Pastures must be managed if you want them to provide good grass year after year.  We started with 1 horse several years ago on a 3-acre pasture and he had so much grass it was causing him problems.  So we added two bucket calves and a 2^nd horse (sort-of an impulse buy).  Oops, that was too much for 3 acres.  The calves ate everything they could get – including the pine needles as high as they could reach.   The horses ate the grass to the ground.  Result?  An overgrazed pasture. 

The next year, the weeds came up and it has been a battle ever since.  This year is the third season since the calves fulfilled their destiny and the pasture is on its way back to its past glory. Here is a laundry list of what was needed to get to this point.

• Build an emergency pasture, to get the livestock off the overgrazed pasture
• Mow the pasture every 3 to four weeks to control weed seed-heads
• Spray to control the noxious weeds
• Expansion of the emergency pasture to a permanent pasture. 
• Install gates and extra fencing to allow for rotational grazing
• Perform spot weed control to stop the advance of the aggressive weeds (like mares tail)   

There is a lot to know about weed control.  Simply going to the farm store and buying a bottle of “stuff” to spray can do more harm than good.  Your local extension agency can be a good source of help.  I found our local expert and took him freshly dug specimens, including the root, and he helped identify the weeds and gave solutions to control them.  It’s simply no fun to learn the hard way about overgrazed pastures! ♥