Flail Mowing

[Scot123]

Hi. Advice please! I have approx 6 acres of very wet/reedy land which suits my natives perfectly! The reeds are a couple of feet tall now. It's going to be topped with a flail mower this summer. I was wondering how long to wait afterwards to put the horses back? Should it be two weeks or, because it's mainly reeds and not grass, could I put the horses back sooner? Thank you.

 

[PurBee]

Some of our land was like that. Do you mean rushes when you say reeds?

We flail mowed 2x annually, and eventually encouraged more grass to grow. Young rushes horses will eat, but taller older mature rushes they tend to leave alone. (They have what looks like a polystyrene interior, but the young rushes dont)

Tall bunches of rushes after flailing tend to leave a thickish layer of mulch that will take a fair few weeks to rot down. It depends the % of rushes to grass you have. If it’s over 50% you might find you need to give 4-6 weeks rot-down of mulch and allow regrowth before re-grazing.
The thicker the mulch after topping, the longer new grass shoots take to grow through. So it’s always a ‘it depends’ answer on when it’ll be suitable to graze.

When new shoots of 2inches are appearing through the mulch layer, there’s fresh tips for them to graze.

Flailing while the weather is warmer is best, as the mulch will rot faster, and re-growth is faster too.

I’ve topped too far at the end of the year, end of september when temps are cooling, and noticed a significant longer difference in mulch rot and re-growth time.

 

[rabatsa]

I graze once the grass clippings have dried. If it is just the rushes that are getting the haircut I will do them with the animals still in the field.

 

[Tiddlypom]

My experience is that horses will gorge on the clippings and give themselves colic.
I never leave mowings on the field, I rake up before turning back out.

 

[Timelyattraction]

my 4 acre field got topped a month or so ago. I turned them back out in it the next day. It wasnt like grass clipping thats you get from cutting your lawn. It was more hay like and it was tall dying grass and there really wasnt a lot laying around, it was quite scattered. They were fine. I watched them and they weren’t interested in the cuttings they were eating the fresh cut grass

 

[SoulJz]

After topping the reeds with a flail mower, it's generally a good idea to wait before putting the horses back on the land. This allows the cut material to break down a bit, reducing the risk of injury from sharp stems and giving any plants a chance to recover. Since it's mainly reeds and not grass, you could potentially put the horses back sooner, but I'd recommend waiting at least a week to ensure the area is safe and the cut material has had some time to settle. If the ground is very wet, you might want to give it a little longer to avoid compacting the soil with the horses' hooves.

 

[Scot123]

Hi. Sorry for not replying sooner, I couldn't get on my computer for a couple of days. Thank you all so much for the answers. PurBee, yes it's rushes, definitely a far higher proportion of rushes to grass! So would you be waiting 4-6 weeks to allow new grass to grow through the thick mulch so there's new grazing, rather than from a safety point of view with them eating the mulch?

 

[PurBee]

Hi. Sorry for not replying sooner, I couldn't get on my computer for a couple of days. Thank you all so much for the answers. PurBee, yes it's rushes, definitely a far higher proportion of rushes to grass! So would you be waiting 4-6 weeks to allow new grass to grow through the thick mulch so there's new grazing, rather than from a safety point of view with them eating the mulch?

Yes, i’d allow the mulch to rot and the new growth to settle-in. Youd have a heck of a lot of work to remove the mulch of mature rushes on 1+acre.

I’ve not had mine eat mulch from thick mature rushes, after flailing specifically, as they dont eat them fresh standing. They sniff it and look for fresh grass growing tips.
If your horses do currently eat the taller older rushes from time to time you might get them sampling the mulch, and it would be a risk.
Only once its flailed can you make the judgement call about when to use the field. If you have areas of barely any mulch those are areas they’d likely go for searching for new tips. You’d have to observe them if you really need to use the field, to see if they go for the mulch, and pull them off if you see them going for it.

Flailing tends to chop it very tiny 2cm and smaller pieces, and the mulch quickly disperses and shrivels up - it seems on my now mixed native grass fields, after a topping of seed heads, i see no layer of mulch as it practically disappears into the lower soil levels, and i can use the fields straight away, as there’s plenty of tip length poking through any mulch.
I dont flail the grass low to soil level - always leave a good 4inch height so the grass recovers faster, rather than ‘skinning’ the whole lot to 2inches and cutting the growth parts of the grass blade, which then takes longer for the grass to re-develop those parts and grow.

Fresh thick grass mulch there would be a high likelihood of them eating that next day after flailing - but as youve said theres loads more bunches of rushes, it sounds like that is the mulch which will be the majority - the flail tends to dump it as a thick compact mulch where the rush bunch was standing. Rushes will labour the flail mower a bit because of their density, so due to the slow passing over the rushes, the mulch is thicker.
Grass shoots will eventually grow in the patches where mature rushes stood - without re-seeding this occurs naturally. You can speed it up by broadcasting mixed grass seed if youre keen for faster regeneration.

We had fields that were loaded with mature rushes, and now those massive bunches have gone completely with annual flailing, but we still get young rush shoots poke up, which the horses are fine with and like to eat.
We had native grasses take over instead of rushes, so the fields reverted to an old species mixed meadow grassland.

 

[Scot123]

Yes, i’d allow the mulch to rot and the new growth to settle-in. Youd have a heck of a lot of work to remove the mulch of mature rushes on 1+acre.

I’ve not had mine eat mulch from thick mature rushes, after flailing specifically, as they dont eat them fresh standing. They sniff it and look for fresh grass growing tips.
If your horses do currently eat the taller older rushes from time to time you might get them sampling the mulch, and it would be a risk.
Only once its flailed can you make the judgement call about when to use the field. If you have areas of barely any mulch those are areas they’d likely go for searching for new tips. You’d have to observe them if you really need to use the field, to see if they go for the mulch, and pull them off if you see them going for it.

Flailing tends to chop it very tiny 2cm and smaller pieces, and the mulch quickly disperses and shrivels up - it seems on my now mixed native grass fields, after a topping of seed heads, i see no layer of mulch as it practically disappears into the lower soil levels, and i can use the fields straight away, as there’s plenty of tip length poking through any mulch.
I dont flail the grass low to soil level - always leave a good 4inch height so the grass recovers faster, rather than ‘skinning’ the whole lot to 2inches and cutting the growth parts of the grass blade, which then takes longer for the grass to re-develop those parts and grow.

Fresh thick grass mulch there would be a high likelihood of them eating that next day after flailing - but as youve said theres loads more bunches of rushes, it sounds like that is the mulch which will be the majority - the flail tends to dump it as a thick compact mulch where the rush bunch was standing. Rushes will labour the flail mower a bit because of their density, so due to the slow passing over the rushes, the mulch is thicker.
Grass shoots will eventually grow in the patches where mature rushes stood - without re-seeding this occurs naturally. You can speed it up by broadcasting mixed grass seed if youre keen for faster regeneration.

We had fields that were loaded with mature rushes, and now those massive bunches have gone completely with annual flailing, but we still get young rush shoots poke up, which the horses are fine with and like to eat.
We had native grasses take over instead of rushes, so the fields reverted to an old species mixed meadow grassland.

Thank you ever so much, that's so helpful, really lets me know what to expect. No, they don't even pick at the mature rushes so I don't suppose they'd go for them when mulched either. I'm fortunate not to have to put them back onto the field until I'm happy with it, even if that's several weeks. But I really wanted to get an idea of what to expect - so thank you very much (also for the tip about what height to cut it to, I'll follow that) x