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.

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.