Cutting grass, how long after...?

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pipstar

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Morning everyone

Hope you are all well and that everyone has plenty of sunshine today!

I'm on Twitter and follow BHS, the other day they tweeted "Beware grass cuttings can kill. owners should regularly check thier fields for grass cuttings"

Ok, I knew this but it started me thinking as 2 of my paddocks have just been cut, so I asked them how long it should be before you put your horse/ponies back on to the land that has been cut. and they replied "It depends on number of factors" and gave me a number of an expert to call to ask.

Now this is what I do we cut paddocks, collect all grass cuttings and remove from paddocks then ponios go back in the paddocks around 2 weeks later.

So my questions are

Am I doing this right?
What does everyone else do?
And that are the factors?

I will phone the expert number that they have so helpfully given me but wondered what everyone else does.

Many thanks
x
 
By cutting, do you mean just topping the rough areas?

I top (just the rough areas) harrow and put the horses back out but my cutter cuts rather than chomps it up like a lawnmower does and harrowing spreads it out. I certainly don't leave my paddocks to rest afterwards, but then my paddocks are more just turnout areas and the horses have hay available all the time anyway.

Your quote "Beware grass cuttings can kill. owners should regularly check their fields for grass cuttings" sounds more as if they are warning you to be on the lookout for people dumping piles of lawn clippings over your fence, either well meaning or just lazy. In a pile it gets really hot and basically turns into silage. It also clumps together and can cause choke, you also don't have any idea what it contains, regular grden waste often contains poisonous clippings,eg, box, laburnum etc.

If you are in an area with houses around, especially those that back onto your field it really is worth while either putting a sign on the gate "Grass cuttings kill horses" etc or calling around to the 'culprits' and explaining politely what cuttings can do (colic, poisoning, choke etc) to a horse. That's what I'd be doing.
 
Enfys-thanks, that hadn't occured to me at all!!! Luckily haven't ever had that happen, thankfully. I had forgotten idiots dump things on other peoples land.

It's all making sense now, I am reading the BHS comment in totally different way now.

oh and by cutting I mean topping.

x
 
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