Report - Section 5.2.2

5.2.2   Conservation management

There has been a net loss in many areas of both plant and animal diversity on agricultural land. This has only been partially offset by schemes to enhance and conserve agricultural landscapes. Horses, if grazed properly, can help to redress this balance.

Desirable aspects of horses as conservation grazers include:

• Complimentary ruminants when grazed alternatively with other stock such as horses clean the land of intestinal worms that are harmful to sheep and cows. Cattle pluck lush grasses including those left by equines;sheep eat first flush and create a close sward; horses eat second growth;
• A preference for fibrous material, which sheep and cattle often reject;
• A relatively inefficient digestive system with a large throughput of material
• typically 50-80% of their time is spent eating;
• Preference for a far wider range of plants than other livestock, allowing control of coarse grass, sedges, rushes and bracken.

Advantages of light grazing pressure include:

• Increased productivity of wild pasture;
• Increased species diversity of plants and animals;
• Assistance with seed dispersal and germination;
• Increased numbers of invertebrate habitats;
• Scrub encroachment slowed down; and
• Low scrub opened up.

"Good horse management does create a pastoral effect, and in some areas where agriculture is in steep decline, and farmers are diversifying, it is beautiful to see horses grazing in well-maintained paddocks. And horsiculture offers farmers a way of diversifying without going into less rural pursuits such as golf ranges."