Setting up land for horse paddocks

5 posts
Sun, 04/29/2012 - 18:35 #1

Member for

12 years 7 months
mjwyllie
Last seen: 03/08/2018 - 21:05
Joined: 04/29/2012 - 18:29

Setting up land for horse paddocks

I have 14 acres of rhodes grass which is waist high.  I plan to divide it into half acre paddocks but can't get the fencer in till the grass is shorter.  How would you suggest to cut the rhodes grass?  

It has previously been baled but it's very wet at the moment, do you have to wait till the grass is dry to cut and then bale it?

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Tue, 05/01/2012 - 08:43 #2
rogermartyn
Last seen: 03/08/2018 - 21:05
Joined: 10/20/2011 - 16:16

Hi mjwyllie

Your sure do have a challenge!

Because your Rhodes grass has grown to waist high, there is likely to be very little feed value in it, either as hay or silage.

While ground conditions are wet, it will be very difficult if not impossible to dry the grass sufficiently for hay. If baled wet for hay, it will simply go mouldy. Wet bales stored in stacks, can present significant fire risks since wet hay can heat up so much due to the activities of microbes feeding on the wet hay that spontaneous combustion can occur.

You could cut the grass for silage, but as mentioned, the quality will be poor, and there is little point in making poor quality supplements of any kind.

It is also my understanding that it is dangerous to feed anything other than the very best quality silage to horses and then, only as a supplement. Cattle, because of their ruminant digestive system which horses do not have, are a little more tolerant to poorer quality silage.

Your best option might be to cut the grass and find a way to remove it from the paddock for it to turn into compost.

This could be done by harvesting the grass with a silarator and  creating a windrow out of the harvested grass.

A less elegant alternative to a silarator could be to cut the grass with a hay mower, or grass slasher, and with a side rake, windrow the grass into larger and larger windrows and allow these to compost down.

How about in order to simply get the fences up and established, just mow the areas where the fence lines and vehicle access are required by the fencers?  You could then  hay-rake the grass off to one side leaving the strips clear for fence construction. Once major fences are up and established, then with the aid of temporary electric fencing, you will be much better placed to mob graze the long grass that is left.  Perhaps you have neighbours who have cattle  you could graze for free in order to achieve this.

Finally, you could simply cut the grass and leave it to rot where it falls. Eventually it will rot down and new grass will come up through it, but it will take a few months for this to occur. Removing the grass from the paddocks completely will get better, cleaner and quicker results however.

Please don't hesitate to post any further questions on this topic, and let us know what you finally decide and why.

Perhaps also,  someone else has got suggestions that they can post to help mjwyllie?

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Wed, 05/02/2012 - 17:28 #3
katiepooch
Last seen: 03/08/2018 - 21:05
Joined: 10/01/2011 - 10:46

Do you have any farmers in your area who make their own compost? If you do, maybe they could come and cut the grass and take it away for you. The farmers who I know that make compost are always looking for cheap ingredients. If it is too wet to cut and bale maybe it could be fine chopped (using a machine for silage, I'm not sure what they are officially called) and put into a tip truck and taken away.

Just an idea.

Mary 

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Tue, 05/29/2012 - 18:06 #4
paints
Last seen: 05/29/2012 - 18:22
Joined: 05/29/2012 - 17:54

Hi there

I'm a barefoot trimmer for horses and have to say that's fantastic that you have so much rhodes grass, I wish I had the same.  My acreage is the virtually the same size!  My two cents worth is slash where you want to put the fence line - (bearing in mind that anything under 6 acres for horses restricts their movement and can cause problems later on.  Extensive research - (Univeristy of Queensland) to horses movement found that paddocks under the 6 acre size, decreased horses movement, where as there was no real difference for movement for paddocks that were 6-40acres) and let them eat it down.  You may need to supplement with some oaten hay, depending on what your horses are doing, but rhodes grass they should do just fine on.

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Sun, 06/03/2012 - 18:43 #5
rogermartyn
Last seen: 03/08/2018 - 21:05
Joined: 10/20/2011 - 16:16

Hi Paint

Many thanks for your input. Very interesting about the amount of room required by horses - who would have thought?

If we have more posts on  horses, I'm sure everyone will value your comments.

Any chance of posting a new topic with a brief summary of what bare foot trimming is about?  I would think there would be a lot out there in the small farm scene who would like to know more, I certainly do.

all the best

Roger

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