How bush hogging helps grass grow
Regular pasture mowing/bush hogging keeps weeds down and helps make a healthier pasture. Weeds grow faster than most grasses and if left to grow will choke out the grass. If uncut, weeds will also go to seed and spread. In this picture, you can see how high the weeds were on the left. Grass can’t compete with that. On the right, you can make out actual grass that’s easier for horses to find.
Some interesting facts:
Bush Hog is an actual company. “Bush hogging” has become a common term for cutting with a tractor-drive rotary mower. Kind of like calling a tissue a kleenex, which is also a brand name.- Rotary mower blades are similar to lawn mower blades but since the cutting path is so much wider, an end of each blade is connected to a large disc instead. A lawn mower typically uses one or two large blades that attach in the middle.
- Rotary mower blades are thick and tough. It’s common to accidentally run over rocks, chunks of wood, stumps, etc. Most of the time this doesn’t seriously damage the blades or the mower (though it’s best to not run over those things). Rotary mowers often use shear pins that are designed to break before serious damage happens. Shear pins are cheaper and easier to replace than entire gear boxes. Some mowers use a slip clutch that reduces the chance a sudden blade stop will damage the tractor.
- Although it’s most common to see one behind a tractor, you can purchase versions with an engine that work behind ATVs or UTVs or even self-contained gas powered units.
Common brands include:
- Bush Hog
- John Deere
- King Kutter
- Kubota
- Land Pride
- Woods
- DR Power Equipment (self-contained string trimmer/mower)
We use a six foot wide Woods 720 that came with our tractor that does a great job of keeping the weeds down in our pasture. It is a pain to put on but we usually leave it on all summer anyway. Since we’ve been mowing our pasture regularly (once a month or so), our horses have spent more time eating fresh grass in the warm months.
If you have your own pasture, what are you using?
Brett from England writes:
We came back from vacation to find our refrigerator dead, our sick dog not eating, and one of our horses – Cash – lame. I noticed Cash limping the second night after we got back; I hadn’t fed the horses the night before. Apparently he’d been “walking funny” for a few days but my dad didn’t think it was serious so didn’t mention it, and Bill had only seen it the night before. Since it was kind of an overall soreness and not any one foot, we were at a loss as to its cause. I called my horse expert friend, Shari, who thought it was EPM (Equine Protozoal Myeloencephalitis, a neurologic disease that can present as weakness, lameness and dizziness) but thought I should call the vet. I did, and she immediately thought it was founder. Shari came by that night, and after seeing my horses and pronouncing them all FAT, agreed with the vet. The vet came by the next morning and confirmed it. Unbelievable. We have almost NO pasture, mind you. We got some pretty good hay, and they eat quite a bit, but apparently between the good hay and the the little bit of grass due to the excess of rain we’ve been getting, they put on some pounds. Oh, that and the fact that Bill and my dad did NOT cut back the amount of grain the horses have been getting this summer. We usually give them half of the amount they get in winter for the summer, but Bill’s a little soft-hearted and didn’t want to deprive them. I wasn’t around to enforce it, due to my bum foot. So they got a little pudgy. Cash, being a long, lean horse, both carried the weight well (he didn’t look fat) and suffered more for it (his bone structure can’t handle the extra weight).
Yay! One step closer to resuming normal life.
In our travels we’ve seen some pretty fancy barns. We’re not rich so we can’t afford a landscaping staff to decorate and care for our barn plants like the beautiful Biltmore Mansion stables, for example. But as soon as the weather warms enough to stop threatening frost, I look for ways to liven up the place. Last year I added simple black metal hangers from our barn posts and bought some ferns. This may sound weird but I saw something similar on the porch of a funeral home and I liked how it looked. But I have a poor history with plants. Some colorblindness prevents me from easily telling the difference between green and brown. Unless something is shriveled up, I’m likely to keep watering it, wondering why it doesn’t grow or flower again. I also tend to have trouble with how often to water plants so I either over or under water. Ferns looked hardy. After all, they grow wild in the woods with no one to water them. How hard could it be? But a month into my barn beautification experiment I was reminded why I wasn’t a horticulturist. I might not have been able to tell if they were brown or green but those suckers looked dead to me. Unfazed by my plant failures from last year, I invested in some new ferns this year and I think I may have figured out the secret. Each day when I let the horses in, I water the ferns. Since they’re in hanging baskets, they seem to dry out quickly. And judging from the moist environment in the mountains where ferns thrive, I’m guessing the container-bound ferns prefer to be moist as well. I judge how much water to give them by sensing the weight empty versus wet. I’ve gone as long as a single day without watering without trouble. It’s extra work but the results are worth it to me. I’m going to have to find someone to water my plants when we go on vacation.
Normally that would pretty much be an everyday occurrence for me, but since I broke my foot two months ago, I haven’t been able to even get near one. I wasn’t able to put any weight at all on my right foot, so I was using a “knee walker” to get around. The grounds around our barn and pasture are way too uneven to take that thing over, and doing it on crutches would have been just asking for more injuries. But yesterday I went back to my doctor for a checkup, and he told me I could ditch the crutches and scooter! I’m finally walking on two feet again! Albeit in a boot still, but I’m so glad to get rid of that scooter. So when we got home, my dad took me up to the top of the hill in the John Deere Gator, and I walked over to the fence where Cash obligingly let me rub his head and neck and muzzle and smooch his velvety nose. Ahhhh….horses smell so good!