On the farm in May.

By zetor - May 22, 2010

A Harrowing Experience?

During May we clear meadow land (land that is cut for hay and silage) of sheep , moving them onto Summer pasture. The lambs are marked with our distinctive paint logo. This enables the farmer to recognise his sheep from a distance.
Any dirty wool is trimmed from the ewes so making the fleece clean for shearing, this work takes about a week.

Now comes harrowing the meadow land, sometimes called chain harrowing(see photos above).This beneficial process helps to breakdown any manure on the land. This aids it's complete disintegration into the soil and therefore acts as a natural fertilizer. Additionally, the harrowing levels off mole hills therefore reducing the contamination of the cut grass by soil. It takes the tractor approximately 6 minutes to cover 1 acre, the harrow being 4 metres wide, this leaves a stripe effect on the grass which disappears as the grass grows.

Comments

Chipchick said…

How cool. When I was growing up (in southern New Mexico, USA) we had 6 acres and most of it was in alfalfa. We didn't have to do this harrowing, we just cut the alfalfa, let it dry in the field and then bale it. This was done every 6 weeks or so during the growing season, which was long due to the mild winters. We didn't have sheep, but a few chickens, ducks and geese, so we sold our alfalfa. How many sheep do you have?

22 May 2010 at 23:54