I just spoke with our county about taking some trees out in one of our pens for pasture purposes. He basically said that because the property is in an AE flood plain, that they generally do not allow someone to take the roots out. He said that I could go ahead and submit the permit and it might pass since I want to use the pen for horse pasture and don’t intend to build anything on it. I have a call into another person in the county and am considering this. In the meantime, I was hoping to get your thoughts. I could cut down the trees and have the stumps ground down or I could cut down the trees and leave a couple feet of stump. What do you think is safest for the horses? Any other thoughts? I keep going back and forth with this pen. We just sold our other house and will close on the 9th, so we’ll have some more funds coming in.
Thanks!
I had a trashy tree in our pasture that we cut down but left about five feet remaining… our horses use it as a scratching/rubbing post much to my delight of them using it rather than a fence line so I have left it there … been that way for twenty five years
Having seen a horse (no not mine!) rip open her belly on a stump left in a pasture I’d say remove the stumps. Mare needed a trip to the emergency clinic and a nice few days there. It literally looked like she just skidded across it and that was enough to have huge flaps of skin hanging down all over the place.
But before you do anything make sure you have a permit to do work in a floodplain/wetland!!
Wow! I’m so glad you wrote. I don’t know why, but for me, I’m nervous about grinding the stumps and having them at ground level. I just envision that a running horse will slip if one of their feet lands on it. If we leave a stump, it’ll definitely be a tall one. Thanks so much!
When I had a big tree taken down, and the stump ground, it was actually below the surface, and kept deteriorating. The big chips of wood left behind are kind of big, and slippery. You might not be able to grind the stump down anyway, because of the restrictions.
Years ago we took out a bunch of trees to make pasture. Because there were a lot of trees we did it in stages. In the first stage we removed the tops and left the “stumps” pretty tall - fence height more or less. Then over time we took out each stump. The smaller ones we pulled out - roots and all, but I realize this isn’t an option for you. The bigger ones we cut down and ground the stump down to below ground level and covered the ground stump in dirt.
I think either could work, although if you have a lot to remove (like we did) you should grind the stumps down.
