What Eats Dock?

[Farmfresh]

My daughter's pasture was neglected for many years. As a result of this neglect we have a bumper crop of dock weed. We would sure like to find a creature that would love it SO much they would eat it to the ground and kill it.

If not we will just have to continue the mow, spray, mow, spray routine.

Do sheep like dock weed?

 

[freemotion]

I thought you meant us humans..... here is an article, I just came home with some curly dock yesterday to identify and learn about in my quest to know edible and medicinal wild plants in my area.

http://www.arthurleej.com/a-dock.html

Bottom line.....mow it, mow it, mow it. It is a biennal and should die out if you mow it thoroughly for two years, not letting it go to seed. If you can do that, you can avoid herbicides, which will also kill good pasture weeds.

Mowing will improve the grass, too. Depends on what you want to do with the pasture ultimately. I started out wanting horse pasture, lots of grasses. Now I am scattering dandelion seeds and encouraging other goat goodies.

 

[Farmfresh]

The problem seems to always be RAIN.

My daughter does NOT have a tractor with a brush hog only a riding lawn mower. (can't afford one) She has three acres of pasture. She does well mowing and mowing for the first little while then we get hit with some rain and the dock gets too tall for the mower to handle. She calls the "mower man" and schedules him to mow. Then it happens ... never ending rain and mud. The mower man schedules and re-schedules to mow, but by the time he finally gets there the dock is putting on seeds!

The ponies are no help - they just avoid the dock (and over graze) everything else. My broilers and turkeys eat some, but they are just not big enough.

Suggestions? All ideas are welcome.

 

[freemotion]

I take it there is too much to try pulling or cutting it by hand? Is it curly dock or the dreaded burdock? If it is burdock, forget pulling it...the roots go several feet!

 

[Farmfresh]

Curly dock. I know ... I could eat it, but not so much!

 

[big brown horse]

Can you rent it out as a goat pasture for a while? Will goats eat it freemotion?

ETA I don't know if sheep eat it, they (mine) seem to only go for short-ish grass and bark on expensive trees.

 

[Farmfresh]

I would BUY some freaking goats! The fencing is good enough to keep in two elderly POA ponies, but I doubt it would hold a goat.

I was hoping sheep would eat it... then I could eat the sheep! I think electric could hold the sheep in and I have electro-netting sheep sized.

 

[freemotion]

They might nibble on it, but I don't think they could take care of three acres unless you had a lot of over-crowded goats!

 

[big brown horse]

Let me look in my sheep "Bible" and I'll get back to you.

 

[Farmfresh]

When my broilers and turkeys are chicks (and poults) I chop up dock leaves to give them everyday. As they get bigger I do less chopping, until the day I finally let them out of the Chick Mobile and into the electric pen. They seem to have a great desire for dock at that point and do pretty well eating it, but all they can do is eat a little in their pen compared to the BIG patches in the pasture.