This who cut their own hay- Grazing after cutting?

Fruitcake

Fruitcake

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A question for those of you who cut your own hay:

After cutting quite early last summer, the grass in our hay field was still growing too much to risk putting our tubby natives onto it. As a result, it was left with no horses on over the mild autumn and now still has quite long grass. Been turning one horse onto it for a few hours each day since it stopped growing in an attempt to get rid of the long, dead stuff. If this isn't all eaten off, will the new growth be too choked in the spring? What is considered the latest time to take horses off a field you hope to use for hay the next year? (I think I might have heard November somewhere- If so, am in a bit of a catch 22 situation!)

Perhaps we need a herd of sheep for just this purpose in the autumn!!

Thanks in advance!
 
It depends on how thick the dead stuff is, it could easily kill the grass trying to come through if it's a thick covering
can you get more horses on to it to eat it up?

Sheep won't eat long grass so they aren't much help to you now - maybe borrow some next year say a month after you've cut until they start escaping! I borrowed some foe six weeks for just this purpose both I and the owner were happy to have them.

We don't graze ours from autumn onwards but our neighbours graze it into March, but then they do some pretty heavy rolling, over seeding and fertilising (which we don't) to give it a good flush of growth to make the hay in July.
 
we take ours off in March/April but usually don't cut until quite late, sometimes September. Planning on fertilising this year though as the field has taken a hammering
 
We move ours to the summer field april/may as soon as it's dry enough. Winter field gets rolled and sprayed as needed before taking a late cut of hay off it around august. The ponies go back onto the field when the wet weather comes in autumn and strip graze until all the grass has gone, this year it will be next week, then they have hay until the go back on the summer field, strip grazed as needed. We could perhaps get a few more bales if we fertilised and took ponies off earlier but we get as much hay as we need so don't bother.
 
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Thanks.

I could put all three onto it now- just a bit concerned about the amount of rain we've had and it getting poached (although I think the grass covering will probably protect it to a certain degree). The winter field is horrible now but not so bothered about that as we've got plenty of hay and if it means the grazing isn't so good there in the spring, it'll be positive for our natives.

Bazzel- do you usually fertilize or will this be the first year? Want to avoid fertilizing if at all possible as have a lami-prone pony and got more hay than we needed last year anyway.
 
I let the local farmer take a second cut for silage in late September, then it was ok to put the horses on until November
 
Fiona36 said:
Bazzel- do you usually fertilize or will this be the first year? Want to avoid fertilizing if at all possible as have a lami-prone pony and got more hay than we needed last year anyway.
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no, we have never fertilised before, this is a first. Last year was the first year we didn't make hay for about 6 years purely because the crop never got quite thick enough. It's been used for winter strip grazing instead and will be fertilised to hopefully get it thicker this summer ready for a decent batch of hay in September.
 
I graze my hay fields until about march and am still able to cut a decent crop of hay in july as long as weathers ok ! some of my fields are not grazed at the bottom of the hill and the grass has got very long and tussoky but the new grass still came thru ok but would be very difficult to make hay from it, it needs topping and then clearing the cut grass away to mimic being grazed off.
 
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