# Growing Grass In Pasture



## Southern Belle

How can you start to grow grass in a pasture? My geldings pasture is solid dirt. How can I get grass to start growing and keep him from eating it?


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## themacpack

Simply put, you need to seed it and keep him off/out of it while it gets established. If you leave him in the pasture, he will eat it to the ground as soon as it tries to grow and you will never get the pasture established. I would suggest getting with your local extension agent for advice that is best suited to the specific area you are in as to the soil you are working with, best type of seed/grasses, etc.


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## aggiegirl14

We need to do the same thing lol my horses are on 5 acres that they ate to solid dirt. We want to cross fence it in the middle and get grass growing on one side. How long does it generally take for grass to get established?


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## Endiku

What we did when first establishing our pasture was designate a certain area (in our case 2 acres for 9 horses) for a sacrifice lot, and divided the rest of the pasture up into three sections with electric fencing. Plant grass and water it. Allow it to take and grow fairly long (took about 3 1/2 weeks for us, and this was in early spring), then we allowed the horses into one of the three seconds (a 5 acre piece) We now rotate the horses in each of the three fields, moving them every three days. The horses are closed into the dry lot during the night, but have hay readily available at all times. Waters are in the dry lot that opens up to all three pastures and remains open. This way the animals get 10-12 hours of grazing, but the pasture is given a break for almost a week then eaten for three. It may not work for someone with less acreage or more horses, but it's been great for us!


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## Darrin

The best way to re-establish grass is to work up your field and re-plant. Problem with this method is you basically lose your field for a year. Need to give your soil time to firm up again so your horses wont damage the grass roots.

Second method is to plant, water and keep your horses off for a month or two. Have to give the grass time to really solidify their roots or horses will just tear them up.

The real problem is your pasture has been over grazed and likely weeds have been allowed to take over. To keep it from going right back to dirt you have to change your method of pasture management.

-On limited acreage (depends on your area) you need to keep them in a sacrificial area most the time. Horses really only need a few hours of grazing in decent pasture per day.

-Keep the weeds out via sprays and hand pulling. A lot of weeds have deep tap roots and horses don't particularly like them. Between the two they'll take over a pasture in a rapid manner, your grass just can't complete. Also, get those weeds dead before they go to seed. Once they go to see you've just taken a step backwards.

-In conjunction with keeping weeds out you need to keep your grass healthy just like the stuff in your lawn. That means fertilize and water. It's much harder for weeds to get a footing in healthy grass.

-Don't think I can say this enough. DONT LET YOUR HORSES OVER GRAZE!


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## EquestrianCowgirl4

we did that at my barn too. We tryed keeping the horse in there and using special grass seed it didn't work. so we found that the best way was to just take the horse out of that pen for a wile till it grew and now the 2 horses in it have lush green gass and love it.


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