Hippotherapy

Can grazing horses increase dock and nettles on pasture?

I want to graze my horses on a friends unused field. There is quite a bit of dock and patches of nettles. My horses wil eat the grass but leave the dock and nettles. Will this encourage the weeds to increase?Any info appreciated! Thanks!

Public Comments

1. Yes because of the manure as fertilizer.
2. No it will not grazing horses actually help to keep weeds down as the grass is short. Just go pull them up make sure no ragwort out there though!
3. no, but , the weeds need to be removed anyway, as they will eventually kill the good grass off by over crowding it out. mow them or pull and control burn them.
4. yes
5. chop the docks and nettles before they seed but the seeds are already in the ground and can survive there for years. Really it would be a good idea to see about getting it sprayed.
6. NO IT' HELPS KEEP THEM OUT
7. Will actually decrease your weed population. The horses and a couple of strategic mowings over the summer pretty much eliminate most weeds. My pasture is surrounded by thistle, yet rarely a thistle plant in the pasture.
8. If there is a lot of dock and nettles, intensive grazing will open more area to them. Nettles especially like disturbed areas. The area is already under some pressure for those weed species to grow in abundance. Whether that be previous land use, soil type, or weather, I can't say without seeing it. As long as you graze them lightly and give the pasture breaks to let the grass reseed, it shouldn't be a problem. Slight grazing will promote growth. Intensive will kill off the grass. I would suggest laying a herbicide down in the spring, keeping the horses off of it for at least 3 weeks and a good rain, to help promote grass growth and keep down weed species.
9. i had to laugh when i read some of the answers.basically horses will always increase docks and nettles because they will not eat them.you will have to pull up the docks and nettles but that is hard work,if the field is covered in them(neglected) then your horse will do nothing to reduce these weeds.
10. my horses overgrazed my pastures and the weeds do take over eventually. if you can rotate the horses it really helps to keep down the weeds. in the spring when my fields (after I got rid of the horses) started to grow grass, grass always grows first before weeds I just let them grow up after about 2 years the grass was again the dominate plant. nettles and burdocks don't hurt them even if they did eat them, my horses would sometimes eat weeds during certain times of the year. if you can't rotate then yes the weeds will eventually take over unless you can reseed the pastures (while the horses are kept elsewhere) but that is alot of money or hard work. I would just mow the pastures when the weeds are taking ovetr to keep them down, but eventually the pasture if not rested for several months at a time, will become horse sick. if I had had more pasures space I would of rotated but I only have a few acres. RRRR