Making cattle grazing suitable for horses

[Kacey88]

Hello again - more from me and my field planning.

So the 5 acres I'll be taking over in July is in grazing for cattle. Good land, but rich ryegrass by the looks of it. Which obviously isn't great for horses.

What are the options here to make it more suitable for horses? I'd love to make hay or haylage too - but the farmer that would help only has cattle too.

 

[SEL]

Someone I know had sheep on their rye grass fields over winter and they razed it to the ground. It was then harrowed and reseeded with a non rye mix. Won't be used for a year though I think.

I'm not sure what you can do if you need to use the grazing quickly though

 

[HappyHollyDays]

My paddock is rye and I’ve set up a track around the outside which is now bald so they get a handful of fibre chaff to add supplements to and meadow hay at night to ensure the delicate one doesn’t colic through lack of fibre. The middle is growing and will be used as winter grazing.

 

[rextherobber]

A friend bought land which had been used for years as dairy grazing. Weight management is a nightmare, would agree with SEL, ideally reduce the Rye and reseed

 

[Kacey88]

Thanks for your replies. I think I will look into over seeding at the very least, it just looks so rich right now.

 

[Orangehorse]

Someone I know had sheep on their rye grass fields over winter and they razed it to the ground. It was then harrowed and reseeded with a non rye mix. Won't be used for a year though I think.

I'm not sure what you can do if you need to use the grazing quickly though

I think this is probably the most satisfactory thing to do, plus a track system round the edge. Get a hay crop taken off and no fertiliser after.

I have to warn you that re-seeding is quite expensive. Talk to Cotswold Seeds, who supply seeds for all different purposes and for different soil types, they are experts.

 

[Annagain]

If you need to graze it straight away, could you strip graze or put a track around half of it this year and re-seed the other half then switch over next year? You could almost let them trash the half you're grazing this year in the winter in readiness for re-seeding it next spring?