Pasture Management

[freemotion]

Horses are incredibly tough on pastures! You really have to divide it up and rotate and mow. They will just graze in the yummy areas and leave the weeds, and ultimately the weed grow big and tall and go to seed and then dominate. The grass gradually gets killed. Then there are those running hooves combined with soft ground after a rain or in spring. Whew! Goats really are easier. Three strands of electric should keep them in. Depending on how they are spaced and if it is tape or wire and how big and hairy the goats are and how strong the fencer is.

Much as I love my goats, they are not the only answer.

I would divide and conquer. Have a smaller sacrifice area that you just sigh and shake your head sadly when they destroy it. Keep them in it and feed hay when the ground is muddy. Then rotate them through the smaller paddocks and mow, mow, mow those weeds and don't let them go to seed.

I don't know how many horses you have, but if you diligently pile and compost your manure, you can spread it with a wheelbarrow. I do. A lot of work, but it composts down quite a lot, and you did get it out to the pile one wheelbarrow at a time, after all! It will be fewer wheelbarrows to spread it....

 

[freemotion]

Oh, and I love a straw bed, but only for certain situations. Straw over shavings, though, since straw does not absorb urine. It is the only way to go for a foaling or kidding stall, as the urine goes through the straw and into the shavings, plus it is warmer.

I LOVE it for deep litter for my goats, as the poopies sift down (I do have to clean one area regularly, by the door, where everyone uses it as a potty when it rains) and I can just add more straw on top. Nice and thick, keeps them up off this cold, frozen New England ground all winter. A little composting creates heat, in theory. It will be a lot of work to clean come spring, but it is NO work all winter, and think of the compost! Woohoo!

Back to pasture...I was able to put up quite a bit of free hay when I mowed my field with a scythe this past summer. That wasn't why I bought it...I couldn't find anyone to mow for a reasonable price, and one $200 mowing (yep!) bought me a scythe that was custom made to my height. In a good year, I may not need much if any hay. I hope. If I don't keep too many goaties!

 

[patandchickens]

A soil test would be a real good idea. I don't know if your state offers them for free (they might) but even if you have to pay you can get a lot of useful info for $20 or so. Chances are extremely good that the pasture would benefit from fertilizing. Horses (or any other livestock) fed mainly by grazing are not net depositors of fertilizer, they are net REMOVERS of fertility, and they do not remove all elements equally. Test, then you'll know what you could/should do.

As others have said, horses are about the worst grazer there is. They graze part of the pasture down to half-inch-high "lawns" that may look nice and weed-free but the soil gets compacted and poor and the grass/clover's roots don't go down very far at all so they die way back in droughts; and they leave large "roughs" where they poo and don't graze, so that weeds take over.

If you have a tractor, mow the roughs whenever anything starts to get over 6" high. If you don't have a tractor, use a scythe or string-trimmer=weed-whacker (the big wheeled ones can be a nice compromise between handheld string trimmer and tractor; I highly recommend the DR brand wheeled trimmer, which is in the $6-700 range when on sale).

Also seriously consider cross-fencing (electric is good) so you can give some of the 'lawns' a good long rest so they can grow back up taller and healthier.

If you can only do one of those three things (test/fertilize, mow the roughs, or cross-fence to rotate pastures) IMHO the most valuable one for improving your pasture is the mowing, with crossfencing/rotation being a very close second place.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat, slowly converting about 5 acres of tremendously overgrazed, compacted and weedy pasture back to a more useful state, mainly by mowing and low stocking density and some degree of pasture rotation

 

[ksalvagno]

We use a horse pasture grass mix that we get at the local feed store.

 

[Farmfresh]

Everyone here is giving such great advice! Especially about the cross fencing part.

Inchy just like they said "straw" is the stems of a grain plant, usually wheat after the grain is harvested. This is sometimes confused even more by the fact that there is oat "hay" and oat "straw". The oat hay is cut just as the grain seeds become well developed, but LONG before they are ripe enough to harvest. Back in the day oat hay was prized for fattening beef cattle and for hard working farm horses.

Most straw is harvested long after maturity. Basically at this point it is just standing dead grass and have very little nutrition. Straw however does have some great properties that we SS crowd should take advantage of.

Since most grains these days are bred to stand tall through winds and rains and combines the straw has a large airspace in the stem. This makes straw a good insulator when used in dog houses and pig arks. It does not absorb much moisture which, as mentioned before, makes it great for bedding to deliver babies on.

Since it is a mono-culture crop (only one thing is grown in that field) and those seeds are harvested, it makes a great garden mulch when used thick enough. There are no weed seeds in it to be spread into the garden. (Peat moss, leaves, wood shavings, wood chips and newspapers also fill this bill).

As for hand spreading that manure. Use a lawn spreader for the rabbit poo. It really works great just set it on the largest setting!

Also the pasture can be divided as they have been saying and then one section can be a manure dumping spot. Just dump EACH wheelbarrow load right next to the last one until the whole area is PAVED with poo. Keep this section off limits from the animals until the whole area has been covered and is rotted down and resown. It may take a while but it is better than moving the poo twice.

Another method for over seeding is out there if you have ruminants. You can actually FEED your cow clover seeds in their grain mix and they will pass straight through and get "planted" in every cow pie. Of course be certain that untreated seed is used.

Edited to say: Be careful about planting fescue in pastures. Fescue can cause problems in some animals and in my opinion just does not have the nutrition of other grass species. It is however very very tough and drought resistant.

 

[miss_thenorth]

We have used the pasture mix also, and I second the rotational grazing. Our set up is three paddock used for rotating, and a dry lot, where they spend rainy and wet days, and all winter.

Top left of the pic, is the largest pasture, below it the dry lot, the triangle is another pasture, and then the strip beside it (which used to be rail land. We are going to fence in the top right by the driveway and corner this spring to make more pasture--for the sheep and horses to be rotated on.

 

[Wifezilla]

nice set up

 

[miss_thenorth]

Thanks. When we bought the place, the triangle was the only fenced in area for the previous owners horses. The top of the pic was just lawn and the RR strip, they grew veggies there. so we started out by fencing in the rest of the area, and then started seeding. The triangle was mud, so we seeded there, and also the RR strip. We still have a long way to go to get the pasture where we want it. the lawn part needs reseeding this spring, as well as topping up bare spots on the other two pastures. I do believe tht we will need to fertilize this spring also, as previously stated, horses are hard on pasture. You gotta love them horses, cuz they are alot of work. I keep telling dd if she starts getting complacent, the horses are goin and cows are coming. but that will never happen. We are thinking about approaching the landowner next to us about renting some land off him.

 

[valmom]

Horses are an amazing amount of work- especially in the winter when you don't get much reward for having them!

I think as my elderly horses die off (we have 3 that are in their mid-20s. with my luck they will live to 40), I want to change the mix and add maybe a goat or 2 for fiber and milk, an alpaca or 2, and/or a fiber sheep. But, I'v heard those animals are just about as hard on pasture as horses are except for the tearing it up running part.

 

[freemotion]

Not true, valmom, at least that is my experience with goats! My pasture is recovering very quickly from my horse, who had to be put down in July of '08. The combination of goats and chickens (and me....I am the cow I am the cow I am the cow....) has been amazing. The goats top all the weeds and reduce their numbers, and the chickens scratch up the areas where the leaves from the trees collect and compact, which kills the grass...the chickens rake the leaves away and now my field has more and more usable area. With the addition of compost and ashes, I expect to have an extremely fertile and lush field within a couple more years with no money output at all.