[Beastie89]

I am going to start turning my horse out in the pasture. At the moment she has been turned out in a dirt area. The pasture she will be turned out in is very lush with grass. I was going to start her at 15 minutes a day for a week and increase is by 15 minutes a week until she can stay out all night. But that seems like it would take all summer. How do you recommend I introduce her to the grass properly. When she is turned out for as I long as I want her turned out she will be out from around 6:30-7:00 at night to 6:30-7:00 in the morning. How should I properly start her on this schedule? I don't want her to founder or colic. Please help. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

[imjustjoking22]

You shouldn't have to start her that slow at all. It took about a week to introduce both horses I've had to 24/7 pasture and they were totally fine. But I will leave the exact stuff to the experts

[Beastie89]

How should I start her off and work her up? Thank you for your reply! bump for the night...

[JBandRio]

It's never a bad idea to be very very conservative when making that drastic a change. I like your starting plan a lot.

But, you can do 15 minutes a day for a couple of days - twice a day would be great, then go to 30. Once you're at 30 minutes twice a day for a couple of days, you can probably go to an hour a day twice a day. After a few days of that, 2 hours twice a day, then 3, and then you'll be in a position to go 8 hours in a single time slot.

Add an hour or so every couple of days. Once you're at 12 hours, you can most likely go to 24. If you want to be very conservative here, do a muzzle for the 2nd 12 hours for a few more days.

[ahlihaff]

I found this article on introducing a horse to pasture:

If your horse has been eating very sparse pasture or has been eating hay all winter it will need to be introduced to lush pastures very gradually. An abrupt change in the feed can cause colic, laminitis or founder. Ponies, over weight horses, older horses and some draft breeds or draft crosses seem to be particularly susceptible although any horse can be affected. A pony can founder on rich grass in less than an hour of grazing time. If your horse or pony is grazing a pasture from the time the ground thaws in early spring, he will be introduced to the new growth of grass naturally. Many people keep herds of ponies this way without problem. However, if you make the switch from a hay diet to lush growing grass problems can occur.
Allow ponies a few minutes of grazing, gradually building the time spent. You may find that you have to restrict the grazing time of ponies because they gain weight so easily. Obesity can also lead to problems. So leaving your pony out on lush pasture all the time may not be possible. Let your pony graze for very short periods of time and then leave them in an area with very sparse grazing.
Introduce your horse gradually as well, starting with a half hour and adding about ten minutes every day until you can leave the horse for a few hours. You can also feed hay before the horse is turned out to prevent him gorging himself because he feels hungry.
It’s tempting to turn your horse out in the spring and watch him enjoy that beautiful green grass. But doing so may endanger his health, or be fatal. Err on the side of caution when introducing pasture.

Never allow a horse to feed from young grass, as it will upset their stomach. A good rule of thumb is that grass be at least 4 (ideally 6) inches in height and 6 weeks old.

Hope this is helpful to you.

[Beastie89]

Thank you everyone. That all helped a lot. Thank you again.