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Re: [RC] Pasture with lots of alfalfa in it - heidiI personally wouldn't put a horse straight out onto alfalfa pasture, it's just asking for problems. I know if the pasture were seeded with other grasses, the non-alfalfa species will eventually crowd the alfalfa out, but in the meantime, I'd be careful. Heidi might have some experience with being able to cut the alfalfa down as short as possible to make it potentially horse-safe. Keeping in mind that Jeri is in Washington, rather than southern CA, I wouldn't worry all that much about the alfalfa. We just don't grow that super-rich rabbit food stuff up here--at least not until 3rd or 4th cutting. My tendency would be to wait until it is past bloom, when it is much less rich, and then have at it. We even graze cows on fields like that up here without much risk of bloat. I'd actually prefer that to cutting it--because if you put the horses in right after it is cut, you are more apt to have really rich growing stuff coming up again. If the field is already down to only 50% alfalfa, the grass is in the process of taking over anyway. What you describe is what our horse pasture looked like when we first moved here. By grazing it instead of haying it, we've just about got straight grass now. Heidi ============================================================ Arabians were bred for years primarily as a war horse and those requirements are similar to what we do today with endurance riding. ~ Homer Saferwiffle ridecamp.net information: http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/ ============================================================
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