Leveling pasture

Not horse pasture. Chicken pasture. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img] They dig & scratch leaving it mess. In between the depressions are hard clumps of weeds the chickens choose to leave. I'd like to level it with a tractor and plant cover crops. So what implement would work best? I was thinking of buying a drag/chain harrow, but I'm beginning to think the hard clumps wouldn't break down and don't want to waste the money. Would a rake or box scraper be a better choice? Thanks in advance.

If you just want to break down the hard clumps and level it out I would think the box blade would be the implement to use. If you want to break it up to plant I would suggest a disk.

A tiller followed by a drag harrow makes a good seed bed. You will have to keep the chickens off until your cover becomes established.

MarkV

Do you have access to a chunk of I beam 8 to 10 ft long? Drag it around to knock off the high spots and fill in the low areas. then use your harrows to further till it a little and then cover the seed. Adjusting the chains so one side is a little longer will allow material to flow to one side if you wish.

My neighbor had a thing made of a dozen or so old tires bolted together and pulled over the ground after it was disked up. It covered the seed and smoothed the ground very nicely. Better yet it was a good use for some old tires.

I would think if you had access to a disc it would do a good job.