Pasture Management Software for Horse Farms, Boarding Barns, and Multi-Pasture Facilities

The problem this solves

Pasture notes often live on whiteboards or in one manager's head. That breaks down when staff need to know where a horse belongs now.

How BarnOps handles it

BarnOps connects the native iOS and Android apps used in the barn aisle with the web dashboard used by owners and managers. Staff log work where it happens. Managers review the record without chasing texts, paper notes, or screenshots.

• ✓Pasture names, size, and notes.
• ✓Horse assignments and compatibility notes.
• ✓Each horse's current pasture.
• ✓Grazing and rest periods from logged pasture events.
• ✓Capacity and incompatibility warnings when horses are assigned.

How it connects to the rest of the barn

The value of BarnOps is that each feature lives inside the same equine facility management platform. Records, billing, care logs, forms, scheduling, chat, and staff accountability all reference the same barn, horses, people, and roles.

• ✓Pastures connect to turnout tracking.
• ✓Horse profiles show care and location context.
• ✓Staff can see assignments on mobile.
• ✓Managers can plan rotation and reduce confusion.

What does a day with pasture management look like?

A day with pasture management starts on the Pastures screen in the mobile app, which has two tabs: Groups and Rotation. Take a farm with four pastures: North Field, Back Forty, Creek Paddock and a dry lot. Groups shows totals for pastures, horses out and capacity, then a card for each pasture with its acreage, its horse limit and the horses in it. If North Field is set to 5 horses and has 6, the card says "6 of 5 horses" and is flagged Over capacity.

The Rotation tab reads the barn's rotation plan, for example 7 days of grazing per pasture and at least 21 days of rest. With four pastures, that is a 28-day full cycle. Each grazing pasture shows how many days it has been in use and either "Rotate in 2d" or "Rotate now." Each resting pasture shows "Ready in 9d" or "Ready to graze." When North Field is due, the manager taps Rotate Out. BarnOps logs Grazing Ended on North Field and Grazing Started on the next pasture in the rotation order, both dated today.

After the horses move, the manager drags and fertilizes North Field. From Log Event they select both Dragged / Harrowed and Fertilized, keep today's date, and add a note such as "10-10-10, 200 lb per acre." The pasture's rotation card then shows Fertilized and Dragged with that date, and the full event list stays on the pasture's own screen.

What gets recorded?

BarnOps keeps a record for each pasture, the horses in it, and the land work done on it.

• ✓Pasture details: name, short name (up to 6 characters), acreage, maximum horses and notes.
• ✓Horse assignments: which pasture each horse is in, the date assigned and optional notes.
• ✓Incompatible pairs: two horses plus an optional reason, such as "alpha aggression."
• ✓Land events: Grazing Started, Grazing Ended, Rest Started, Fertilized, Dragged / Harrowed, Seeded, Limed, Sprayed, Inspected or Other, each with a date, notes and the person who logged it.
• ✓Rotation plan: a name, grazing days per pasture, minimum rest days, notes, and the pastures in order.
• ✓PastureOps answers on the web: how many horses use pasture, their size, how much forage the pasture provides, winter dormancy, the winter plan and how horses are grouped.
• ✓Pasture moves: the old pasture, the new pasture, who moved the horse and when.

Who can see and change it?

Barn owners and managers run pasture management, and staff can see it.

• ✓Owners and managers can add, edit and remove pastures, assign horses, record incompatible pairs, set the rotation plan, log land events and answer the PastureOps questions.
• ✓Staff can see pastures, groups and rotation status on the mobile app and the web Pastures page. The edit buttons are not shown to them.
• ✓Boarders, instructors, trainers and students do not get the Pastures page. A boarder can see their own horse's assigned pasture on its Turnout tab.
• ✓Database rules back this up: only an active owner, manager or admin of the barn can create or edit a pasture.

What are the limits?

Pasture management tracks what your team logs. It does not measure grass or soil.

• ✓A barn has one active rotation plan. It needs at least 2 pastures, and grazing and rest days must each be at least 1.
• ✓Rotation status comes from logged events. If nobody logs Grazing Started, BarnOps can't tell that a pasture is in use. Rotate Out logs the events but does not move horses. You reassign them on the pasture screen.
• ✓PastureOps numbers are starting points, not agronomy. It suggests about 2 acres per horse when pasture is the main forage, 1 for supplemental turnout and 0.5 for light turnout. It counts a pony as 0.6 of a horse and a draft as 1.35.
• ✓Removing a pasture takes its horses off it, drops it from the rotation and retires its hay station.
• ✓BarnOps saves every pasture move in the background, but neither app has a screen for browsing that move history yet.

How do you set it up?

Setup runs as a guided flow on the web Pastures page, and every step can also be done on mobile except the PastureOps questions.

• ✓Answer the PastureOps questions: how many horses use pasture, their size, how they are grouped and what happens in winter.
• ✓Add each pasture with acreage and a horse limit so the acreage and capacity checks have numbers to work with.
• ✓Set today's baseline: mark each pasture as currently grazing, currently resting or empty, with a best-guess start date.
• ✓Build the rotation plan: grazing days, rest days and pasture order. The mobile setup starts at 7 and 21 days.
• ✓Assign horses and record any incompatible pairs.

Built for working horse farms

BarnOps is designed for real barn environments: mobile-first for staff, reviewable by managers, role-aware for boarders and instructors, and structured enough to support liability documentation, payroll review, and daily operational accountability.