How does your pasture grow?

[vicklynn]

Not sure if this is where its suppose to be or not. Its not about feed really, but planting and watching it grow.
Two weeks ago, yup, just 2 weeks, we planted Fast Pature, its a horse mix.
It sprouts in 3 weeks, some of the seed take a little longer, but some also sprout within a week.
This area is a new raised area my neighbor did, with his tractor, Wed 2 weeks ago.
The seed was planted just a couple days after.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a155/vicklynn/100_2336.jpg

This pic shows the area below that. Looks so small in the pic, its big enough to feed a couple horses for a few days, without trashing it. I only let them on it for a couple hrs, then off for a couple days. I rotate the grazing areas, so that helps.
This is our lushest grazing area.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a155/vicklynn/100_2337.jpg

And this is a small area of the upper grazing area. That area takes up the whole other side, runs even with the dry lot and lower pasture, gets used more and takes more of a beating. So Im pampering this side big time right now. There is some nice growth. Waiting for more seed to start popping its shoots.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a155/vicklynn/100_2335.jpg

Sept is the best time to plant here for next yr. Cant wait until March, Ill see the final results then...wohoo.

So, how does your pasture, or grazing area grow?

[lovesfortune]

Lol. All I can think is "with silver bells and cockle shells" Sorry. I'm no help. Our hay guy does all that stuff from our fields.. we just get the finished product.

[Cat]

My fields have been growing horrible the last 2 years with the drought. This past year we put down a horse mix from Tractor Supply and got nothing from it - total waste of money. The fescue and rye grew decently. Since I have all boys and no worries about breeding - I think next spring I will do another batch of fescue out there.

Unfortunately if we plant now - mamma duck and babies go out and eat all the seed. I need to plant it next spring while mamma duck is on her nest and not out picking my field clean. :rolleyes:

[Harleys Owner]

Your pasture is looking really nice.

How does mine grow:)? Well as long as we get plenty of rain I have enough that grows to keep a couple of horses satisfied mentally, but not near enough for any nutritional value. My land is very very rocky.

We had drought conditions 2 summers ago, and my 3 1/2 acres of "pasture" was nothing but rock and dirt, and scrub oak trees. This past year we had lots and lots of rain, so this year it looks really good. I've never planted anything, I just keep it mowed so the grass has a chance. This past summer I had only one horse on the place, which has helped also.

[vicklynn]

Oh, FYI, I have sprinklers on that grass. Its not all about the rain. Due to my sloped property, I NEED grass, plants, anything growing..lol..so the sprinkler gets put out.
As a matter of fact, Im on my way right now to water it. It rains here weather I pay for it or not..lol

[WashingtonBay]

That does look like it comes in fast.

Mine is usually fairly overgrazed and weedy. I'd like to work it over and reseed it with better grass, but we don't have a tractor so we'd have to hire it done. I do try to mow it a couple times a summer to keep the weeds down.

But I don't have a way to water it, so it'd be hard to keep anything good through the dry part of summer.

My next place will have irrigation ability!

[gabhainn]

Mine is called Texas Turf it is a coastal/bahia blend which I find funny because bahia is a type of coastal go figure, I bought it on the recommendation of the guy I cut hay for. fertilize once a year in the spring and boom grass everywher in about 2 wks

[vicklynn]

Mine is called Texas Turf it is a coastal/bahia blend which I find funny because bahia is a type of coastal go figure, I bought it on the recommendation of the guy I cut hay for. fertilize once a year in the spring and boom grass everywher in about 2 wks

What do you use to fertilize?

[WashingtonBay]

BTW, I moved it to Horsekeeping because I think it fits there, and I need practice moving things :) Hope you don't mind.

[vicklynn]

BTW, I moved it to Horsekeeping because I think it fits there, and I need practice moving things :) Hope you don't mind.
Not at all. I wasnt sure if thats where it went or not.
Thanks for letting me know, that was cool.

[menagerie]

Our pastures are kinda sad right now. We'll be reseeding next year HEAVILY with our neighbors drill down seeder. We have way too many weeds but besides that the pastures actually look pretty good until you drive thru them and see how sparse they really are. We're hoping that the next two seasons of reseeding will help that situation.

[Cat]

Oh, FYI, I have sprinklers on that grass. Its not all about the rain. Due to my sloped property, I NEED grass, plants, anything growing..lol..so the sprinkler gets put out.
As a matter of fact, Im on my way right now to water it. It rains here weather I pay for it or not..lol

Unfortunately we have no way to get sprinklers put out on our fields. We are like you and need something growing bececause our whole field is sloped down. We've had horrible errosion the last 2 years, and I am very, very thankful for weeds right now. LOL. When we have a good rain year our 5 acres can keep 5 horses happy until November - gets too lush for my haflinger and I have to keep him on a dry lot a good chunk of each day.

[walkinthewalk]

We were in "exceptional drought" status last year. My pastures really got threadbare which, in turn, allowed the weeds to grow. I think we bush hogged three times last year and that was only to keep the weeds down. I did have to put The Boys in the barn yard and the yard areas around the house for a few days here and there.

This past spring we laid the 2-D-4 down pretty heavy. It helped a lot to curtail weed growth and with all the rain we had in the spring, the grass came back fairly well. We are currently heading for a rain deficit, even with the 2 inches we got all in one day last week:(

My four are currently on around 12 acres; we still have a little over nine acres that needs some fencing finished before we can open it up.

I don't plan to re-seed anything. The lay of the land would make that pretty difficult and expensive. Even though there aren't any boulders sticking up out of the ground, I know they're not too far from the surface and I have no desire to tangle with them:)

This picture was taken in August, 2007 in the middle of the drought and is just the tip of the "rolling hills iceburg".

What looks like a slight dip behind the horses in the other pasture is actually a "bowl" that is so deep all four horses disappear from view when they're in it. We own about 30 feet into the tree line and about 3 acres of the woods way over to the right. All-in-all we have 23+ usable acres that is in perimeter fence with some cross-fencing. Re-seeding anything should never be at the top of our "To-Do" list.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v705/PAWALKER/Celebration08-28-07003.jpg

[vicklynn]

wow, Im jealous.

[offgridgirl]

Wow great pastures areas. We have only about 5 ac. cleared and the rest is just as is. I don't water as I don't have any during the dry season. I fence off part of the fields and get them to recover before winter as much as possible. I do bone meal and lime before a good heavy rain for fall fertilizing. I will re-seed the front pasture hopefully when I get back and leave for a few weeks. The neighbor's place has Canary grass so the horses go there until the water level comes up....:cool:

[walkinthewalk]

wow, Im jealous.

Thank you, but I gotta say we waited many many years for this.

This is our retirement property. The perimeter fencing was already here, but that was it.
Bare land that, at least, had been kept bush-hogged during its 10-15 year absence of livestock:)

I was raised on a dairy farm and used to hard work. Plus it's a good thing we are both anal about keeping things neat because it takes a lot of hours on two tractors, two small lawn tractors, hubby's workshop if we have a breakdown, and sometimes more energy than we have.

We don't like "messy", so we keep pluggin' along and occasionally cave in to hire the 20-something neighbor and his brother if we get too over-burdened with putting up hay and cutting up trees downed in lightening storms :)

[Miracle Whip]

In regards to pasture, a little fertilizer will go a LONG way. It took our pasture about 2 years to get a good root base, but our ground is sandy. When we fertilized it the grass came in much thicker and choked out some of the weeds but we get different types of weeds depending on what time of the year it is. We also planted horse mix from Theisens - and got a little too much clover if you ask me.

[jerseypacer]

For the past 2 years I used a pasture mix made specifically for this area that I bought at Agway and it did pretty well. I overseeded/broadcast in both spring and fall. I have too much area to water so I have to rely on rain. This fall was the first year we aerated, limed and spread manure, so we'll see how we do next spring when everything starts to grow and turn green again.

[mtnmollie]

We had to clear our own land, planted pasture mix and oats to shade the new grass.

Kept horse off it for a year.

http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee150/mtnmollie/Akhal-Teke%20cross/IMG_2534.jpg

[mtnmollie]

We dont fertilize just just graze and rotate, with cross fence. No spring and fall grazing, thats hard on grass.

http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee150/mtnmollie/Akhal-Teke%20cross/IMG_2547.jpg

[vicklynn]

Ok, you all with property, quit it. Im going through towels here. Not sure why, think my lip has a hole in it...lol