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Do you feel that you can get much more out of your horse pasture?
Do you have to supplement your horses’ rations too much at the moment?
Are your horses sometimes stressed and restless?
Do you want change and get more out of your horse pasture?
Horses are natural grazers, but also browsers. This means that they have been gathering their food from various heights since ancient times. The natural stretching that results from this is very important for a horse’s health. In classic pastures, horses eat 100% of their food from the ground or from feeding stations.
A horse should in fact be able to get at least 20% of its food from different heights, from the knees to the furthest they can stretch.
An afternoon, a member of our design team comes by to take a closer look at the entire horse complex.
We start with an analysis of which horses are currently there. We evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the current state of the pasture(s).
A brainstorming session helps us to find out what are the biggest challenges of your project. At the end of the afternoon, you will receive a roadmap with the different priorities.
You can then choose to start working on this yourself or have it developed into an all-in-one plan by our team.
During the afternoon, we will thoroughly go over your project, goals and difficulties together. Gathering the necessary information takes a lot of time. We are there so you don’t have to go through dozens of books and websites to find out what is best for your situation.
Soil experts: we choose the right plants and planting schemes for your specific soil type
Edible plants: we have been working with edible plants for humans and animals for many years
Aesthetic design: from ornamental gardens for celebrities to food forests and horse paradises
1:1 coaching: a good design is an extension of your personality. Good coaching is essential
Strong team: landscape architects, business experts, agricultural engineers and horse therapists
* Commensalism: when two living organisms help each other without being dependent on each other. A horse gets nutrition from a plant, in exchange it spreads the seeds of that plant all over the pasture. Commensalist® clients automatically become commensalists: a constructive relationship is created between Commensalist and its clients. We help clients create a paradise on earth, you help Commensalist® to have an even more positive impact on this planet.
Out of the box with attention to specific wishes. Starting from the existing, you have submitted a suggestion that immediately gave a “wow” feeling!
We really enjoyed our collaboration and would definitely recommend you to other clients. We really liked the enthusiasm and the “fresh” ideas. Also the willingness to adjust where needed. The cooperation went very smoothly for us.
What a personal, informative, professional and warm approach the Commensalist team has! We chose their expertise to transform our land into a food forest. Louis and his team exceeded our expectations!
The idea of having more flowers and a paradise for insects and birds is why we chose you. Definitely recommendable because of the ( environmental) approach.
We had been looking for a long time for someone with a future-oriented vision of garden – nature – biodiversity to help us with the transformation of our garden… After reading an article in De Standaard, I knew that Louis was the person we were looking for. We instantly connected during the first meeting. Louis made a fantastic design for our garden, completely according to his and our vision. In the years to come, we will see our garden change step by step into a garden that suits our way of life and our vision on gardens/nature/biodiversity. Thanks Louis and many congratulations! Warm greetings Sabine
Commensalist® has a threefold mission:
Heal the earth
Our goal is to create as many hectares of land as possible that are sustainable, regenerative and healthy.
Inspire people
You can only plant a seed if it has first germinated in people’s minds, which is why our second mission is to inspire as many people as possible.
Have fun
Sustainability is only really sustainable if everyone who participates in the project also truly enjoys the design process and the project meetings. That is why the third mission is: to enjoy life as much as possible’.
These are the three conditions that we set for our employees as well as for our customers. We consider all three to be equally important; one cannot exist without the other.
Louis De Jaeger, founder of Commensalist®, is a huge horse lover himself. Although he feels he rides far too little, he seizes the opportunity as soon as it arises. In his youth, he took riding lessons at a riding school. Later, he went with a friend and her horse into the countryside.
He enjoyed horse trekking in the Himalayan foothills near Tibet, as well as in Finland and in the south of France. Nowadays, Louis sometimes helps a farmer to drive cows in a nature reserve on his horse.
This photo shows him with his wife at the border between Texas and New Mexico, in the United States, shortly after their marriage.
Louis De Jaeger, founder of Commensalist®, has written a book about the future of agriculture and land management. Europe used to be one big patchwork landscape. Today, we have degraded this to single-crop farmland as well as (horse) pastures. It is the mission of Commensalist® to restore this patchwork landscape.
This means that we work with as many layers as possible in a horse pasture. We start under the surface by working on a living soil. On top of that we have a healthy grass mix. Higher up, we will have medicinal and nutritious herbs, edible bushes. We finish with small and bigger trees, which are also edible for a horse.
The natural habitat of horses is an open forest or steppe. We try to recreate this environment as much as possible with the unique Commensalist® design method.
Commensalist® assists in the search for grants and aids if possible. For planting trees, grants of up to 80% can be obtained. For planting hedges and digging ponds, grants of up to 80% can be awarded.
If you live in a territory where wolves are a risk, you can apply for a grant to install a wolf-proof fence.