New equine landcare group formed
The Cardinia and West Gippsland Equine Landcare group held a “start up” event on March 25 at the Labertouche and District Community Centre.
The “Healthy Land, Healthy Horses Workshop” was presented by internationally acclaimed speaker Stuart Myers from the company Equiculture. Equiculture aims to teach horse owners how to manage their land in a way that is both good for horses and the environment and soil they live on.
Stuart and his wife Jane are co-authors of a number of books including, Managing Horses on Small Properties, Horse Safe and Horse Sense all of which have been published by the CSIRO.
Stuart travels around the world giving talks on horse and land management focussing with a focus on horse and land management aiming to optimise horse welfare as well as sustainable land management.
The workshop covered a number of topics including how to improve land for horses and people, lower feed bills by improving grass yields, how to minimise mud and dust, improving water quality on land for greater wildlife diversity as well as minimising costs of maintaining horses.
Guests at the event included Melbourne Water’s waterways and land manager Louise Kerferd, 2016 Rural Woman of the year Jess Lye and Geoff Hudson and Jim Armstrong from Labertouche and District Sustainable Landcare Group and Westernport Landcare Network as well as Marianne Sawyer from Yarra Valley Equestrian Landcare Centre.
The audience enjoyed Stuart’s engaging speech which covered topics including horse behaviour and digestion, farm planning for healthier and more productive land, different grazing systems and their pros and cons and the importance of fibre vs sugars in grasses, native pastures and fodder trees. Other topics covered whether horses should be rugged or not in winter (rugging later in winter can help horse’s better regulate temperature allowing them to build a more resilient immune system), the importance of pasture mulching, water run-off and working in the environment to optimise horse and pasture health.
Organiser Niki Chiou said while there were many equine groups across Victoria that cover riding and training of horses there were few that address equine land matters.
“The Cardinia and West Gippsland Equine Landcare group aims to increase education across the district and state on these matters,” she said. “With an increase of people moving into rural areas and more horse properties being established, the group aims to provide a service to those entering into this hobby/pastime/industry.”
The group has plans to hold more workshops with professional speakers on a variety of topics related to their charter in the near future.
For more information on the Cardinia and West Gippsland Equine Landcare Group the group can be contacted at cwgequinelandcare@outlook.com.