Need Help.. Digging up a pasture?

A friend of my BO bought some land beside her and a few weekends ago we went and helped them put up fence and horse proof the barn. They moved their horse over, and my BO put one of hers over with it to keep it company. She gous our t today and her horse has a huge gash on one of his back legs from the top of his pastern on the underside all the way to the hoof. He is at the vets for a few days and they are doing something called cold laser therapy. She was talking to the neighbors about it and they proceed to tell her that the area we fenced for pasture, is full of buried old farm implements. She took the owners horse and put him with ours for the time being. I volunteered to go out tommorow with a shovel and poke around and see what I can find. Not sure exactly how to go about finding buried equipment, so any suggestions are welcome!
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Well, good luck with finding anything underground! A horse can find it and hurt itself on it, but when we go to look for the cause of injury, theres nothing in sight!

I would first try and find another cause for his injury before you start digging holes out there. If you walk around the pasture and nothing is visibly poking out of the ground, I wouldn't dig.

Unless you plow the entire field, you won't really know whats under the ground.

Try a metal detector. Easiest way to find buried metal implements. IF you do find them, you may need more then a shovel to dig them out. And who knows you may find some thing to sell as a yard art. ;)

The pasture and barn have been checked five times and we can't find anything.my thinking is I can take something sharp like the end of the shovel, and poke around with it and see if I hit anything. I don't want to actually dig holes. If its close enough to the surface to tear a horse up, surely I can find it. Maybe a metal pitchfork? The closest place where she can get a metal detecter is about an hour away. I am inpatient and curious lol. I'm not sure if or when she' going to get.it.
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If you have access to a tractor (or quad) and some diamond harrows you may be able to find something by dragging the harrows (flat side down, points in the air) around the pasture - go slow and watch for the harrows catching on something or bouncing in the air unexpectedly.

Metal detectors work, lots of folks around here use them when they buy old homesteads that have grown over. Sometimes there is a buried wire fence, hay rake teeth, etc, that really can't be found by plowing, but you can be sure a horse would find it in the bottom of his hoof!

They have a tractor, but no harrow. The best bet I gather is to go get a metal detector and see what we come up with that way. I feel bad for the people who bought the place. They are a nice couple, and I doubt if the pasture does have equipment buried in it, it will be usuable until they can get it dug up and replanted, if it would be that easy.
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Well, then maybe they have a piece of chain link fence they could slowly drag around behind the tractor to see if it catches on anything. It could be a very small but sharp object, possibly even a broken bottle. The only other choice is get a bag or bucket, and start walking and raking .