Pasture, Grazing & Sugar Risk
Map your paddocks, log rotations, credit pasture in the hay plan month by month, estimate what a horse actually eats on grass, and time turnout around seasonal sugar.
01Fields and paddocks
Use + Add a field for each hayfield, pasture, paddock, and dry lot. Give each one a name you will use everywhere; grazing moves, compost applications, hay cuttings, and map shapes all link to fields by name.
Each field can carry a soil test. Import one per field to drive the compost planner and the "where to send compost" ranking on the Manure tab.
02Importing field borders
- In Mapulator or any GPS mapping app, draw or walk each paddock and name it to match the field in the app.
- Export as KML or GeoJSON.
- On the Rotation map card, choose Import field borders (KML / GeoJSON).
- Shapes match fields by name. A shape with no matching field creates a new field with acreage measured from its outline.
Imported outlines give you real acreage, which makes stocking rate and pasture intake figures more trustworthy than a remembered number.
03The rotation map and grazing log
The map colors each paddock as grazing, ready, or resting. The grazing log drives it.
- Choose the field, the date in, and the horses going on it.
- Press Log grazing move.
- When horses come off, add the date out. The paddock moves to resting.
Over a season the log becomes a record of how many days each paddock carried horses and how long it rested, which is what you need to judge whether a rotation is working.
Cool-season pastures in Western New York commonly need several weeks of rest in summer before regrazing, and more in a dry spell. Move horses off before grass is grazed below about 3 to 4 inches, and return when it has regrown to roughly 6 to 8 inches.
04Grazing systems
Forage tab · Grazing systems — pasture share % by month
A grazing system is a set of twelve percentages: how much of each month's forage comes from pasture. Assign one to each horse. The hay plan subtracts that share before figuring hay need, which is why a rotational horse needs hay mainly in shoulder seasons and winter while a dry-lot horse needs it all year.
| Default system | Pattern |
|---|---|
| Dry lot | Hay year-round |
| Managed grazing on dry lot | Limited, timed turnout |
| Track system | Movement first, modest forage from the track |
| Rotational pasture | Well-managed paddocks, high summer contribution |
| Full-season turnout | Horses mostly live out in the growing season |
These are Western New York defaults. Edit the monthly shares to fit your fields and your year; the change applies to every horse on that system.
05Pasture sugar risk
Forage tab · Pasture testing & sugar risk — grazed forage · NSC by month
The card shows a seasonal pasture-sugar pressure score from 0 to 100 for each month, set to a cool-season New York default.
- Spring flush: sugar (ESC + starch) spikes as grass grows fast.
- Fall: sugar rises again after cold nights and sunny days.
- Summer heat and winter dormancy: sugar dips.
- Time of day: sugar is lowest in early morning and highest in late afternoon.
Overnight into early morning. Pull insulin-resistant, EMS, and laminitis-prone horses off before the afternoon, and use a grazing muzzle or dry lot during high-pressure months.
To anchor the scale to your own fields, test standing forage. Clip a representative sample at the time of day horses graze, send it for ESC and starch, and enter the results.
06Pasture intake calculator
Forage tab · Pasture intake calculator — attribute grazing to the ration
Use this when you want a horse's pasture credit to reflect a particular paddock rather than the general grazing system. Pick the horse and the pasture, then one of two methods:
Time-based
Enter pasture quality (lush, good, average, or sparse) and turnout hours per day. Best for quick estimates.
Measured (disappearance)
Enter area grazed, pre-graze and post-graze dry matter (lb/acre), horses sharing, and days on pasture. The forage that disappeared, divided among the horses and the days, is the per-horse daily intake.
Daily DM per horse ≈ (pre-graze − post-graze) × acres ÷ horses ÷ days
Then choose the months to apply and press Apply to plan. Clear this horse's override returns the horse to its grazing system.
Pasture intake varies widely with forage, weather, the individual horse, and grazing behavior. Treat the result as a starting point and adjust by body condition and weight-tape trend; the horse's BCS is the final word. Confirm diets for insulin-resistant, senior, broodmare, and growing horses with your veterinarian or an equine nutritionist.
07Putting it together
- Map and name the fields once.
- Assign each horse a grazing system that matches how it really lives.
- Log every move so the map and the record stay true.
- Check the sugar card before spring and fall turnout changes for sensitive horses.
- Use the intake calculator when one paddock or one horse doesn't fit its system.
- Re-score BCS monthly. If condition moves the wrong way, adjust the pasture share or turnout hours first.