Small Acreage Horse Keeping

One of my biggest problems is that I really don?t have enough room to house 3 horses with about 1.75 acresof space for them on our 2.5 acre block. When I enquired at council inregards to the regulations about having horses on your semi rural (akaperi-urban) block I was told that having 1 horse per acre isacceptable. Now that is one acre of pasture, not meaning a one acreblock. So you can see, I actually have a bit of a dilemma? 3 horses oneffectively 1.75 acres of pasture. Ooops? I am severly overstocked here.

I am very lucky to have incredible neighbours who allow me to havethe horse eat down their grass, and if I add up all those acres aswell, I have about 20 acres at my disposal? how is that? Soundsfantastic right? I appreciate that I can put the horses around theneighbourhood, but I really want to have them close at home.

I?ve heard of Jaime Jackson?s book ?Paddock Paradise? quite a whileago, and it had me intrigued, though I ordered the book only a coupleof days ago. I wasn?t sure if it is really what I wanted so I did a lotof research and I am converted. I am going to create a Paddock Paradisefor my horses, as it doesn?t matter how big or small your property is,you can create a paddock paradise.

While I am waiting for my new book to read, I have been doing someresearch on the net and here are some links that you might like to havea look with me:

Paddock Paradise

Paddock Paradise Wiki

Paddock Paradise in Wales, UK

I am pretty inspired and am going to draw a plan of the property soI can have an idea how I will lay out my track, where to put feedingstations and where to have watering points. What types of surfaces Iwill install etc.  It will be quite some work but well worth it if Ican keep my horses at home permanently.