5 acres rough pasture

[Skookumchuck]

I bought my place 1 1/2 yrs. ago the pasture was very over grazed by the PO horses and in rough shape. I let it grow back up but there are a lot of weeds now. I am planning to get a brush hog this spring but what would be the best animals to put on it Goats, Sheep, Pigs or Cows? There is a lot of grass under the weeds in most of the pasture but there are also spots of mostly weeds.

[am1too]

Keep it mowed.

[WV Farm girl]

I would think a mix of animals may be best. Each animal eats something the other doesn't. I had 2 horses and goats on 4 acres of pasture and it stayed cleaned up nicely.

[sky61]

The Katahdin Sheep I have are decent at eating forbs and such, not just grass, but for thicker brush and weeds; goats are probably a better answer.

[myheaven]

Run a mix. If you need weed control use goats, eat grass and spread seed use cow. Need fertility an aeration. Use pigs.
I have done this myself and it works wonderfully. But it takes time! I'm talking a couple of years.
If you want perfect pasture this growing season, get round up sprayed, till under, replant and fertilize..

[Steve in PA]

I'm by no means an expert. The place I've bought old hay for my chicken run had the most beautiful looking manicured fields I've ever seen. They easily looked better than the local golf courses.

I mentioned it to the owner and he said he doesn't do anything but let his sheep run the field. He's a sheep farmer and has hundreds of them.

[potatoguru]

Goats will eat the weeds down, but you will have to have a ton of goats to eat 5 acres of it down. I would suggest putting a cow or two in with the goats if you decide to go that route.

[Maura]

Our pasture had deep ruts in it from being farmed. We had it disced. What came up after that was native grasses and forbes, pretty much eliminated the goldenrod. That is what I would do. Put a henhouse out there and let them forage, supplementing with some grain and kitchen scraps. Watch what comes up. Once you know what is coming up, you can plan your livestock and your fencing.

[fordy]

Originally Posted by Skookumchuck

I bought my place 1 1/2 yrs. ago the pasture was very over grazed by the PO horses and in rough shape. I let it grow back up but there are a lot of weeds now. I am planning to get a brush hog this spring but what would be the best animals to put on it Goats, Sheep, Pigs or Cows? There is a lot of grass under the weeds in most of the pasture but there are also spots of mostly weeds.

................Depends on how well your property is fenced ! The nature of your perimeter fencing dictates what kinds of animals you can keep within the confines of your property . , fordy

[haypoint]

By letting it grow back to weeds, weed seeds will plague you for about 10 years, as they germinate over a decade. Doubt any animal can eat every weed down to where it cannot spread seed. A healthy productive pasture isn't the result of intensive grazing. Weeds can thrive where clovers and grasses will struggle.
Employ the most basic part of crop farming. Disturb the soil to expose weed roots to the drying action of air and sunlight (often plowing or rototilling) This often provides a seedbed for the millions of weed seeds. Cultivation of the newly sprouted weeds is the easiest way to slow the weed cycle. Match the soil's Ph and nutrient level to the crop you intend to encourage. Provide a good seed bed, plant at the proper season and soil moisture level, plenty of high quality pasture mixes, suitable to your season and soil type.

[WJMartin]

Skookumchuch, I see that you are in MO, did you have drought conditions? If so you can count on a lot of weeds. Whatever animals you choose you will still have to mow the weeds down because they grow faster than the grass and will shade it out. This really caught me off guard last year after the horrible drought here and then a rainy summer, thankfully the grass came back but the weeds were super duper thick. I think I'll have to spray this year to get them under control, taking a soil sample to check PH and nutrients. It's really counterproductive to put stuff on your soil without knowing what it needs.

[haypoint]

Cutting weeds prior to seeds forming is a skill few have mastered, myself included. Most animals will eat grass down to the roots before nibbling on weeds. That sets the grass back and promotes weeds.
If there were an easy way to do it, without either or both a plow and a chemical sprayer, everyone would be doing it. Establishment of a quality pasture takes lots of effort and lots of money. Maintaining a quality pasture is an ongoing process.

[rambler]

Get a lease out to a neighboring farmer that needs hay, have him mow and bale it 2-3 times a year. You will possibly make a few dollars or get 1/4 to 1/2 of the hay as a bonus payment so you've already wasted a year here?

If needed and likely in your area, add lime as soon as possible, that is your bill. Lime is a 5 year improvement.

Add some fertilizer if it needs it, likely does but only a soil test will say for sure, that can be your or both of your bill, depends how many years you let him bale it. Fertilizer is a 2-3 year process so if you take the land back when it is fit then he has no reason to put any on as an expense and not get any benefit in his year or 2 there.

Mowing the weeds before they go to seed keeps them down. Spraying a broadleaf killer in early spring and again in late fall gets rid of many of the harsh weeds. Grass of treated nice will fill in the bare spots.

If you are morally opposed to fertilizer and herbicides, you still need to do the same things, just use organic type products, and time the mowing much better to knock down the weeds, let the grass flourish.

If the weedy areas are bigger and have no weak grass in them, over seeding the whole pasture with a good pasture mix might work out well. Either early spring or mid fall before some rains come. You want the weeds gone and the available grass very short for this. Scratch the ground after and pray for a good soaking rain.

Since overgrazing by livestock is what got the pasture in this shape. Putting critters on it will not really heal it so good.

Mowing it and removing the vegetation, and getting it mowed often before the seeds come out but then not much traffic at all in between mowings is what grass really likes, and many of the weeds do not like. This would be the best treatment.

Very often the most needed thing above all is getting the ph of your soil right with lime. If you don't figure out if that is needed or not, anything else will have poor results. Where I am our soil is too high in ph so I don't know much about it, but it is easy to raise the ph, and if that is needed it will pay off the mostest for your pasture. The number one thing to do.

Paul

[evan]

What do you want to do with it? Pasture it? Bale it? Have it be a nice place to look at? I would take soil samples, have it sprayed, work it, bulk spread what needs to be adjusted, run a finisher over it, and then plant your desired forges. While im not a big fan of herbicide i do feel that it does have its place in single directed applications.
e

[farmgal]

just keep brush hogging it. Mine were a mess. I just brush hogged them 3 times a year and they turned into beautiful hay fields. timothy, orchard grass mix. I mow my pastures to keep weeds in check.

[LoonyK]

Goats want to eat weeds over grass any day, to the extent they kill most things and then end up with a grass pasture after awhile.

[fishhead]

Different breeds of goats seem to target different weeds from my experience. Even different goats in the same breed seem to target different weeds.

I think yearly burning in early spring can be used to eliminate a lot of weeds if that is an option.

[farmerted]

Depends how much it costs to get brush hogged doesn't it? I have 3 acres that sat unmowed for at least 2.5 years. I got it brushed hogged for $150. Getting goats and sheep, cows... fencing housing, would probably costs more. I had him come two times last year. I mow an acre of it with a riding mower, and a path through the rest of it. I plan to get goats and sheep to take care of it once spring comes around if I have my housing and fencing built. It grows back quickly, and everything I have read, mostly on here, they don't really like dead grass, they like the green stuff. Brush hogging leaves it about 6 inches tall, there will still be plenty to eat if you go the animal route. When I first got it hogged it was 5 feet tall and very overwhelming, it just made it all so much more manageable after it was mowed. I was concerned about all of the cut grass killing the stuff underneath it, it was not a problem, I've got a bit of a wild grape problem, but other than that the weeds seem to be pushed out by the grasses. I hope the goats take care of the grape problem.

Depending where you are in Missouri you could look into adopting some animals from http://longmeadowrescueranch.org/ sw of St Louis about an hour.

[fishhead]

My goats would have killed grapes if given the chance.

[secuono]

I simply kept mine mowed. Mowed more over the bad weed areas, dug out the big weeds. Some areas were extra terrible, as in thick, evil thorny plants between rocky ground. I didn't have to seed at all.
Before


After