Pasture Management
It's taken way longer than I expected to come up with a pasture management system that seems to (knock on wood) be working. Given that we have 27.5 acres, most people think we have more than enough pasture, but with ~11 acres in hay, we've been hanging out around 3 acres of pasture. The two "best" pastures were planted along with the hay field in fall of 2017, and then fenced on the hottest Memorial Day weekend we could have had. With the two main pastures up and running, we thought we were good to limp along the original pasture, and eventually redid the fencing there, adding a real gate to the very wide opening that had originally had a stretchy fence gate.
Rotation wise, all of our pastures are gated directly onto the paddock, where there is shelter, the winter hay feeder and water. I wanted the horses to always have the auto waterer available, as well as shelter from bad weather, sun and bugs. The pastures otherwise don't have a lot of natural shelter; any trees in them likely will be cut down as they're just causing problems, making it hard to mow, and don't actually provide any benefits (i.e. shade).
Fertilization wise, I started with a tow-behind ground driven spreader; it was a source of endless stress and frustration for over a year until it (finally) broke and forced me to find a replacement. The ground driven spreader was great... except it had no tolerance for even gently rolling ground, didn't take sharp turns well, and tipped over and spilled expensive fertilizer into a grass-burning pile whenever it tipped (which was at least once every time I fertilized something). The first few years of pasture, we had a tractor with a large mowing deck, but I didn't really mow in a logical way, from what I remember. We fertilized twice a summer (spring and late summer/fall) and often struggled with the pastures going from too short, to over grown, to seeding, to not growing once mowed.
It was odd to realize that pastures aren't just fields of grass your horses graze on and you don't have to worry about anything.
The first upgrade in equipment we made was the spreader; we purchased an ATV rear mounted spreader that runs off of the cigarette lighter port (why does an ATV have this?! I have questions.) and has an adjustable opening lever, well fitting plastic cover, and can't tip over over rough ground. If you're looking for a pasture spreader, save yourself a lot of sanity and just buy one that isn't at the mercy of the ground, if you're planning to pull it with any sort of motorized vehicle.
I'm not sure our second equipment change up was an "upgrade" - we sold the tractor, and it's big mowing deck, when we replaced it with a skidsteer for moving hay. Not having a big large area mower anymore, we also sold our riding mower, and bought a zero turn with a larger mowing deck than the rider, but definitely not as big as the tractor. The zero turn deck doesn't raise up nearly as high as the tractor could raise the mower deck, so my usual strategy of mowing at ~6 inches was no longer a possibility. The highest it claims to go is 4.5" (apparently) and so this is now our new mowing height.
With all of this equipment fun, I struggled through a few years of grazing pastures. Last year, in particular, was a hard one; it stopped raining in June and was dreadfully dry for nearly the whole season. I was able to fertilize, but I stopped mowing; I had a jungle pasture that was belly high on the horses, that they wouldn't eat. So we mowed it, and it never recovered. The pastures also were developing marked spots that became overgrazed in the first few days of a rotation, and never seemed to really recover as well as the other grass. Those spots stayed low, and I would turn out onto that pasture again when the grass was tall only to have those spots overgrazed again. The old original pasture, in particular, had large overgrazed areas that remained put-put greens all season long, and the grass around it would go ignored, and end up overgrown.
As a result of the draught last year, we ended up grazing the "back back" as we call it - technically, the back yard of the house. It's always been a big ridiculous field to mow, and I think we're going to keep it as a permanent pasture - so we'll have more fencing to do in the next year. We also tilled and planted the original P1 just this last weekend; fingers crossed for a good re-growth!
This season, management wise, we are trying lots of new things, and they seem to be working:
1. Staggered fertilizing - I actually did this last year, too, but not as well and as spaced out as this year. So far, I've fertilized 2/4(ish) pastures with about 3 weeks in between. P2 and P4 have seen fertilizer, and P3 is up next. P1 is out of commission with the re-plant so I am not sure when it will see fertilizer.
2. Mowing - as I rotate, I am now instituting a strong mowing and dragging schedule. After our first pasture was looking low, I rotated the horses off, and then mowed as soon as I could (and happened to fertilize it). The re-growth is lovely, even and I am very encouraged by this progress. I also mowed my other not-yet-grazed pastures in mid-to-late May; the grass was growing at a rate that I wasn't ready to rotate, and didn't want them to get overgrown like the jungle pasture did last year, and stop growing.
3. Dragging; technically I haven't been able to do this yet, but I do plan to drag the pastures to spread the manure as well as mow when I rotate off of the pasture. Arya, in particular, is a very routine driven creature and treats certain areas as the "bathroom" and won't graze that spot. I'm hoping to encourage more even grazing from the other two by dragging.
4. I changed up my fertilizer this year; previously I had been using 17-17-17 and Ammonium Sulphate, but having consulted with the local feed mill's legendary Ron, we're doing something new this year. So far, so good! I'll report back on the combo we're using now when the season is done.
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