Paddock Mower

Here is Dan’s latest contrivance, a paddock mower.

How is it different from a regular lawn mower? By adding oversize wheels, Dan was able to raise the mowing deck to almost six inches, rather than the typical two to four of a regular mower.

To use larger wheels, he had to extend the axles so the wheels wouldn’t hit the mower deck. He made the extensions out of ¾-inch bolts. The spacers (blue below) are pex pipe.

What’s the point? Well, with intensive rotational grazing, the idea is for the paddock to be grazed down about 50% of the forage height. Cattle will apparently do that, but I find goats less consistent. They take top bites off a lot of it, but ignore a lot of it too. Then seed heads start shooting up.

Once plants start putting energy into producing seed, the leafy parts lose nutrients and palatability. The idea of mowing tall is to simulate grazing. This stimulates leaf production and delays seeding, although we’re transitioning from winter forage to summer forage right now, which means everything is determined to finish its life cycle and produce seed anyway.

We tried this last year with our regular lawn mower, but it cuts too short. It scalps the forage so that it takes a long time to recover to good eating height again. By cutting taller, I hope we can continue to improve grazing, and continue to improve the soil because the clippings are left where they’re cut.

That’s the theory, anyway. We’re in another rainy spell at the moment, which means no grazing or mowing. But hopefully, it will get my summer pasture seed going.