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New book: Equine Permaculture – Regenerative Horse Property Design & Pasture Management

Equine Permaculture: Regenerative Horse Property Design & Pasture Management
A collection of articles, 80 pages
by Mariette van den Berg & Nicholas Huggins

Generally, horse keeping is considered to be a costly hobby or business, especially with current price rises in living expenses and feed costs. On top of that, horse and land owners encounter high input costs or difficulties to maintain pastures and sustain the dietary needs of horses.

The need for a new approach to these challenges of horse keeping is getting more recognised in the equine community and sport industry. To be able to make horse keeping more economically viable and productive we must develop a sustainable horse property and pasture management plan that caters for immediate and long-term needs, your own personal goals (social, economical), your horse’s well-being and the environment.

By applying the ethics and principles of permaculture design and integrating knowledge on biological pasture management, holistic grazing planning, horse behaviour, horse nutrition and horse management you are able to create a more sustainable and healthy equine system. All horse and land owners, small and large acreage, are able to restore their land, increase soil carbon, regenerate pastures, drought proof their farm, close the input cycle of chemical based fertilisers by developing their own compost (tea) alternative, reduce supplementary feed costs by designing horse forage systems and improving natural feeding behaviour by forage enrichment and slow feeding strategies.

This book is a collection of articles that have been written for various national horse magazines in Australia. It provides comprehensive information about integrative systems and how to develop and regenerate your horse property and manage horses in an ecologically sound and most cost effective way to ensure the health of your horses and land.

The book can be ordered here.

7 Comments

  1. Sounds like a book that is overdue on the horse market. Apparently in South America, the use of compost tea is no longer recommended as an input to close the chemical input cycle because of the expense. Bio-fertilizer is the preferred option in terms of cost of effectiveness. I understand this is also now being adopted in Australia especially where workshops and practical application on northern agricultural crops have shown its efficacy. Perhaps this could be included in the next edition.

  2. I’m from Europe and can’t find anything comparable about this subject here. The link for ordering the book is not working but I’m very interested to buy the book. Can somebody tell me where I can order it?

  3. Are there any specific courses with accreditation for Equine Permaculture? If so, are they available online? Thank you in advance. Eileen Thomson

  4. Fabulous, that would be so helpful. Might consider helping others in my area in Scotland. Not to mention that there have been frequent cases of Grass Sickness in this region… must be something to do with management no?

  5. I am most interested in this – I have just purchased acreage and am lucky to be starting from scratch – however, I find everything I read relates to grasses that grow in southern Australia. Grass, here in sub-tropical climate has hardly any nutritional benefit for the horse so I am questioning why I should grass a huge area and then fence off and then spend years trying to manage such a failing system! Surely there is a better way. I was thinking planting some bamboo to both feed and FENCE my horse? Geoff – if you want an equine expert to work with on some ideas – try John O’Leary – http://www.horseproblems.com.au – he has many articles on pasture management.

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