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.

Cold Snap – Total Grazing

Total Grazing takes a pause since i gave my ladies enough grazing to last 2-3 days Wednesday afternoon. Although the high temp for the day was forecasted to be 51F, that was first thing in the morning with temps dropping rapidly throughout the afternoon and winds picking up to 20 mph and regularly gusting to 40 mph. Thursday’s high might sneak up to 23 and drop to 9 in the night. Admittedly, i am a fair weather rancher, so the girls are on their own until Saturday when it warms up for the day. But they are haired up with warm coats, plenty of fresh water, protein tub, Icelandic Thorvin kelp (i purchase from Welter Seed & Honey by the pallet load (2000 lbs), and clean (without YPS) salt harvested by Independent Salt Company, thought it’s actually purchased from and delivered by Vit-A-Zine, Butler, Missouri.

My cows are doing okay on this 20% all natural protein, but when i move them to 4 year old endophyte infected fescue leftover from the organic soybean farming situation, the protein level may need to be boosted for them to effectively utilize the forage. I’m researching that situation since i’m not keen to offer urea which is the main way higher protein tubs get to the 30%-40% level. First, however, after the postal delivery crush of holidays, i’ll be sending off forage samples to assess the TDN and protein levels – maybe they won’t need higher protein. On an aside, i built this little sled out of scrap materials which is a necessity if i need to move the tub with the cows (by pulling with my JD Gator)- it weighs 200 lbs to start.