Pasture management

   / Pasture management #1  

Firemedic

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Feb 7, 2002
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1
I have 8 acres of pasture(central VA with that gool 'ol VA red clay) which is not in good condition. Alot of bare patches. I have 2 horses which are going to be turned out. I need to know what attatchments would work best for pasture management. I have a JD 4100 gear w/ FEL. I also need to know the process for pasture management. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
   / Pasture management #2  
The first step I took was to get a soil test done. I needed 2 tons of lime/acre to get the soil correct. You might be surprised at how well the grass comes up once the soil is fertilized and the ph is right.

Do you want to overseed or start over? If just overseeding, get something to loosen the top of the soil, like a drag harrow, seed, then drag again to cover it. Keeping the weeds mowed is also a must.
 
   / Pasture management #3  
Like Mike said first you need to get a soil sample and determine what your soil needs. The only way to do a good job is to do an overseeding with a good overseeding seeder. For what you need done I'd just hire it or rent one if you can find one. To maintain it all you really need is a good mower. An aerator is nice and will help keep the ground healthy. A broadcast cone type spreader would be good for fertilizing once a year as well. A harrow would be good also to drag the pasture and break up manure and kind of thatch the grass. Your best pasture management though is going to be dividing that pasture up into four pastures. This way you can rotate pastures. This way you give your grass a chance to come back even, keeps down on parasites for the horses, and you will get much better growth.

Horses are not like cattle or sheep. They will only eat certain patches of grass and leave other grass. This gets frustrating as they will eat one patch down to grass while another grows a foot long. This is another reason why rotation is good. Also you will need to keep the horses off of any fresh plantings as well as they will eat those first and pull the new seedlings right out by the root and you won't get any growth.
 
   / Pasture management #4  
If you have the acreage fenced off so you can rotate, you might consider keeping a few sheep and goats to browse and graze the stuff you're horses aren't eating. That will cut down on the time you have to spend managing what the horses don't "manage" themselves. The goat or goats will browse the woody stuff the horses won't touch. Likewise the sheep may graze something that the horses leave behind. You can run the other stock in after the horses are moved. A good book which covers all the aspects is Small-Scale Livestock Farming by Carol Ekarius.

By rotating stock at the correct times, you can keep the grasses from being completely eaten off and break the parasite cycle. As the others have said, you need to do a soil test first. The county extension office will have the
sample bags. They'll also have a suggestion on what to plant for your area. If it's set up correctly the livestock will keep the pastures clipped and fertilized so that your time and money invested can be minimized.
 
 
 
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