Slow pasture rehab

I am slowly trying to get a rotational grazing system going for my dairy goats. The pasture that they are in is roughly 10 acres and, finances being what they are, this is going to be a slow moving project. For various reasons, I am having to use permanent fencing, which is supposed to be a no no, but that's the way it goes. Anyway, last year I was able to split the pasture in half. I have been throwing all sorts of seeds out there and also dumping the barn leavings and then raking them out thin. Our soil is very sandy and doesn't hold moisture at all so my hope is that the barn leavings will be a sort of mulch to help hold just a little more moisture in the ground.

Naturally, I haven't even come close to getting the whole thing done, but the areas that I have done are showing a big difference. Earlier and thicker growth of the grass.


Here's an area where I dumped part of trailer load of rabbit manure.

You can definitely see a difference in the area that is covered and the area that is not.

 

 

 Especially in this pic above. You can also see some piles of bedding way in the background.

Overall I'm fairly pleased with how this is working out. Is it as good as being able to dump a ton of compost, work it into the soil and plant what I want in this pasture? No. But it's definitely more within my price range! I am going to leave this ungrazed this year, although maybe mowed a couple of times, and work on the fencing for the paddocks in this section. I hope to be able to have at least part of it usable next year. Then I can start on the other half of the pasture. After that, I can get to work on the much larger, much harder to work with cow pasture.