[bumpkins]

Hello everyone
We are just about to move to Caithness in Scotland and will have 10 acres to deal with.  At the moment, it is mostly grass and the ground is very hilly and rocky.  In time, we have decided to keep Alpacas. The grass is about 2ft long and really clumpy as it hasn't been properly looked after for a long time; what would be the best thing to cut it with? I don't think that a quad bike with a grass cutting attachment will be quite man enough for the job.  What would be the next best thing?
If anyone has any ideas, please give me a clue!!  thank you very much.
Catherine

[lachlanandmarcus]

Cattle to eat the long stuff down, and then sheep from then on to keep it in check, I reckon...

[pgkevet]

Local farmer with a tractor and heavy duty topper could take down that length and the thick basal tussocks: the very thing done on two sections of my land last year. It's taken all the lumps out of those two field areas and left it mowable for hay this year.
One was a steepish slope - some 10 acres that had been left to itself for several years and the tussocks were so thick i expected it'd take heavier stuff that that to do it but it worked well. the other section was a mixture of tussocks and hundreds of 2-3 year old weed trees - again a heavy duty topper shredded the lot.

[spandit]

I wonder what the going rate for topping a 5 acre paddock is?

[suziequeue]

Our land in Wales was a bit like that. The grass hadn't been touched for years.


Very steep hill - couldn't get a topper on it. Sheep have transformed it and now it is meadow-like (ish)

[bumpkins]

Thank you all very much for taking the trouble to share your ideas!

[Dan]

Agree with lachlanandmarcus - a couple of Shetland cattle followed by sheep. 

[JEP]

another suggestion would be to cut it for silage as it might be long enough and then you will also have some forage for winter time

[HenLivingstone]

I wonder what the going rate for topping a 5 acre paddock is?

We're in Hampshire and have just paid £25/hour for harrowing and topping.  The guy spent under three hours on site and time off site swapping the attachments and charged us £75. That was for around 4 acres so I guess a bit more for steep/remote/really unkempt land.

[Still playing with tractors]

Sounds no good for silage, but sheep and goats do a good job, a flail would be best if its not too rough or steep.