To find out more and download the Horses, Bugs & Beetles fact sheets or links to more slide share presentations on this topic visit http://www.horsesbugsbeetles.org/ Horses, Bugs & Beetles is a series of eight fact sheets designed to raise awareness amongst horse owners about sustainable horse keeping. A focus on promoting a healthy dung beetle population through reducing chemical use around stable yards & paddocks provides horse owners with a guide to improving the health of their horse’s living environment. This Power Point provides an overview of the key messages in Fact Sheet 1.

1. Horses: Bugs & Beetles
Sustainable ways to keep your horse www.horsesa.asn.au
Horses, Bugs & Beetles
Fact Sheet 1: Integrating pasture management, pest & parasite control,
horse health and soil health
Istock

2. Horses: Bugs & Beetles
Sustainable ways to keep your horse www.horsesa.asn.au
No 1: Integrating horse care
No 2: managing small horse properties
No 3: dung beetles and their benefits
No 4: gut parasites of horses
No 5: pests of horse pastures
No 6: reducing external parasites of horses
No 7: management of horse manure
No 8: threats to dung beetles
The Horses: Bugs & Beetles project
has produced eight fact sheets for
horse owners
This presentation is based on Fact
Sheet 1. Integrating pasture
management, pest & parasite control,
horse health and soil health

3. Horses: Bugs & Beetles
Sustainable ways to keep your horse www.horsesa.asn.au
Challenges
Limited land availability requires horse
property managers to be more proactive with
day-to-day horse care while at the same time
actively working towards long-term
environmental sustainability.
Challenges include:
• providing for the physical, social and
psychological wellbeing of your horse
• managing the threat of chemical
resistance
• establishing and maintaining productive
pastures protecting watercourses and
promoting biodiversity
• promoting a healthy dung beetles
population

4. Horses: Bugs & Beetles
Sustainable ways to keep your horse www.horsesa.asn.au
Responding to the challenges
There are many things you can do to foster the
good health of horses, pastures and soils.
 Establish or renovate pastures
 Establish a grazing schedule (possibly
with supplementary feeding) that
avoids overgrazing pasture, reduces
erosion and allows pasture to prosper
 Establish shelter-belts to provide
protection from sun, wind and rain
 Subdivide horse paddock(s) and
establish a management plan to rest
pasture. This may include establishing
rotational grazing or strip grazing, or
moving the horse into a yard or even
off the property for a period to
enable the paddock(s) to rest.

5. Horses: Bugs & Beetles
Sustainable ways to keep your horse www.horsesa.asn.au
Responding to the challenges cont.
 Establish a surfaced horse yard so that the
horse(s) can be removed from the paddock at
times when they are likely to do a lot of damage
to the soil and pasture (for example, after
extended heavy rain)
 Introduce appropriate dung beetle species for
each season of the year
 Allow manure to remain on the pasture long
enough for beetles to breed, and only then
remove any manure that remains
 Avoid using de-wormers that make manure toxic
when dung beetles are active
 Use chemicals for control of gut parasites
sparingly and strategically but treat young horses,
old animals and those in poor condition when
necessary and according to veterinary advice

6. Horses: Bugs & Beetles
Sustainable ways to keep your horse www.horsesa.asn.au
Responding to the
challenges cont..
 Allow a low level of gut
worms to persist in
order to promote and
maintain strong natural
immunity
 Encourage biodiversity,
including promoting a
variety in pasture
plants and biological
control of pest species
 Avoiding chemical
regimes that poison the
environment and the
organisms in it

7. Horses: Bugs & Beetles
Sustainable ways to keep your horse www.horsesa.asn.au
Working towards an ideal
environment
Developing a property plan will identify
factors such as slope, watercourses, soil
type and existing infrastructure.
It will also have a vision for what the
ideal property might be, including fence
line realignments, promotion of
biodiversity, biosecurity controls, pest
plant and animal management and any
other operational matters, including
manure management.
The plan will also consider how to keep
a healthy population of dung beetles
active in summer and winter

8. Horses: Bugs & Beetles
Sustainable ways to keep your horse www.horsesa.asn.au
The benefits of introducing and
maintaining your dung beetles include:
• more pasture because pasture is not
smothered and soil fertility is improved
• improved soil biology (earthworms and
microbes)
• increased soil carbon and organic
matter
• restructuring the soil profile with
tunnels and subsoil brought to the
surface
• biological control of the infective stages
of gut worms and dung-breeding flies

9. Horses: Bugs & Beetles
Sustainable ways to keep your horse www.horsesa.asn.au
How to find out more
Contact your local Natural
Resources Management (NRM)
office who will be able to assist
with free advice.
Many NRM groups conduct field
days, educational courses or will
come out to your property for a
free visit.

10. Horses: Bugs & Beetles
Sustainable ways to keep your horse www.horsesa.asn.au
Horses, Bugs & Beetles Fact Sheets 1 – 8 download from www.horsesa.asn.au