Liming pasture

[BlueRidge]

Youse welcome!

[Pat]

Lets see now... is it better late than never or better never than late?

Anyway regarding stirring the s--t in the pasture. It is better to rake it into piles and let it compost properly and then spread it. Various worms and things come out of the animal in the feces as a part of the parasites normal lifecycle. Another part of the lifecycle is a dependence on the animals eating contaminated feed (grass with their poo on it) to reintroduce the parasites in the input side of the digestive system. One sure fire way of spreading the parasites from animal to animal is to spread out the droppings where the animals eat.

Heaped in large piles the temp will build up hot enough to kill the parasite's eggs and any worms cast off. After the manure is reduced to humus it is very beneficial to spread in the pasture.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Cottonhawk]

When we first set up our pasture management program I did some research regarding the same issues you mentioned. The experts came out told us that our horses are wormed on a regular schedule so the contamination if any would be minimum. The parasites will not survive if the menure is broken up into fine pieced and turned into useful nature fertilizer. Our practice here on the ranch is to drag whenever the pasture looks needing cleanups. We keep our pastures lush green by mowing the grass when they get to be over 1 1/2 foot tall. We also drag the flexible tine harrow after every mowing.

[BlueRidge]

How low do you mow?


(Cue Chubby Checker! [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img] )

[Cottonhawk]

We set the mower at 7" height and usually end up about 4 to 9 inches as the ground of our pastures are not that smooth. One main thing is that we keep the grass from growing seed. We drag the tine harrow immediately after every mowing.