may include establishing rotational grazing or strip grazing, or moving the horse into a yard or even off the property for a period to enable the paddock(s) to rest.


Responding to the challenges cont.

Establish a surfaced horse yard so that the horse(s) can be removed from the paddock at times when they are likely to do a lot of damage to the soil and pasture (for example, after extended heavy rain)

Introduce appropriate dung beetle species for each season of the year

Allow manure to remain on the pasture long enough for beetles to breed, and only then remove any manure that remains

Avoid using de-wormers that make manure toxic when dung beetles are active

Use chemicals for control of gut parasites sparingly and strategically but treat young horses, old animals and those in poor condition when necessary and according to veterinary advice


Responding to the challenges cont..

Allow a low level of gut worms to persist in order to promote and maintain strong natural immunity

Encourage biodiversity, including promoting a variety in pasture plants and biological control of pest species

Avoiding chemical regimes that poison the environment and the organisms in it


Working towards an ideal environment

Developing a property plan will identify factors such as slope, watercourses, soil

type and existing infrastructure.

It will also have a vision for what the ideal property might be, including fence

line realignments, promotion of

biodiversity, biosecurity controls, pest

plant and animal management and any

other operational matters, including manure management.

The plan will also consider how to keep a healthy population of dung beetles active in summer and winter


The benefits of introducing and maintaining your dung beetles include:

• more pasture because pasture is not smothered and soil fertility is improved

• improved soil biology (earthworms and microbes)

• increased soil carbon and organic matter

• restructuring the soil profile with tunnels and subsoil brought to the surface

• biological control of the infective stages

of gut worms and dung-breeding flies


How to find out more

Contact your local Natural Resources Management (NRM) office who will be able to assist with free advice.

Many NRM groups conduct field days, educational courses or will come out to your property for a free visit.


Horses, Bugs & Beetles Fact Sheets 1 – 8 download from www.horsesa.asn.au

Education

Horses, Bugs and Beetles Fact Sheet 1