# Best method to clip a pasture or hayfield?



## newguy (Apr 7, 2010)

We are new to farming. Location is Western Washington. We are currently rotational grazing horses and cattle on about 80 acres. I've been told it's a good idea to "clip" a pasture to knock down any tall stuff after the animals are moved to the next paddock. We also have 40 acres of hay fields that need to be cut back in spring to delay the maturing of the grass until we get enough dry weather to make hay. What's the best piece of equipment to do both jobs? Brush hog? Chopper? Sickle bar mower? Disk mower? Other?

Thanks.


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## sedurbin (May 30, 2009)

Any, that you mention, will do a good job but a 15' brush hog would probably be my choice.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

I use a bush hog as well. I usually rotate my cows several times thru a pasture before clipping it.


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## charlesmontgomery (Jun 4, 2011)

15' brush hog is great but probably costs $12k-16k these days. If you only have 80 acres to rotate thru a 6' bushhog would be fine as your paddocks would be small.

If you plan on cutting hay yourself later on then I would go ahead and buy a disc mower at least 7' long (9' if tractor can handle it) and use that for both. If you have rocks you don't want a sickle bar mower. At least with a disc mower rocks only chip the blades.


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## mulberrygrovefamilyfarm (Feb 11, 2009)

Just throwing in - if you run your animals into smaller paddocks you wont have anything to clip and you will have better biomass utilization. Here is a silent movie of us moving our cattle and horses from one paddock to another. We use the video when we've given talks about our operation, hence the silent part.


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