permaculture

[Robyn Francis <erda@nor.com.au>]

Antonio - recommend you get to know someone in your area who has horses and
volunteer your help to get to know how to handle them, what's involved in
keeping them, how much they eat and how much it may cost if you have to buy
supplementary feed. Horses eat a lot of grass and they love to munch on
young trees. You need big strong tree guards to protect tree seedlings in a
horse paddock. My neighbours have 2 horses on 2 hectares - this is a high
rainfall area (1760mm) in the subtropics where 8 months of the year lush
grasses grow 15-20cm a week and they need to supplement their feed in
winter. 
It also depends what breed of horses you're looking at keeping/breeding. And
yes, mares in foal require much more than a non-pregnant horse, irrespective
of breed. 
I'd be getting the treated greywater tested for suitability for stock.

Ciao
Robyn

On 11/11/05 5:09 AM, "sinergyinaction@netscape.net"
<sinergyinaction@netscape.net> wrote:

> Hi Lisa,
> thanks for your feedback.
> I have no experience at all with horses, but I can probably find out more 
> near
> where I live, even though the people I know that have horses aren't
> permaculturist.
> Anyway the idea is to have horses (1 opr 2) that can also be used as 
> breeders,
> do these horses have different requirements than non-breeders?
> I am writing from Spain and southern spain (quite a dry and hot place 
> usually)
> is the place where the land is.
> So how much grass do they need to satisfy their needs (in case it needs to 
> be
> purchased)?
> Can they drink purified water produced from a grey water reed bed system?
> Is tap (clorinated) water good to them?
> 
> The main doubt though is if keeping a horse(es) is compatible with the aim 
> of
> establishing/restoring a healthy ecosystem from scratch, that is, starting a
> succession cycle with cover crops and tree seedlings all over the place, 
> also
> having to rely on a piece of land not bigger than 2Ha.
> My feeling is that it isn't and that horses, if ever, should be introduced 
> at
> a later stage, once the system is well established.
> Cheers
> Antonio
>