Walking On Volume 6, Issue 3, March 2019 | Page 11
Back to Basics
Mowing Your Pasture
Regular mowing makes pastures more productive. It
can also reduce herbicide usage.
After rotating your horses out of the pasture, mow
the pasture with your mower set at about four inches.
This will allow the good stuff to grow back. The bottom
2-3 inches of grasses are where the sugars and proteins
are stored. These sugars and proteins are needed for
regrowth.
Dragging Your Pasture
As soon as your horses are rotated out of the pas-
ture, you will want to drag it. Dragging a pasture
breaks up clumps of manure and spreads it evenly
around. By breaking up the manure and exposing it
to the sun, parasites are killed. By the time your hors-
es are moved back into the pasture, the manure has
turned into fertilizer and most parasites have been
eliminated. Keep in mind that, although dragging
breaks down manure faster, it will not kill all the para-
sites present. Keep your horses on a worming schedule.
You can use almost anything to drag your pasture.
I’ve seen people use old bed springs and chain link
fences with bricks laid on top. Most people around
here use four wheelers to drag. They are easier to
handle and it seems like everyone owns one now. If
you have a lot of money to spare, you can buy a pasture
drag.
Horse Pasture Rotation - Putting it All Together
I’ve crammed a lot of information in the above
article. The actual management of horse pastures is
really easy and doesn’t require much work. Using the
information above, here is what it actually looks like in
practice:
Starting with three or four pastures (I’ve got two
horses on 3 - one acre pastures).
Put horses in pasture number one.
When the pasture is grazed down to about 3 inches
average (nope, I don’t go out with a tape measure - I
simply guesstimate that the average height is about
3 inches), I move the horses to pasture number two.
Hopefully pasture number two is at least six inches
high.
Now, I take my drag into pasture number one and
drag the pasture. Then I mow it with my mower set to
four inches. It takes about a half hour to drag and 15
minutes to mow. I’m done for a week or so.
When pasture number two is grazed down to about
3 inches, I rotate the horses to pasture number three.
I drag and mow pasture number two. I’m done for a
week or so.
When pasture number three is grazed down to
about three inches, I move the horses back to pasture
number one and I drag and mow...
Very simple. Saves money. Makes my horses happy
and healthy.
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