Let's talk about pasture maintenance.  Our pastures are seeded with four sources of forage, Timothy, Alfalfa, Orchard Grass and Clover.  We have three pastures for turnout.  One pasture is 2.5 acres, the second is 2 acres and the third is 1.5 acres.  During the year we use all three pastures.  Since we keep no more than ten horses on the property our pastures have held up very well.

In order to keep the pastures healthy and providing good forage for the horses we spend a good deal of effort on maintenance.  The first step in maintenance is fertilizing the pastures.  In order to know what fertilizer to use we take soil samples and have them analyzed by the county agriculture extension.  Usually, the pastures require an application of lime and nitrogen.  Our soil is clay based and is naturally deficient in this elements.  The only other time we have apply chemicals is to kill weeds and dangerous grasses.   For example, two years ago we had two of our paint horses develop severe sunburns on their soft, pink skin.  This was painful for them and we had never had this happen before.  All of our horses are turned out with fly sheets in the summer and some, including one that came down with a sunburn, wore a full face fly mask.  After analyzing all of the potential causes for the unusual sunburn we narrowed down the problem to Alsike Clover.  Alsike clover was not planted in our pasture, it spread from adjacent fields.  It turns out that eating alsike clover increases the photosensitivity in horses.  This is a real problem with horses that have white faces, especially white muzzles, nostrils and lips.  To solve the problem we applied weed killer specifically formulated for pastures.  Unfortunately, this weed killer had the side effect of killing most of the alfalfa.  We then broadcast alfalfa and it is now mixing in on two of our three pastures.  In the future I will just spot treat the clover with a hand sprayer.  This will take a little more time in the short term but it will save time in the long run.

We mow our pastures every four weeks.  We use a rough cut mower attached to our tractor.  We keep the pastures at 6"-8" in height.  This keeps the forage more palatable for the horses and the forage retains more of its nutrients.  If it were to grow longer, developing seed pods, the nutrients would be used up in the seed development process and the forage would not taste as good to the horses.  If it is cut shorter the soil won't hold as much moisture and the fields would dry out during the hot summer months.  Other monthly chores include week whipping along all of the fence lines and dragging a harrow over the pastures to break up the clumps of manure.  Breaking up the manure piles helps to keep the fly population down and it helps to add nitrogen throughout the fields.

While I am working in the pastures I always check the fence line.  We have electrified rope fencing, which works very well for our operation.  It is low maintenance, durable, and easy for the horses to see.  The horses have all tested it once but they have never tested it twice!  Breaks in the rope are uncommon but the guides that are screwed into the fence posts do come out from time to time.   It is usually a matter of just reattaching them to the post.  The only other maintenance to the fence is periodic retightening.  This is easily accomplished with tools provided by the fencing supplier.  I check the fence charger every month using a volt meter.  I check each pasture's fence line in several spots just to make sure of conductivity.

Pasture maintenance take a fair amount of work but it definitely results in well fed horses.