Anyone with experience clearing a wooded area to make a pasture?

[StarRidgeAcres]

We recently learned that the small home and few acres we are leasing (have been here since Nov 1, 2010) is heading into foreclosure. So obviously we need to move. It's surprising and it means moving sooner than we planned, but it's not the end of the world.

But what seems most difficult is finding a place that isn't wooded! Everything advertised is 5 "wooded" acres or another big thing is having your own pond apparently.

I guess we are in the minority, but we want open, flat land and it's just not out there. So my question is: what about finding a place where the lay of the land is acceptable, the home works, etc., but it's wooded. Can an area be successfully cleared, including stumps removed, and then used for horses? What are the downsides?

Would love to hear any personal experiences or just opinions on the subject. Thanks!!

 

[Riverrose28]

We have a very small 10 acres, with four of those in woods. When I wanted a new paddock, hubby used four strands of electric tape using pvc poles because of the tree roots. The trees are all hardwood and no maple. I love this paddock better then the ones in the open, reasons, in the summer the temperature is 20 degrees cooler back there, and in the winter the trees help to contain water and not much mud at all. Sometimes the horses do eat the leaves that fall and the acorns, but have never gotten sick from them. I do need to spray them often to keep ticks and may flies off. But keeping the large trees for me is a plus. We do go out several times a year and pull out choke cheeries.

 

[mini horse mania]

I had woods femced off,but one of my mares lost an eye,running through,and a twig got her.....we had our,woods logged,then rented a backhoe to dig up smaller trees....our pigs have cleared quite a bit....we have 25 acres,but inly paid to clear one acre for our singlewide...you could fence it,and cut the branches up some?

 

[Marty]

Unfortunately I have had too much experience in this subject for the past year. Hus is determined to move to the valley to our other farm. We have 15+ acres that we have had for investment for about 18 years now. Part of it is in woods, and part used to be a hay field. It has a pond and creek running throughout. We have had to pay dearly for it to be cleared with bulldozing and track hoes and that is by a friend by the way who was charging us bare minimum too. Hus has done a lot of work by hand, chain saws and using his little tractor too. Its a huge mess and I am not amused. Every tree on the place and every bush was poison and had to go. Its all bulldozed and we burn up the stumps. Another mess. Now its all flat and empty except for about 5 acres which is stil in woods. We have to haul in a lot of dirt and gravel for the 1/8 mile long driveway, not to mention lay water pipes, electric lines, septic, you name it. He's also been hauling my manure pile down there to till it in for fertilizer because the bulldozing has torn up the grass leaving it a mud pit now. We're supposed to get a double wide to plunk on it and then there is the cost of barn and fencing all over again.

Its a whole lot cheaper in the long run to buy a place already cleared and pastured if you value your sanity. This is nothing but work and money. Maybe you can deal on the foreclosure or relocate somewhere else that has the kind of lay of the land you want but I would not suggest doing what we are doing for nothing and avoid construction if you possibly can.

At the end of this video you will see the dozers building up our barn pad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzI_rrGuZlI&list=UUeP9FzplpOyKRSu4AF8S59Q&index=2&feature=plcp

 

[dgrminis]

Marty - it looks like a lot of work but I am sure it will be wonderful when it is all done

Parmela - It is alot of work to clear out the trees and the stumps left from them and will make the pasture a mess for a while and probably would have to be reseeded with grass or some pasture mix (whatever you wanted out there) before you could run the horses on it but it would be well worth it...

When we moved to where we live now it wasn't wooded but it had always just been part of a cattle pasture and so their were a bunch of trees along the fence lines - we wanted some of them but some we did not as they were dead and rotting or just not the right kind of tree - But what we ended up doing was just hiring a dozer to come out and take them all out because it was the quickest/easiest way to get it done - but it did mean there are no trees in our pastures now - which does make me a little sad... Since then trees have come up around our pond (although I don't think you wanted a pond) so that allows the horses to hang out in the shade and get a cool breeze off the water. And we have planted a few trees in the other parts of the pasture but so far they have either been killed by the horses trampling them or the heat in the summer

I believe this spring we are going to try again with some bigger trees and see if we have more success...

Good Luck with whatever you do

 

[Ashley]

The first thing I would do is advertise free wood. If you do this and anybody around there uses it for firewood they will come and clear it for free. Problem solved. I would leave a few tees. If you do advertise it as free wood they should take the stumps too, but if not they wont hurt anything.