Mustering and Sorting in the Road

Earlier this week, I moved my cows and calves to Cord Road with the intention of sorting off a few cows which I did not want to joined with the bulls, which will be turned out the 22^nd of July.  The particular morning chosen was ideal because it was 63F degrees!  Such a change from the intense and long lasting high temperatures and high humidity we have been experiencing and within a couple days the weather went right back to the intense heat.

Once the cattle were in the road, which I had blocked off at the end of the road and beside the gate through which they had passed, I set up a single strand electric polybraid to form a small holding yard to contain each cow as I sorted her off.  This worked exceptionally well.  The only difficulty was to get the  now weaned calf which belonged to the cow which died by tree roots a few days ago.  It had lost its sight to a large extent, so was particularly hard to handle, but I gave it a pass – blind, no momma for guidance, strange location (this is a purchased cow/calf and the calf had never been to this location), and being pushed around.  Nevertheless, she was coaxed, along with the cows I’d sorted off, into the hay barn from which we would load out.  Dallas had arrived with the trailer just in time to help me get that calf in.  Thank goodness – I might have had to give up and that would not have bode well for a lone calf on its own in life.

We loaded out of the hay barn which was not without challenge since there is no facility to do so. But they respect a hot wire, so a rope posing as a hazing fence was helpful to encourage them to hop into the trailer. The rest of the cows had already walked across to the Bowyer farm.

From the time I left home at 5:30 am to my return was about  8 hours, but it takes me an hour and 10 minutes drive with return in my Gator.  Nevertheless, I took a lot of steps and was spent by mid afternoon, but very glad to have that task completed.

Shabbat Shalom!

Another Pasture Map Story

*the photo above is an old photo – i no longer use netting along this lane since i found it unnecessary to contain the cows/calves and setting it up was more work than needed. It only takes one person to muster the in cows, but i am always thankful for help when they show up.

—————————————————————————————-

Soon (March 2022) it will be time to wean calves born in May 2021 and with all the stock on the Buckman 80, that means a half mile move to the corral. They can be directed through a gate on the northeast corner of the Buckman 80, but then to control their direction, I will set up temporary electrified polybraid with step in posts.

In the map below, the Buckman 80 comprises the 4 paddocks on the bottom and moving toward the upper right hand of that is the northeast corner through which the cows with their calves will move towards the corral. The light green line illustrates the location i will install the temporary polybraid to guide them to the corral at the upper right hand corner of my property. The green line is about 1/2 mile.

Once the calves are sorted off, then the cows will be taken south of the weaning pen, but have nose to nose contact with their babies. (Next year, 2023, calving and weaning will push back a month – April.) In very short time (starting as soon as 24 hours) the mommas will see that their nearly a year old babies are well cared for and will no longer worry for them.

Google Earth Pro makes fence ‘building’ so much easier. Laying out plans and measuring area are ‘free’ and easy.

Lesson for This Week

Oh my, ranching and managed grazing can be completely frustrating and discouraging. That was my week. My plan was to total graze from the corral through part of the timber, then on to the ridge to the south before moving them to the northwest paddock of the Buckman 80. The plan went along fine until they hit the timber. I was using a polybraid and step in posts (white line on map) of about 1000 ft. The turquoise line is another reel.

The fuchsia lines are my proposed fence changes. I’ve already shifted 1/2 mile of 2 wire hi-tensile wire fences and my plan is to finish up this winter with the remaining fence changes. But i’m old, so we’ll see how i get along. Driving even fiberglass posts is starting to wear on me, but it sure builds muscles in my back and shoulders.

To the far right of the photo (this map is from 2015), you can see the white line which is the temporary polybraid which the deer took out 4 times this week, releasing my cows from their confines. The turquoise line represents polybraid as well, but was primarily used to guide them to the paddock on south with the red line drawn east to west (700 feet). Between it and the yellow line south of it are where the cattle are now. That little patch is about 3 acres – by allowing the recovery period to be over one year, there is at least 6000 lbs of forage per acre (about 18,000 lbs total). For my 135 cow/calf units eating about 30 lbs per day (about 4000 lbs) there is more than enough to provide them with quality forage for Shabbat (saturday 11F), Sunday (too cold for me 13F), and Monday afternoon (i might survive being outside). I’ve already strung out the next allotment so i won’t have to be outside for long, although i will have to allow time to drain and winterize a water tank i forgot to do before the cold temperature plunge. UPDATE (8Jan22) temperatures have entered the arctic zone and it is important to leave more residue for the cows to lay on so they avoid resting on short grass and have better footing over the snow and ice. Additionally, the cows have increased their forage intake to combat the brutal cold.

So what was the discouraging parts. DEER! I spent about 8 hours this week chasing cattle back into their appropriate paddocks for total grazing of the their winter stockpile and repairing broken poly braid and replacing busted step in posts, and straightening the metal probe on those posts that were bent. I still managed to finish up driving all the fiberglass posts and re installing the wires on the fences I’m changing (my back, neck, shoulder, ribs, hips, feet, skull adjustment appointment is Wednesday, so i was really wanting to finish that beforehand, so i can rest and recover from the physical pounding).

As it turns out, since i gave up chasing cattle, i moved them all to the Buckman 80 and drove them to the far south of that paddock. I plan to total graze them away from the water. Winter time, i don’t have to worry with regrowth, so with even my few number of cows, this is a workable plan. The move was perfectly timed – we are now in snow, cold, ice, wind. the day before was 51F, today (the 1st) the high is 12F. The cows and calves have plenty of belly deep grazing and access to wind cover so that my next trip will be Monday afternoon when the temps rise above freezing and hopefully a bit of sun.

The other silver lining to my deer problems is that i went back to the drawing board on Google Earth and rerouted my proposed new fence placement to go around the timber. Deer on the run will not respect electrified fences no way, no how for any number of years the fence is there. It’s weird, but that’s the way it is. Since i don’t want to be fixing fence everyday, i will simply not put it in there. Now, that is not to say that i won’t have to fix fence. There will be plenty of that because the deer take down all the fences eventually, but to avoid their favorite runs seems to be wise.

Stop being Lazy!

Wrestling with the option of moving my cows across the road to the Bowyer Farm or setting up 1/3 of a mile of poly braid and step in posts, then cajoling the cows to follow me nearly a mile to hay bales set for bale grazing, i decided to do the easy (but wrong) of moving them across the road ….. until i listened in on Jaime Elizondo’s Q and A session on total grazing/adapted genetics. Someone asked a question pertinent to my situation and Jaime’s answer goaded me into the proper choice.

In actuality, this afternoon turned out sunny and reasonably warm, so it was a pleasure to do much walking. The cows were taking their afternoon nap, so after encouraging those lying down get up, they decided to patronize me by following me to the chosen paddock with hay. They were quite pleased with the grazing selection.

Set up with Thorvin kelp and natural salt in the mineral pan and a 200 lb tub of 20% mineral supplement (to help with digesting the high fiber diet), they settled in and seemed content for Shabbat.

Shabbat Shalom, my friends!!

tauna

Why was this the right decision? 1) keeps cows from grazing those young plants trying to green up and grow. Grazing too soon will set the grass growth back for the entire year! 2) the green grass will be too high of protein and likely cause squirty manure which can lead to loss of body condition and a host of infirmaries due to high pH in the gut.

Most were happy to chow down on some good hay – others wanted to nibble at a speck o’ green.

With my new total grazing scheme, this little Delar Small Burnett plant will have a year without grazing (well, can’t control the marauding deer) to fully express its potential.

Snow Still on

The snow is still on along with some ice and this prickly thistle must have some vital nutrients since i observed a few of the cows purposefully selecting bits off this frozen plant. Typically, they’ll only eat the flowers off in the late spring, but this cow is showing her calf how to strip off the branches and leaves and eat them here in winter – leaving the stalk. Otherwise, there is a lot of fescue and other grasses they will thrive on with a bit of effort in this paddock. Not doing the more intense total grazing right now since there is more snow forecasted and i sure don’t want more polybraid strung out again. Uggggh. Additionally, these paddocks they are grazing now are really just gleaning in preparation for better total grazing next winter.

Iced Up!

Thankfully, it’s not heavy ice, but it is slick and i’m cramponed up to keep from falling and even though i use polybraid and not poly tape, the ice was heavy enough to bring the fence down to the ground.

After taking a couple hard falls on ice last year and knowing the amazing work crampons do whilst hiking glaciers in Iceland last year (2019), i invested in a couple sets of inexpensive crampons for the very occasional Missouri icy winter days.

Iceland – September 2019 (perhaps a bit of tricky photography here)

With below freezing weather for the next 5 days, i left it up as best as i could and still have it peeled back so the cows wouldn’t get trapped behind it. Sounds odd, but stock can always get across a fence one way, but are stymied by a return.

So they are set now with access to the water tank though it is unlikely, with all the snow, they’ll make the trek, but they also have a clear path to their protein tubs. The poly and reels are frozen stiff, so the cows/calves have the whole paddock for their enjoyment. There isn’t a lot of forage on the remainder of the paddock so i’m not concerned with them wasting any. Just glad i don’t need to go back and check on them in this cold and icy weather (with winter storm moving in tonight and another 5 inches of snow forecasted)- did i mention a few times i don’t do cold?

This is where that flexibility in grazing happens.

All the fence is iced up and laying nearly on the ground like this. The cows simply stepped over without much thought to whether or not they were out.

Cows in wrong temporary paddock. No need to try and fix it up. Wait until the thaw before getting back to total grazing.

Not much ice on the tank, but some since cows aren’t using it for water source.

• 

• 

• 

Cows graze right through this little bit of snow and ice – teaching their calves how to graze. Still a lot of green beneath the snow.

Total Grazing – It’s Cold

That cold weather hit on monday – knew it was coming, so i did have a plan and that was turn them loose on the remainder of the paddock which is predominantly timber with not a lot of forage anyway. I plan to return in about 3 days when it warms up. The cows are perfectly capable of thriving without me looking at them everyday. Total Grazing on holiday as well.

Here’s a screenshot of the portion i’ve started with my new Real Wealth Ranching Total Grazing plan. Hopefully, i can explain it here so it makes some kind of sense. The paddock outlined in the thin red line is ground zero – particularly to the right of the purple line running through the middle along the pond. It was at that point i started with stripping off enough to move the cows 2-3 times per day. During these past 12 days, i’ve managed in this manner until the thin red line shown along the timber. At that point, after one time of trying to strip off through the timber, wrestling multiflora rose bushes, and crossing 2 deep ditches, i was not having fun and it was to turn very cold the next three days. Monday evening, i reeled up all the polybraid i had out, picked up the step in posts, and gave the girls the remaining grassy patches and the entire timber (south to the yellow line). I don’t do cold weather, so the plan had to give way. Friday, when it is somewhat warmer, my plan is to start stripping off to the south (towards the bottom of the picture). I will set up a polybraid from the gate to my south permanent fence, then start leap frogging 2 polybraid fences from that temporary fence to the highway (to the right). This will take 3 reels, polybraids, and multiple step in posts.

What will they do for water? the paddock has a water tank below the big pond all the way to the left of the screen shot. Even when grazing to the south of the timber, they could go back to it for water. However, that is unlikely because there is plenty of water in the timber ditches. Putting in a back fence is not necessary for winter grazing since the forage is not growing.