How many horses can you have in the padock?

Answer 1

That depends entirely on the condition of the grasses in your paddock, the climate, the maintenance you put into the paddock, and whether you intend for the horses to live in the paddock full time.

A typical stocking rate (the number of animals on a given area) is 1 adult horse per acre of pasture.

In order for an acre of pasture to actually support a horse 24/7 however, you must remove manure from the pasture daily, mow the pasture regularly, fertilize and broadcast seed the pasture, etc. all of which requires the horse to be OFF the pasture for various periods of time.

I live in central IL where this time of year everything is wet and muddy. A horse on 1 acre of pasture here, right now, will destroy the pasture in about a week just by walking around tearing up the grasses.

If you are only worried about how many horses you can put together, that will depend on how well they get along. If they don't get along well, they need enough room so that they don't irritate each other and the paddock fences must be safe enough that if they get to bickering and running each other around, they don't break through the fence or get hurt on it.