Rolling Dog Farm Blog

I made a passing reference in a recent post about dragging the pastures, and one blog reader commented she didn’t know what that meant.  So this is what it looks like.  Alayne took the photo this afternoon while I was dragging our second-to-last pasture.  (Almost finished!)  The contraption on the back of the tractor is the chain harrow, which has tines that angle down and into the ground.  As we drive forward, dragging the harrow, the tines break up manure piles, scattering the clumps in much smaller pieces across the ground.  This helps fertilize the soil.  Horses will also tend to avoid eating the grass near manure piles, so this promotes a more even grazing pattern.  The harrow dethatches and aerates the soil as well.

With 160 acres, pasture management is a big part of what we do here.  To continue to have healthy, sustainable pastures for the horses, we need to fertilize, seed, spray for weeds, spread compost, and finally, drag the fields.  In spring, summer and fall, we’re always working on our pastures in some way.  Only in winter do the fields, and we, get a break from all this activity.

This time of year when we’re dragging, we’re in a race against the weather.  We want to leave the horses out on pasture as long as possible, without overgrazing the fields, but we also need to get the horses off the pastures so we can drag them before the snow flies.  And it takes time to drag that much acreage.  At a spine-tingling average speed of 4 miles per hour, there’s no rushing this task!

(Click on photo for larger image.)