When to rest a field ready for Winter 2015 please?

GSLS

GSLS

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As title :)


thanks :)


Also does anyone have a rough idea on how long it will take for a poached muddy gateway to grow back to full grass if horses aren't allowed to graze anywhere near it from now on. Thanks.
 
How long is a piece of string . I rest my winter field from the end of April/ May until usually the start of October but the main gate way is a hardstanding now ,it never truly recovered before the next season .
My Christmas present this year was to have all the soil carried away a membrane put down topped with hogging and road planeings .
 
Mine come off end March/beginning of April. They go back sometime in October.

The really boggy bits don't come back properly and tend to be full of thistle and docks. My field is large enough not to worry about this and we cut them (prevents seed spreading and it looks tidy) as it only gets poached again next year.

We have road planings in the gateway which is great, however there is a limit as to how far it is practical to put them.
 
I've been wondering the same thing. This is the first year I have managed my own land and frankly my winter paddock is scaring me 😳. Have been told not to give in and leave them there until end of March (they have haylage in field).
The gateway is verging on dangerous, not helped by it being a slight slope, and I feel so bad for my liveries having to wade through it. I'm paranoid my gateway is The Worst In The World!!

My lovely farmer has suggested harrowing in spring(he can't get his roller up to us unfortunately) but doesn't think it will need reseeding and said I'll be surprised at how well it recovers. He has suggested maybe hand seeding the worse patches.

Seems I'm the only one panicking about it which I guess is reassuring 😃
 
It does come back, harrowing and rolling and re seed if necessary.
I have hard core in my gateways, but it also put electric fence round an area approx 20'x10' so i have a safe and not too boggy area to get the horses into one at a time if I need, and it saves the area immediately round the gateway getting too boggy, which happens even if you do hardcore.
 
Mine come off their winter field at the beginning of march. The main part of the field recovers quickly with just a good harrow and roll, and by may/june time, you would never know it had been grazed all winter. I have reseeded the gateways in the past, and although by autumn they are looking good, only get re-trashed in the winter, so have given up on this as a waste of time, money and energy.

I am lucky as our ground drains well and the gateways never get more than hoof deep - if they were more of an issue would put down some hardcore/road planings.

So in answer - our winter grazing is rested from the beginning of March until the beginning of Oct, therefore only grazed for 5 mnths.
 
Mine come off winter paddocks by end March (poss earlier if lovely weather). Then they might pop back in there for a short bit in early June. Rested through till end November usually.

Winter paddock can be left looking like the Somme, but it does come back - just be prepared to spend time treading in deep divots once the ground starts to dry, which is best done for a short 20 min session daily after work in the lighter spring evenings :)

To add: save the sweepings from hay barns as there is often plenty of seeds in it. I store these in old bedding sacks & srpinkle on bad patches if necessary :)
 
I have a winter trash paddock that is used until about April. They are then off it until Dec,sometimes early Jan when they return . I am amazed every year at how well it recovers but it does and grows like mad with minimal effort from me.
 
Our mare churned her paddock as though it had been ploughed (due to a landfill site opposite being dug out ready for housing to be built, constant vehicles backwards and forwards with flashing lights and reversing beepers). We took her off in February and she went on livery. OH rolled harrowed and re-seeded the paddock, it was god as new and back being grazed by late September.
 
ours are on winter side until second week of April as we dont like moving Fig on to new grass until AFTER the BD winter champs lol, in case of spring grass sillys!

they are then on summer paddocks until about second week oct, so exact 6 month split.

we are lucky to be on very sandy soil so no mud as such but the areas where they stand and wait to come in get a bit bare so we re seed by hand once they have swapped over. It all came back really well last year except one stubborn patch where they had dug so deep and obviously hit a REALLY sandy patch, the seeds didnt take at all, so ive got a sandy/mossy bit instead. Am going to rake that back properly to mix the soil back in and re seed again this year but its literally only about 2 foot x 3 foot so not the end of the world!
 
Ours move off it as soon as the summer field is dry enough to use in the spring, usually around the end of April. It always looks trashed in spring but we still get a cut of hay off it in late summer, then it grows enough to keep them in the winter until about Xmas when they start getting hay.
 
our winter field last year was pretty awful by the end of the long wet winter, I was quite worried about it but after it was rolled and rested from about March/April until Oct it was knee high in thick grass again. It is lasting well so far this year but I will again rest it for the whole of the summer as its quite wet and muddy. I then have a couple of fields that I rotate round for the summer months.
 
To those that rest their paddocks all summer, do you top them or just leave them to get like foggage? I took my mares off their winter paddock in April (it was pretty trashed as so wet last year) and a farmer managed to take a hay crop off it in early July!! They went back on it early Dec, nice thick grazing. The geldings, came off theirs at beginning of July, (bare) as other fields had been sprayed so couldn't move them much earlier. Am short of winter grazing for them this year, but surviving. Do the horses eat it, when it goes like a hay field and then falls over and almost rots? That's what mine would be like if I left it all summer untouched. Sorry for the stupid qu.
 
Tend to move mine off March/April and then get it harrowed and rolled end April/May weather dependent. On clay so always wettish

If we have a good Spring I'll sometimes chuck them back on July time to eat grass down rather than topping as they live out Summer and then try to keep it until 1st December just topping in late September after last flush of growth.

Gateway never grows back properly - one because I don't reseed, and two because I have huge great oaks near to winter gate which tend to take most of the goodness out of the soil. Every year I say I'm going to put hardstanding down at gateway, but haven't yet and as we've been here 20 years don't suppose I ever will! Winter field is around 2.5 acres and have 2 on it for around 12 hours per day.
 
I didn't top my winter field last year that was rested all summer, it was pretty long but the deer do eat it down a bit and it means they have plenty of grass still now. I dont think I will bother topping it this year either, it seemed to thicken up just fine without topping.
 
sare_bear said:
To those that rest their paddocks all summer, do you top them or just leave them to get like foggage?
Click to expand...

I usually leave mine to go to Foggage, which means if I put them in there in Dec, then I wont need to hay in daytime till end Jan.
Occasionally it does get away tho if growing conditions are good so I have to part strip graze to start with :biggrin3:

eg: my 2 went into a different paddock at the weekend which hasn't been used since April last year, I cannt see that I will be haying them in the daytime (unless we have heavy snow) till around end of Feb!
 
sare_bear said:
To those that rest their paddocks all summer, do you top them or just leave them to get like foggage? I took my mares off their winter paddock in April (it was pretty trashed as so wet last year) and a farmer managed to take a hay crop off it in early July!! They went back on it early Dec, nice thick grazing. The geldings, came off theirs at beginning of July, (bare) as other fields had been sprayed so couldn't move them much earlier. Am short of winter grazing for them this year, but surviving. Do the horses eat it, when it goes like a hay field and then falls over and almost rots? That's what mine would be like if I left it all summer untouched. Sorry for the stupid qu.
Click to expand...

we leave it to go over. We mow it down after they move off it to level out the rough patches, then leave alone all summer.

it does go to hay then fall over but it means the actual soil has a real thick carpet of grass over it, and when it snows they dont need hay as its so long still they go round knocking the snow off the top and eating the grass.
 
We have one winter paddock, two summer paddocks, a slim bin summer paddock (much smaller than others) and haylage field. They trash the winter one from when the ground starts to soften (oct-nov) until when it dries out again (about april). They then rotate with sheep to maintain grass into other paddocks (larger ones for those that need weight, slim bin for one that doesn't need too much more weight). A herd of sheep go into winter one to fertalise and control weeds etc. Once haylage is cut, those that have been rotating between 2 summer paddocks go into haylage field (~9 acres, others about 3-4 acres, slim bin about 1 acre) go into haylage field to put on a little weight for winter. Once ground starts to get soft, all go back to winter paddock (been harrowed several times in summer and topped couple of times), sheep go into haylage field until about feb. Summer paddocks are reguarly poo picked and harrowed all summer.
 
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