Post by simplynaturalfarm on Sept 11, 2016 19:30:22 GMT -5
I have meant to do this for a while, but always lose my pictures in my hundreds of picture folders I forget to name.
our property is small at only 15 acres, and I have learned more in the last 7 years with just 15 (actually only access to 5 acres for 6 of the years!) than I did in the previous 10 years where I had 160 acres which meant lots of room to do whatever I want and not a lot of repercussions if I didn't made good choices. I did rotationally graze the 160 acres, but I only had 30 head and it was not enough cattle to apply a lot of pressure like I have here.
When we bought the land, the SW side of it (2 acres) had been sprayed with atrazine yearly and planted to corn every single year for wildlife planting and it was almost impossible to improve until we started bale grazing. Nothing wanted to grow even with rotational grazing until we started heavily bale grazing it and rotating pigs on it. The rest of the property was crappy CRP that nobody had done anything with for 18 years. The first year we were here we had the option to pay $10 an acre to hay it and when we started to do so, it was all about 6 inches tall and full of horrible brush and weeds. So we skipped it until we could improve it.
We had access to the south 5 acres immediately, but not the north 10 acres until last year. So we have been able to improve, bale graze and rotationally graze the 5 acres for the last 7 years, and the 10 acres for only one year.
Our cows as a rule are only grazing each area of land for 2 days per year - they are only moved around the property twice per year. Due to how heavily we push it, it takes longer to recover (thus the reason they only go on it twice in our short season) but grows thicker when it comes back. When we bale graze, they don't graze the grass, they eat the hay. The rest of the time I move their fenceline forward 1-2x a day (some years 3-4x a day when I am not as busy), and I move the one behind them every 3-4 days or depending on where the water line is. I can't move the rear line as often as the front, because I don't have enough water connections and to be honest, it is a hassle to disconnect the water and move it daily - I need quick tach's to make life easier than unwinding hoses .
You will be able to see where we have bale grazed - it is obviously lush and bright green in circles or strips where we rolled bales out. The grass there is usually twice as thick and twice as tall as anywhere else the 2nd year after the bales were there. The first year it is a dead patch in the center and really lush grass around it.
I also have pictures of the pigs - they rotate through 10 paddocks and you can see how green it is in the paddocks they have been rotated through.
The following picture is where we let the pigs dig up ground last year - it was completely black dirt and has grown back thick and lush within 8 months! We have grazed this once this year and the cows will be back on it soon.
Here is a good picture of spring after bale grazing in winter 2015 - it is bare in a donut looking circle, but lush green around. Again this was grazed once so far in July.
This paddock is the most recent crp and has been grazed recently - you see some short green growth where the grass is coming back, and then dryer and short looking further away. We don't bale here, so what has happened is that the cows are put on TALL grass (this is the last part of our pasture to be grazed the first go round so it has been growing all year), they eat some, but knock over about 60%-70% of it and tromple it into the ground. Grass grows up lush and green through that trompled down grass which helps improve the soil with tons of organic matter.
again this is where the cows were recently (directly in front of me and trompled down), but there are two strands of electric keeping them out of what they grazed 3 weeks ago which wil be grazed in October for the 2nd time this year.
Here is a picture of what the grass looks like before the cows went on it today - just plain native crp with weeds, falling over because it is tall.
Cows coming to graze the long stuff when I move the fence
Here is a really good view of what is behind me (I just took a picture of the north area where I moved the cows, I turned in a circle to show a view of behind me)
What you see is eaten bushes on the right and trampled down long grass which has been eaten in about 40% of the paddock. Further away the grass is already growing back green where I locked them out of it as I move them forward. Across the fence is where they were a couple of weeks ago and is longer, and then immediately to the left is where the pigs grazed earlier in the year. I spread wheat and barley so that where they dig up has cover.
Regrowth where the pigs were 2 weeks ago
This picture is one of the best to show what I mean when I say how improved the ground is where the bales were 2 years ago. The grass is green and lush and gorgeous in this 20 foot wide circle.
The following pictures are where the cows grazed in June so it has been grazed once this year nd they will be going back to this in about 5 days. This is the land we have been grazing for 7 years and if you look closely you will see tremendous diversity with alfalfa, clover, many grasses compared to the picture the cows are in above which is 1 year old crp and just weed and a couple poor growing grasses. We have not seeded a single thing in this property, just applied a lot of grazing pressure and bale grazed the last 4 years. The alfalfa is so lush the cows go bonkers after it And you may not believe it, but in beginning of July it looked flat and as nasty as the stuff I posted pictures of that my cows were on yesterday.
Here is a picture showing how tall the overall growth is in the paddock ready to be grazed
For comparison, I turned 180 degrees from where the bucket was, and put it in the center of a "bale graze" area that is 2 years old - it is waist high!
In these paddocks which have been grazed for 7 years, it is much harder to tell where the bales have been because the soil is so good - the manure disappears due to dung beetles in about 3 days. When we moved here, for the first three years, there was manure still not broken down from one year to the next!!!! Where the cows pooped, it just lay there without anything breaking down and you'd swear animals had been in there just a few days before, not the spring before.
Dairy girls asking me when will I let them in to graze?
The diversity is so insane, we have squash growing all through our pasture this year with 15lb squash on them!
And THIS is a prime example of a pasture that I let the cows graze on every day without rotational grazing or locking them up. It is short, weedy and unhealthy. I don't care that they are destroying it by regrazing the prime areas because I ride the horse on it and the kids play on it, but it never grows back because they never give it a break!
If you look closely, you will see a long strip of green running through the center of the picture from right to left - 2 years ago a friend sold us a load of hay put up wet and we unrolled it to let the cows pick through it. We have a lovely green strip about 10 feet wide and 50 feet long running through the paddock.
One last picture of the first paddock grazed in end of May - you can see areas where the bales I put there in January did not break down (the hay was very poor and they were not eating it well, so we ended up just letting them lay on it).
And I hope it is not all Chinese to most of you - maybe the obvious differences are only obvious to somebody who lives on the place and are not easily viewable by picture! Our cow to land ration doesn't work as well at this moment - it took me the entire growing season to get our 10 cows once through 10 acres. So what they are eating right this second is rank and overmature and the other stuff is a bit tall for fall, but I am not going to make hay and I do not want to get any more cows and short myself if the year ends up being dry. I try to graze as long as possible into end of November and we put out our winters supply of bales on the paddocks usually mid November and rotate the cows through as they finish bales. As you can tell from the picture of the dairy girls, they are definitely not undernourished . .
our property is small at only 15 acres, and I have learned more in the last 7 years with just 15 (actually only access to 5 acres for 6 of the years!) than I did in the previous 10 years where I had 160 acres which meant lots of room to do whatever I want and not a lot of repercussions if I didn't made good choices. I did rotationally graze the 160 acres, but I only had 30 head and it was not enough cattle to apply a lot of pressure like I have here.
When we bought the land, the SW side of it (2 acres) had been sprayed with atrazine yearly and planted to corn every single year for wildlife planting and it was almost impossible to improve until we started bale grazing. Nothing wanted to grow even with rotational grazing until we started heavily bale grazing it and rotating pigs on it. The rest of the property was crappy CRP that nobody had done anything with for 18 years. The first year we were here we had the option to pay $10 an acre to hay it and when we started to do so, it was all about 6 inches tall and full of horrible brush and weeds. So we skipped it until we could improve it.
We had access to the south 5 acres immediately, but not the north 10 acres until last year. So we have been able to improve, bale graze and rotationally graze the 5 acres for the last 7 years, and the 10 acres for only one year.
Our cows as a rule are only grazing each area of land for 2 days per year - they are only moved around the property twice per year. Due to how heavily we push it, it takes longer to recover (thus the reason they only go on it twice in our short season) but grows thicker when it comes back. When we bale graze, they don't graze the grass, they eat the hay. The rest of the time I move their fenceline forward 1-2x a day (some years 3-4x a day when I am not as busy), and I move the one behind them every 3-4 days or depending on where the water line is. I can't move the rear line as often as the front, because I don't have enough water connections and to be honest, it is a hassle to disconnect the water and move it daily - I need quick tach's to make life easier than unwinding hoses .
You will be able to see where we have bale grazed - it is obviously lush and bright green in circles or strips where we rolled bales out. The grass there is usually twice as thick and twice as tall as anywhere else the 2nd year after the bales were there. The first year it is a dead patch in the center and really lush grass around it.
I also have pictures of the pigs - they rotate through 10 paddocks and you can see how green it is in the paddocks they have been rotated through.
The following picture is where we let the pigs dig up ground last year - it was completely black dirt and has grown back thick and lush within 8 months! We have grazed this once this year and the cows will be back on it soon.
Here is a good picture of spring after bale grazing in winter 2015 - it is bare in a donut looking circle, but lush green around. Again this was grazed once so far in July.
This paddock is the most recent crp and has been grazed recently - you see some short green growth where the grass is coming back, and then dryer and short looking further away. We don't bale here, so what has happened is that the cows are put on TALL grass (this is the last part of our pasture to be grazed the first go round so it has been growing all year), they eat some, but knock over about 60%-70% of it and tromple it into the ground. Grass grows up lush and green through that trompled down grass which helps improve the soil with tons of organic matter.
again this is where the cows were recently (directly in front of me and trompled down), but there are two strands of electric keeping them out of what they grazed 3 weeks ago which wil be grazed in October for the 2nd time this year.
Here is a picture of what the grass looks like before the cows went on it today - just plain native crp with weeds, falling over because it is tall.
Cows coming to graze the long stuff when I move the fence
Here is a really good view of what is behind me (I just took a picture of the north area where I moved the cows, I turned in a circle to show a view of behind me)
What you see is eaten bushes on the right and trampled down long grass which has been eaten in about 40% of the paddock. Further away the grass is already growing back green where I locked them out of it as I move them forward. Across the fence is where they were a couple of weeks ago and is longer, and then immediately to the left is where the pigs grazed earlier in the year. I spread wheat and barley so that where they dig up has cover.
Regrowth where the pigs were 2 weeks ago
This picture is one of the best to show what I mean when I say how improved the ground is where the bales were 2 years ago. The grass is green and lush and gorgeous in this 20 foot wide circle.
The following pictures are where the cows grazed in June so it has been grazed once this year nd they will be going back to this in about 5 days. This is the land we have been grazing for 7 years and if you look closely you will see tremendous diversity with alfalfa, clover, many grasses compared to the picture the cows are in above which is 1 year old crp and just weed and a couple poor growing grasses. We have not seeded a single thing in this property, just applied a lot of grazing pressure and bale grazed the last 4 years. The alfalfa is so lush the cows go bonkers after it And you may not believe it, but in beginning of July it looked flat and as nasty as the stuff I posted pictures of that my cows were on yesterday.
Here is a picture showing how tall the overall growth is in the paddock ready to be grazed
For comparison, I turned 180 degrees from where the bucket was, and put it in the center of a "bale graze" area that is 2 years old - it is waist high!
In these paddocks which have been grazed for 7 years, it is much harder to tell where the bales have been because the soil is so good - the manure disappears due to dung beetles in about 3 days. When we moved here, for the first three years, there was manure still not broken down from one year to the next!!!! Where the cows pooped, it just lay there without anything breaking down and you'd swear animals had been in there just a few days before, not the spring before.
Dairy girls asking me when will I let them in to graze?
The diversity is so insane, we have squash growing all through our pasture this year with 15lb squash on them!
And THIS is a prime example of a pasture that I let the cows graze on every day without rotational grazing or locking them up. It is short, weedy and unhealthy. I don't care that they are destroying it by regrazing the prime areas because I ride the horse on it and the kids play on it, but it never grows back because they never give it a break!
If you look closely, you will see a long strip of green running through the center of the picture from right to left - 2 years ago a friend sold us a load of hay put up wet and we unrolled it to let the cows pick through it. We have a lovely green strip about 10 feet wide and 50 feet long running through the paddock.
One last picture of the first paddock grazed in end of May - you can see areas where the bales I put there in January did not break down (the hay was very poor and they were not eating it well, so we ended up just letting them lay on it).
And I hope it is not all Chinese to most of you - maybe the obvious differences are only obvious to somebody who lives on the place and are not easily viewable by picture! Our cow to land ration doesn't work as well at this moment - it took me the entire growing season to get our 10 cows once through 10 acres. So what they are eating right this second is rank and overmature and the other stuff is a bit tall for fall, but I am not going to make hay and I do not want to get any more cows and short myself if the year ends up being dry. I try to graze as long as possible into end of November and we put out our winters supply of bales on the paddocks usually mid November and rotate the cows through as they finish bales. As you can tell from the picture of the dairy girls, they are definitely not undernourished . .