Poor Pasture Quality

[Legendary]

I have a few pastures and have nine horses in a large one. As soon as I hit 50% full on the pasture the grass quality started going down but some of my other pastures are or were at 50% and were fine. Does anyone know why this is and if there's anything I can do about it? Thanks!

[BlackOak2]

I have a few pastures and have nine horses in a large one. As soon as I hit 50% full on the pasture the grass quality started going down but some of my other pastures are or were at 50% and were fine. Does anyone know why this is and if there's anything I can do about it? Thanks!

Remember that horses eat grass. When pasture 'quality' is discussed, it means the amount of grass actually in the pasture and not the actual grass quality that's growing.
Large horses will eat more, small horses will eat less. Winter and fall will effectively slow down the regrowth factor of your pastures (therefore if your horses are eating more than the regrowth factor, your pasture quality will drop). If you definitely want to ease strain on your pastures, figure out the few that are eating massive amounts of grass and split them out between other pastures.
Personally, I have found that as little as five draft-type and sized horses in a single 12-capacity pasture (with no additional horses), can eat down that entire pasture, especially during winter.

[Legendary]

Thanks for the help! Some of the horses in that pasture are bigger eaters. Is there any way to get a horse to eat less?

[BlackOak2]

Thanks for the help! Some of the horses in that pasture are bigger eaters. Is there any way to get a horse to eat less?

Put them in the barn. However, with feeding, make sure you give them 100% of their daily value to maintain weight. Be aware that the feeding is eaten alphabetically or from the top feed down, so if you give them hay and weight gain, they'll eat all the hay and be too full to eat any of the weight gain. It's about balancing what they can eat with what you need for them to maintain their temperament.

[Legendary]

Thanks for the advice. I just got another pasture so I'll use that to rest the one that needs to grow more. I'll look into getting a barn, but isn't it much more expensive for feed since the horses can't eat grass?

[BlackOak2]

Thanks for the advice. I just got another pasture so I'll use that to rest the one that needs to grow more. I'll look into getting a barn, but isn't it much more expensive for feed since the horses can't eat grass?

It is, generally speaking, if you need or want to cut down on a horse's food intake. Or you want to quarantine a single horse to benefit the rest of the pasture. It certainly won't save you any money.
Good things to remember is that our horses can only die right now from old age. So being overweight or underweight won't kill them.
So if you're short on money, or still trying to get established (or reestablished) then you can make them wait with whatever weight they have and just focus on feeding the horse or couple horses you have for competition purposes. Although I might be corrected on this, I'll also say this: I haven't found that specific poor weights affect performances in locals, so if you're using a grinder in locals, then you don't even need to be careful with that horse's weight.
With a good grinder, you should be able to earn much more than what you'll be spending on feeding your horses daily. With well over 150 horses in my pastures, my daily feeding costs run about 90 to 150. At one point when I had about 20 large horses, I was running about 200 daily, but my grinder easily earned that plus much more. Besides that, grinders in locals earn you PT as well as extra days, so they're handy (just make sure they're fully trained, at least 90 in each stat).