Tools for pasture maintenance

[dlskidmore]

We don't seem to have a forum specific to pasture management, so I think this is the second closest topic...

I have four acres that is too steep to hay with the big tractor that my hay contractor uses. I'd eventually like to fence it in, but for right now it's doing nothing. (And even after fencing in, rotational management would call for haying or bush hogging small parts of it at a time.) I've got a little BCS 732 that can get in there with a sickle bar. It cuts great, but it leaves the grass in a thick mat. So thick that some of it still looks like it's still standing up until you turn it over with a rake. I've hand raked and forked behind it to make some moist mulch hay, but I don't have enough hours to properly ted it so it will dry. My best effort so far was 27% moisture when the weather put an end to the drying cycle, and even then I only got a couple swaths done.

I could give up on the haying and switch to a flail mower ($2k). Short term restoring the pasture, long term maintaining rotational pasture in prime condition.

Or I could go for a tedder/rake that fits my tractor ($2,350) at which point I'd still be dealing with loose hay and hand forking it onto a truck/wagon. I'm not paying the $8,500 for the wee round baler that goes with my tractor unless hay gets crazy expensive to buy. I'm not convinced it's a ton less work to lift small bales than to fork raked hay anyway. (Probably does reduce the number of loads when the hay is well compacted.) Short term this will help me more, as I could increase the capacity of my existing pasture with more hay.

Or I could buy neither, skip the mowing phase of high intensity rotational grazing, stockpile the forage that overgrows, and invest the money in more fencing. I can still use the sickle bar I have to clean up undesirable weeds after the sheep have picked out everything they like in a rotation.

Opinions?

[Bret4207]

Were it me, I'd invest in some electric net fencing, a marine battery and a decent fence charger. Put the sheep on it in the spring and let them chew it down. You'll find very few weeds that are truly undesirable for the sheeps palate and only a couple that are problems, like milkweed. But even milkweed isn't a problem if they get it at a couple inches tall. Thistle and such you can get with a hoe or shovel, just keep chopping it down and it'll die out. Use the sickle bar to cut paths through the heavier stuff for the fence. The sheep will stomp down the heavy aftermath and the worms will eat that up as it breaks down.

Just try the cheap and simple way before you sink any money into balers and rakes and such. 4 acres isn't worth any $8 grand!

[Grumpy old man]

Rotating animals solves many problems .

[Bret]

I love to see steep hilly land caressed by fence and grazing cows.

[Grumpy old man]

sheep cows chickens sheep cows chickens sheep cows chickens

[dlskidmore]

I've been waffling on fences. Everyone has a different experience. I'm leaning towards high tensile perimeter and net subdivisions.

The pasture is in rough shape, there are a few weeds they won't eat that are taking over. Mowing must be included, but worst case I use my current mower and lose a little productivity to the mulch until it rots down.

[Bret4207]

I was totally in the bag for high tensile. Then I got sheep. Some people say their sheep stay behind high tensile. I tried 5 hot wires and alternating the 5 wire with 2 grounds between the 3 hots. The sheep just walked through it. I think if I had stays every 4 foot or so it would have helped, but that mean pretty much building a Paige wire fence. So now I just have perimeter fences of Paige wire, woven field fence that is. And FWI, my sheep stay behind the electro net as long as there is something to eat, and for some time after there's nothing to eat for that matter.

Just my experience. I love HT for cattle and horses but it didn't work for sheep. And goats simply laugh at it.

[dlskidmore]

I've met a couple folks with boer that use high tensile with success, and a guy down the road from me uses it with sheep. The price and the success stories make it tempting, but I don't want to spend that much money and then discover I have to rip it out and put in woven wire.

[dlskidmore]

On the other hand, if you want to do mixed species grazing, they recommend even woven wire have an electric offset at one height for pigs, one for goats, one for cattle. With three hot wires, you're on your way to a full blown electric fence offset inside your woven wire.

[Bret4207]

I can tell you that on perimeter fencing, in this day of litigation being common, of woven wire with the electric inside that is probably the way to do things. Yes, good fencing is expensive and pain to maintain. But having an atty on retainer to handle the lawsuits from poor fencing? Which is less expensive in the long run? If you have just sheep a well braced woven wire fence will take a lot less upkeep than if you have horses and cattle pushing on it. I have horses that will actually push over a barb wire fence where it crosses the ledges and the posts are in only 6-8" of dirt. A single strand of electric makes all the diff in the world.

[Grumpy old man]

One more reason to live in Tn .If someone tried to file a lawsuit around here for getting zapped by a hot pasture fence the county clerk would laugh all the way home and then post about the idiot who tried to sue for touching one ! it would be the joke of the whole town because living in the country i would say everyone knows what a hot fence is and what they are for . many a teenager roaming a pasture looking for shrooms at night can tell you the story of the farmer chasing them (or the bull ) and hitting that hot wire at night in the dark ! most only have to do it once !

[Bret4207]

Grump, I was thinking more of animals getting out in the road and causing an accident, not some townie touching a hot wire and suing. They'd get laughed out of court locally too, not all of NY is NYC!

[dlskidmore]

Your woven wire is on the outside of your posts? You have more predator pressure trying to come in than stock pressure trying to get out?

[Bret4207]

Looks to me like there's hot wires on both sides of that fence. I have the same type set up in a couple places. If you have stock on both sides of the fence, well, you can only chose one side for the fence to run on.