cleaning/clearning a grownup field.

[jonbravado]

will do - i should be able to take some more pictures, PRE-tractor work - this weekend.

thanks again for all the comments.

any particular breed of goat i should consider? I have heard they love eatin briars and thorny vines, because there is a TON of them in the backyard.

J

 

[VABlue]

I'm a big fan of incorporating dutch white clover in with the grass seed. It will provide enough fertilization (nitrogen) naturally that you won't need to apply near as much down the road. It also grows well in any condition and only gets 5-6" tall. It will come in quick and provide some cover for the grass to get going, as well. Good luck with the clearing, have fun with it!!

Goats? What will you do with them when they're finished clearing everything? Allow them to graze your newly seeded lawn, or keep buying feed?

 

[jonbravado]

That's a good question - i will probably turn them into my wife's 'pets' - she wanted a couple of goats anyway. So it'll serve a dual purpose.

thanks for the tips.

J

 

[Z-Michigan]

We looked at goats recently for dual use - eating weeds and making milk. Nubians are the most common variety chosen for milk production, and are fairly large goats. Large should mean easier to contain. Lots of people get pygmy goats as pets - they are small and cute, but really don't do anything useful and their size will make it easier for them to under fences and through small openings (unless you overfeed them like most people do, then they're wider than they are long!).

If you have coyotes or large cats in the area, will you bring the goats in at night or have a guard animal?

 

[jonbravado]

that's a good question, too. - i hadn't thought of that - we do have coyotes around, but not sure how bad.

i was gonna use a hotwire and have the strands run pretty thoroughly on the t-posts. small area at a time. would this keep the coyotes out? or should i get a jack donkey in there?

J

 

[jonbravado]

VA blue - how much clover should i put out when i get around to seeding the grass?

J

 

[VABlue]

When I did my lawn I used a 10% mix of clover to 90% grass. That left me with plenty of clover (and basically everything I have left after heat and drought this summer) and looked really good. For your use, I'd go with 20% at least. It looks decent and keeps out other unwanted weeds until the grass can really get established. Be careful with weed control products, though. Most people think of clover as an unwanted weed...

I found this website to be quite useful in selecting a grass variety and clover mix...

 

[HC-80]

I have goats and they surely do work well to clean things out as high as they can reach. Also, we have occasional coyote issues as well. Someone gave us an old llama and he has taken the herd under his wing. He protects them from any new visitors==Cows, horses, etc. They stay in the barn until he lets them out. He even put himself between my wife and a bull we had. Bull backed off fast when the llama spit at him.

Good luck clearing the property. I've been working on mine too this summer, and like someone else warned, the goats tried to chew the wires on my new tractor. A field full of grass and leaves, but they wanted my wires. They really made a difference quickly in the brush. I can now walk through the area and get my chainsaw low enough without beating my way through the undergrowth.

 

[jonbravado]

OK - we finally started clearing the front a little bit.
We used a skidsteer w/ drum chopper attachment (before an O-ring blew out)

Here is a view of the corner of the front - the area is about 1.5 acres to clear - the rest of the front is a field w/ broomstraw, random grass, occasional cactai, and sandspurs

when he's done w/ the front, i can disk, and disk, and disk some more - then when it's level enough, i'll seed it (after fertilizing) - the GOOD thing about having it drumchopped, is that it produces great mulch to turn into the ground. This is going to be a long long job - but me and the kubota are ready for the task.