Cow Pastures ....

[Mark R.]

I have an area about 1-1/2 X 2 feet that I want to do as a cow pasture, but I'm stumped as to how to create it. The Silflor brand "cow pasture mats" are really sweet, but would cost me about $200 to do an area that size !!!

Any ideas for creating a realistic looking cow pasture without breaking the bank ??? Pictures would be exceptionally helpful.

Mark.

[graphitehemi]

There was an article in MR I want to say...mid-last year. It had instructions for making a goop to simulate the 'muddy'  ground covering in a cow pasture. There were also some tips on adding things to the scene like cow hoof prints. I might be able to find the article this weekend, but I'm sure someone might beat me to it.

Let me know how it turns out! I plan on adding one myself. (If I ever get that far)

[jecorbett]

Can't say I have any ideas but I don't even want to know how you intend to model the meadow muffins.

[gilligan]

It depands what kind of cow pasture area you are after.  There are warm season pastures and cool season pastures.  Cool season pastures are filled with grasses like brome and orchard grass while warm season pastures are filled with things like big and little blue stem and indian grass.

The climate of the area you are modeling will determine if you have bluffs and wash outs with thin grass like midwest pastures or the lush green pastures filled with thick green grass in gently rolling hills with happy fat cows grazing in eastern pastures.

Have at least a three wire barbed fence four is more typical for pasture, take a look at a real pasture fence and set a nice corner with brace, don't just put a post in the corner.

Is it going to be a beef cow pasture or a dairy cow pasture.  Don't forget to include source of water;  windmill with pump jack and stock tank or a damn.  salt or mineral blocks, and a dusty two rut trail leading to the windmill.  And a few cotton woods for shade

[loathar]

Yep! Pastures are pretty EZ. Most ranchers by me put lime on their pastures so they are pretty green even in winter. Bright green but not real dark in color. The cows keep the grass pretty short so a fine grass foam will work. Now for the patties. You'll see darker,taller green patches all over the feild where the cows poop. Cutting up peices of darker green coarse grass foam works for this. Lots of them. Cows are messy! Make them about 1\2 the size  of a scale sized cows head. An occasional dab of dark to medium brown paint here and there also.(fresh patties) Most of the fences I see are made of 6"x6" poles about 4-5 feet high with 3-4 rows of barbed wire wrapped around them. Good luck!

Did you know almost all the cows in the US are genetic descendents of only about a dozen cows? They're all pretty much clones these days. Yummy clones!

PS-beef cows generally don't get a barn to sleep in at night. Don't forget water and food troughs though.

[larak]

You can make the ground from structolite (gypsolite) and the hoof prints with the end of a brass  (or any other kind of) wire gently pressed into the goop before it dries.

All of the the other techniques should work fine.

Have fun.

Karl 

[Tracklayer]

I have an area about 1-1/2 X 2 feet that I want to do as a cow pasture, but I'm stumped as to how to create it. The Silflor brand "cow pasture mats" are really sweet, but would cost me about $200 to do an area that size !!!

Any ideas for creating a realistic looking cow pasture without breaking the bank ??? Pictures would be exceptionally helpful.

Mark.

Hello Mark.

Go buy a roll of green matt from Hobby Lobby for about ten bucks, cut a piece to fit the area you have to work with, put in a couple of packs of Life-Like cows along with a windmill and water trough, put a fence around it by cutting the ends off the round tooth picks, jab the sharp end into your layout surface and glue about three strands of gray sewing thread on each post all the way around the pasture, put in an aluminum silver gate, and wa la, you have your Texas type cow pasture... I should know. I've got them all around me out here where I live.

Tracklayer 

 

[mikelhh]

 

 Yes it's English, but the basis for the pasture is surgical lint, glued with PVA then painted. Various scatter materials were added, and the cow paths were made by pushing a screwdriver blade through the grass, forming a slight furrow, then painted. There's also a furrow caused by the gate dragging though the grass and soil.

 Mike

[simon1966]

Very nice Mike.  My Mum used to drive a Mini Estate car like that years ago.  It brings back some memories, thanks for jogging them.

[dl&w brakeman]

  All of the above, but as I sit here cowless for the first time in years instead of down in the pasture this cold, snow covered morning may I add that fences are not neat. Broken wire, leaning posts, bent gates and other casualties off my bovine friends dot the landscape awaiting spring and fixing. Add very worn spots around feeding troughs and hay rings, fallen and bent trees used for scratching posts, and paths down to a stream. Edges of a stream many be battered and collapsed in places were they enter to drink. Don't forget a rough road for the tractor you ride to bring down feed and supplies. A barn? Only for milkers, beefers like the great outdoors, maybe a storage shed. You could also add the inevitable break out cow for added realism. Ah yes, the joys of raising cattle. An unsed pasture with deeper grass can be simulated using "fake fur" of the appropriate color available at craftstores and material stores. 

[Mark R.]

Thanks for all the great tips guys - kinda broadened my thoughts on what cow pastures SHOULD look like .... now I just gotta replicate them !!!

Mark.

[rayw46]

Try your local fabric shop.  There is a felt type of fabric that has the yellow/green appearance of semi-dry summer grass and another that is a little greener.  Maybe you could try the new Woodland's Scenics moldable grass mats.  I think they're being used on the new Model Railroader Project Railroad.

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

Backgound Cow Pasture:

My pasture is in the background and accordingly lacks details as have been discussed.

It is located a corner against a curved backdrop. The surface was made from blue styrofoam insulation and is sloped downward towards the gate next to the tractor. To obtain a slope I made a series of "pie slices" or wedges from the styrofoam.  I placed blocks as needed for support and the glued the pieces with the pointed ends lower than the opposite ends. It looked a bit like a blue pie that sank in the middle.

I purchased "grass paper" from a craft store. I don't know if I could still get some because it was in a clearance sale.  The paper I believe was intended for display of villages.

I cut and glued the grass paper as needed.  In the process, I tucked the back edges of the grass paper behind the foam edges agains the backdrop.

I glued undersized cows in place to force the perspective.  (N scale cows on my HO layout).  Add fences, trees, dirt paths, tractors, etc.

BTW, the foreground has my county park.  Neither the volley ball players nor the participants in a child's picnic birthday party appears to be interested in the E units above the park.

 

 

[BigRusty]

Long ago and far away, I lived in the country in Connecticut. Cow pastures can be either flat or slightly hilly. In the Moraine country, i.e. Northern CT and WI they are strewn with boulders. That's why they are pasture, not crop field. Hard to plow around all those rocks.

I made mine the cheap and easy way. Smear wet plaster of paris around and while it is still wet sift dried plaster all over it. Then hand sprinkle more randomly to make some clumping. Mist it with a fine mist to wet it good. A few rivulets won't hurt, especially if it is hilly.

When it is dry, spray it earth color (depending on the part of the country you are modeling) and when that is dry spray it with dark green, but don'y cover all of the dirt  Then some lighter green to highlight it. Looks just like ground foam at a faction of the cost. I used this method for all of my scenery fifty years ago, long before ground foam was heard of.

Don't bother with the cow flops, they are only about 10 to inches in diameter and more like a pie. Hard to see in HO buried in the grass. Some call them cow pies. Meadow muffins (or horse apples) are dropped by horses, and some farmers pastured horses in with their cows.  If you want cow pies they can be airbrushed in light brown with quick sprits from an air brush to make round circles. Meadow muffins are brown globules (like muffins) and can be duplicated by painting various sizes of buck shot. They weren't all the same size ya know.

Don't forget the cows and a horse or two. Cows lay down, but horses usually don't.

I bet that is all that you city folks want to know about cow pies and meadow muffins.

[Eriediamond]

Long ago and far away, I lived in the country in Connecticut. Cow pastures can be either flat or slightly hilly. In the Moraine country, i.e. Northern CT and WI they are strewn with boulders. That's why they are pasture, not crop field. Hard to plow around all those rocks.

I made mine the cheap and easy way. Smear wet plaster of paris around and while it is still wet sift dried plaster all over it. Then hand sprinkle more randomly to make some clumping. Mist it with a fine mist to wet it good. A few rivulets won't hurt, especially if it is hilly.

When it is dry, spray it earth color (depending on the part of the country you are modeling) and when that is dry spray it with dark green, but don'y cover all of the dirt  Then some lighter green to highlight it. Looks just like ground foam at a faction of the cost. I used this method for all of my scenery fifty years ago, long before ground foam was heard of.

Don't bother with the cow flops, they are only about 10 to inches in diameter and more like a pie. Hard to see in HO buried in the grass. Some call them cow pies. Meadow muffins (or horse apples) are dropped by horses, and some farmers pastured horses in with their cows.  If you want cow pies they can be airbrushed in light brown with quick sprits from an air brush to make round circles. Meadow muffins are brown globules (like muffins) and can be duplicated by painting various sizes of buck shot. They weren't all the same size ya know.

Don't forget the cows and a horse or two. Cows lay down, but horses usually don't.

I bet that is all that you city folks want to know about cow pies and meadow muffins.

AHHH-cow pies. Nothing like being 4 or 5 years old and walking through the pasture or barn yard bare footed and stepping on fresh ones. Or using dried ones for frisbees before frisbees were invented. They are easy to make. Use the appropriately colored paper and a small paper punch and you can "plant" cow pies all over the pasture. Once I got older, I had to shovel them into the spreader every day, cleaning the dairy barn. Ah, that was the life!!! Ken

[DFerg]

Well, not hard to see that quit a few of you are from farming lines of blood! Same here. When modeling your pasture, you should make the terrain somewhat hilly. Then put down fine grass, and then add some scatterd clumps of field grass to represent tistles, or other plants that cows won't eat. Don't forget to include cow paths though. Look at any pasture, and since cows travel almost single file heards everywhere, you will always find cow paths. The cow paties are neglable, but if you do add them, don't over do it. Final details should include water troughs, connected to some sorce of water, hay rings, and possibly a lean-to for shelter. If you are modeling any time before the mid '90's, it's okay to have your cows drinking out of a stream, but today the ministry of environment really enforces having a fence set up so that cows can't bath (or do their buisness) in the stream. Oh, and avoid putting the horses with the cows, it just causes fights, problems, and under-conditioned cows!

[gear-jammer]

Mark,

The issue of MR is November 2005.  I found the ground goop easy to work with.  Here are a couple of photos at different stages.

Sue

[cliffsrr]

WoW! I love this forem! Years ago we had car battery and reostat for power. Power packs were really a neat addition. Layouts were wired with blocks and many switchs.Then! DCC Another Wow! Along the way some of you great modelers have helped many of us with great scenic hints. Now we are into sound! Another big WoW! Whats next? Odor. Cow pasture smell is the next thing on the shelfs at the LHS.

Just kidding! Keep up the great work! There are guys like me that are a little clutsy learning a lot from spectacular modelers.