1st pasture rotation this year & 3rd year clover (pics)

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Diddo what Jim said. Our grasses grow so quickly, if I had forage that far along, I would hay it to get it back into the rotation. I also rotational graze. But, I prefer a 3-4 day cycle. Right now, I started out every day because that's all a full paddock will feed, but I will eventually end up with about 30 paddocks because I subdivide the main paddocks.
We are not so fortunate to have winter grazing.
Here's what I consider stock piled grazing in November:

Probably a bit "rougher" than what your cattle are used to. But, this doesn't last long, maybe two-four weeks, at most. After that, they are unable to forage even if I had more for them. Cows don't get grained here either, but weaned heifers are grained thru breeding.

 

[agmantoo]

SRBeef
Why do I calve year round? The main reason is financial. I sell calves at least 4 times a year. I like the cash flow but that is just a small portion of why. The main why is the fluctuations in the market. Ag products tend to be lower when the market is flooded. When a commodity is harvested and there is an abundance the price will typically drop. By sending feeder calves to market when the supply is not excessive I feel that I tend to get a better price as I am not selling into what could be an over supply. I realize this is not a perfect plan but worst case I strongly feel that I will end up over the year with the market average. It may not be the market high but it should not be the market low either. Getting the average is better than the risks IMO. Other reasons for calving year round are it spreads the work out. I am a one man show. My bull only has to service approximately 8 cows a month and I get by with a single mature bull and a yearling bull as backup. I have been told numerous times that I can not run heifers with the herd because I will have heifers that are too young getting bred. That has not happened! I did not understand the reason but I had a very wise man give me some insight as to why. He told me that since I had a closed herd that the mature bull was the patriarch and as new male calves were born into the herd they remained subservient and did not or would not aggressively breed their siblings. He said if I introduced an outside young bull I would have problems. I cannot argue with his explanation as he has been correct. My heifers tend to calve at 24 to 27 months of age.

 

[agmantoo]

Jeanne

I have variable size paddocks due to the manner I have my paddocks built now. I only have two permanent parallel wires. I can set a back polywire and a front polywire and progress down the area being grazed with however much forage allocated that I want. I find this much more efficient than the permanent "grazing cells" that I previously used. As you are aware I do not put up hay but without the partition wires the area that comprises the long paddocks would be easy and efficiently harvested. I can bushhog with minimal encumbrance as I only turn at each end of the long rectangles that range from approximately 3 to as many as 24 acres. If your layout would adapt to such, you may want to give this some thought.

Regarding the snow in the pic. We get about that much at times. My cattle prefer the stockpiled fescue to hay under the circumstances. I have read that some Canadians are wind rowing forage for the cattle to eat from under snow. Making hay and feeding same is an expense I want to avoid.

 

[SRBeef]

Here are a couple pictures of the next change showing the difference in grass after about 80 cow days of grazing. I could have let them graze it down a bit more to maybe 100 cow days but this time of year I don't want to graze the grass too short. I also want to move them through faster so other paddocks don't get ahead of us and over-mature.

Here are a couple pictures.

For reference the second photo is about the same spot as the first but about 2-1/2 days earlier.

Some of the cows and heifers get to know when I am going to give them some fresh grass and come and wait for me to roll up the aluminum back wire.

Then they file around the end and put their heads down in the fresh grass and clover. This really makes good use of the grass. The cows keep the weeds down and distribute the fertilizer fairly well too. I'll drag this paddock after the rotation to the far end and there will be little manure showing - and avoidance circles - by the next time through in 30 days or so.

After getting to the trees in the distance the herd shifts to the paddock on the right - other side of the hotwired lane and works their way back towards the camera. When they get to the other paddock I close off this one and drag it.

April Calves should start growing well on mama's milk. Many of the calves are grazing a bit already themselves. FWIW Jim

 

[agmantoo]

SRBeef

Looks great! The grazed area should rebound rapidly. Glad to see you are going to drag the manure. While you are there is that a single buttercup weed with the yellow blossoms in the first pic. If so pull it up. : = )

 

[SRBeef]

SRBeef

Looks great! The grazed area should rebound rapidly. Glad to see you are going to drag the manure. While you are there is that a single buttercup weed with the yellow blossoms in the first pic. If so pull it up. : = )

You bring up an interesting point with the buttercup weed. Note it is close to the wire but you don't see many others - because they have been grazed. In the second photo with the three calves from a few days ago you can see the buttercup had been fairly uniformly distributed in the paddock prior to grazing. If it was not a limited grazing area they would probably not have eaten the rest of the weeds. Thank you for the kind words. Jim

 

[agmantoo]

SRBeef

Buttercup weeds are poisonous. I have never observed cattle that had access to good grazing such as you have eat buttercup. I only saw one yellow plant that resembles buttercup and mentioned what I did so that if that is buttercup you could nap it and prevent it going to seed. Could the other yellow plants that were consumed be dandelion or something similar?

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

I don't see any buttercup - I do see a plant that looks like Yellow Rocket (or Mustard). And, yes, the other yellow flowers I see are dandelian, which cattle readily eat. And, yes, "I" do bend down & hand pull Yellow Rocket.
Agmantoo, thanks for your trying to help me, but I have been successfully rotational grazing for many years before it became "the thing to do". I'm running more than 1.25 cow/calf unit/acre for 7 months of the year, which is excellent in this country. And usually hay 5-10 acres once.
The picture of our cows grazing thru the snow is early in our season. No matter how much "stockpiled" grass we kept, cattle cannot get to it later in the year. Southerner's do not understand what our winters are like. Advise your neighbors.

 

[SRBeef]

As Jeanne points out it must not be buttercup then because the cattle eat it and are not dead yet. Yellow rocket or mustard sounds better but I am not a weed person. As far as I am concerned, anything they will eat is ok, if the cattle will not eat it then it's a weed. By my definition. Dandelions don't bother me because the cattle will readily eat them and anyway this time of year fighting dandelions is basically a losing battle unless you spray heavily which I do not do on anything they are going to graze no matter what the label says.

IF there appear to be significant weeds left in a paddock after rotation (usually after the second time through) I will go over the paddock with my flail mower as soon as the cattle are off of the paddock and then drag it. Keeping weeds from going to seed mechanically (mowing) + grazing them when small is my weed control system.

Jim

looking it up, the yellow plants are yellow rocket, not buttercup.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

This time of year, I'm "plucking" them daily as I walk thru herd - heat checking. Good exercise for us old folks - obviously, there's not a lot of them. I get the whole paddock free of them before they are moved - so they look pretty familiar. :banana:
Yes, Jim, the best weed control is good management. I do spray our thistle. Heard of cattle "trained" to eat them, but I would venture to guess they had to be pretty dang hungry!!!

 

[SRBeef]

This time of year, I'm "plucking" them daily as I walk thru herd - heat checking. Good exercise for us old folks - obviously, there's not a lot of them. I get the whole paddock free of them before they are moved - so they look pretty familiar. :banana:
Yes, Jim, the best weed control is good management. I do spray our thistle. Heard of cattle "trained" to eat them, but I would venture to guess they had to be pretty dang hungry!!!

I don't think I want to let my cattle get hungry enough to eat thistle, I don't spray but get out the mower before they go to seed. I have also come to carrying a weed digger tool in my Ranger and dig any up early before they get too big. Naturally dont get them all but over time between the mowing and digging will get them to where they are not a problem. Will always be some weed seed blowing in from neighbors but as you say, good exercise,

That yellow rocket by the way is a member of the brasicas/broccoli family. Cows eat it readily so I guess I have some good healthy eaters. Thanks for your help.

Jim

 

[agmantoo]

SRBeef
I saw only the one yellow plant that the cattle did not eat. It was odd to me that they left it. That was to only reason I commented.

 

[alaskanbarbwire]

how are you guys watering in your different paddocks?

 

[agmantoo]

alaskanbarbwire
I live in a rolling hills area and the farm just coincidentally has two streams running parallel to each other creating 3 large strips of land. The center strip is about twice as wide as the two outer strips. In the center of the wide center strip I have built a lane running the depth of the farm. In good weather I still allow the cattle limited access to the streams when they graze nearby paddocks. The lane has an underground water line buried most of its length and Ritchie waters spaced to where the cattle should not have to travel more than 800 ft to access a waterer. The waterers are on elevated mounds of earth covered with geo fabric and then crushed stone. I also have 3 dug ponds.

 

[SRBeef]

how are you guys watering in your different paddocks?

I have only one Petersen concrete waterer to cover most of my rotational grazing paddocks. I use lanes back to the waterer which at times may be a quarter mile away. It does not seem to be a problem. Here is a picture from my initial post which shows the single waterer location inside the guard rail in the background.

Frankly I think the exercise back and forth to the waterer is good for the cattle. It is amazing how you can fairly easily divide a paddock up with electric fence once you get the hang of it. When cattle come up the slope shown they can enter one of three different long paddocks. I can choose these by just where I hook a slinky gate as shown. I do not use back fences so just keep advancing the cross wire until they reach the end of the paddock. Jim

edit: there are two slinky gates into the lane in the middle of the long paddocks so I can close off the first half when they get that far and don't regraze the first half as it's trying to recover.

 

[alaskanbarbwire]

Thanks for answers. Sounds like spending more time working on your lay-out rather than digging lines all over the place is thing to do. I am up here in alaska but was raised in southern missouri and will be moving back to our farm this fall (after moose season ;-) ) . Our place has been lying fallow for several years. I have read that you can use mig to bring a pasture back into shape. What are your thought on this?
The last time I was home the pasture was mostly warmseason grasses like big bluestem with patches of the dreaded poor mans alfafa (asian lespodeza) and sumac, with other weeds mixed in. I am sure I will probly have to spray the asian lespodeza and sumac.

 

[SRBeef]

Thanks for answers. Sounds like spending more time working on your lay-out rather than digging lines all over the place is thing to do. I am up here in alaska but was raised in southern missouri and will be moving back to our farm this fall (after moose season ;-) ) . Our place has been lying fallow for several years. I have read that you can use mig to bring a pasture back into shape. What are your thought on this?
The last time I was home the pasture was mostly warmseason grasses like big bluestem with patches of the dreaded poor mans alfafa (asian lespodeza) and sumac, with other weeds mixed in. I am sure I will probly have to spray the asian lespodeza and sumac.

I am not a fan of spraying pastures at all. You almost always end up killing a lot of established good stuff in addition to what it is you are trying to kill. Personally I think get yourself a 90 hp or larger tractor, a good heavy duty flail mower (they take some hp) and go over the entire property. Maybe need a chain saw in some places. Then next spring or preferably this fall interseed by no till drilling what you would like to have in the pastures.

MIG at a high enough density and don't be afraid to come back in with the mower after grazing a paddock and fairly soon the pastures will look very different. My pastures above were about the same way 5 years ago and have just changed completely under this system. Never sprayed at all. Good luck. Jim

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

I, also, basically have just one watering area. In that area, this time of year, we have a 6 hole Mirafount waterer (with the lids off), a 1500 gal tank supplying a small watering tank with a 2" hose & float, and another 150 gal tank with a Jobe float in it.
Cattle walk thru laneways to paddocks. We have heavy milking Simmental cattle & has never been an issue. Furthest paddock maybe 1/2 mile. I walk it all the time, so can the cattle. :banana:

 

[alaskanbarbwire]

Thanks for answers. Sounds like spending more time working on your lay-out rather than digging lines all over the place is thing to do. I am up here in alaska but was raised in southern missouri and will be moving back to our farm this fall (after moose season ;-) ) . Our place has been lying fallow for several years. I have read that you can use mig to bring a pasture back into shape. What are your thought on this?
The last time I was home the pasture was mostly warmseason grasses like big bluestem with patches of the dreaded poor mans alfafa (asian lespodeza) and sumac, with other weeds mixed in. I am sure I will probly have to spray the asian lespodeza and sumac.

I am not a fan of spraying pastures at all. You almost always end up killing a lot of established good stuff in addition to what it is you are trying to kill. Personally I think get yourself a 90 hp or larger tractor, a good heavy duty flail mower (they take some hp) and go over the entire property. Maybe need a chain saw in some places. Then next spring or preferably this fall interseed by no till drilling what you would like to have in the pastures. MIG at a high enough density and don't be afraid to come back in with the mower after grazing a paddock and fairly soon the pastures will look very different. My pastures above were about the same way 5 years ago and have just changed completely under this system. Never sprayed at all. Good luck. Jim

Thanks for the suggestion. I think I will try your way first. If I can accomplish the task without spraying that would be great. Would there be any benifit in over stocking in the begining to try to get the pastures ate down faster and add more manure in the pasture, then sell off to what the land can carry?

 

[SRBeef]

If the field has been fallow for a few years there may be a lot of woody plants that have moved in. If so I would use the mower up high first. You just have to look at it. It can be overgrown but still not have a lot of nutrition for ruminant cattle. Good luck. Jim