Stocker Steve
Well-known member
Electrical perimeter works, unless u starve cows or have snow drift over it.
Thanks for the detail RDFF. Sounds like things are going well in SE MN. I spent a lot of time in Preston during a previous life.I've successfully converted a fair amount of crop ground directly to grazing in the very first year/seeding year the past two seasons.
Thanks for the detail RDFF. Sounds like things are going well in SE MN. I spent a lot of time in Preston during a previous life.
I have never tried Kale in a mix. I did not like to eat it myself, but I will give the cows a chance next year.
I have avoided early planting of perennial mixes due to a concern about spring frost damage. I have seen legumes killed by frost in the past. Have you seen any of this?
Rydero, what kind of electric fence are you building with the snow flattening it? Using lighter weight line posts? HT? I've got 3 wire HT everywhere for permanent perimeter including along the highway, some where we get heavy drifting (fence on ditch bank below elevated highway to the west for example). My concern would be for the snow dragging the fence down to the ground and grounding it out... but I'm not concerned about it actually flattening the posts, or breaking the wire or wire to post fasteners. I'm using 1 1/4" fiberglass rod for line posts. (Fiberglass Rod Post 1-1/4" - 6' - – Powerflex (powerflexfence.com)) . I like fiberglass for end/corner posts too... (FP4.5x7 ~ Fiberglass Corner Post – Powerflex (powerflexfence.com)). No insulators to break, nothing to ground it out that I installed at least. Makes a big difference. Would help minimize potential issues with elk too.25-30 elk will run right through it. Happened this year on my SS cover crop blend when I was breaking the field into 2 day segments. Last year on (Canadian) Thanksgiving a couple feet of wet heavy snow flattened the electric fence on my swath grazing. No chance of me putting 90 pairs of mostly black cows on a half section with only polywire beside a busy highway, lol. I love electric for breaking down my pastures but I'll have barbed wire perimeter fence so I can sleep at night. I'm up to 15 paddocks for the pairs before I start using my spools and step ins to break them down further.
The fence that got flattened was a temporary crossfence. 80 acre field w a barbed wire perimeter. I ran a wire of high tensile electric down one side then have spools with aircraft cable to subdivide the field. I use step in posts as I move the fence every couple days when I'm grazing covers or swath grazing.Rydero, what kind of electric fence are you building with the snow flattening it? Using lighter weight line posts? HT? I've got 3 wire HT everywhere for permanent perimeter including along the highway, some where we get heavy drifting (fence on ditch bank below elevated highway to the west for example). My concern would be for the snow dragging the fence down to the ground and grounding it out... but I'm not concerned about it actually flattening the posts, or breaking the wire or wire to post fasteners. I'm using 1 1/4" fiberglass rod for line posts. (Fiberglass Rod Post 1-1/4" - 6' - – Powerflex (powerflexfence.com)) . I like fiberglass for end/corner posts too... (FP4.5x7 ~ Fiberglass Corner Post – Powerflex (powerflexfence.com)). No insulators to break, nothing to ground it out that I installed at least. Makes a big difference. Would help minimize potential issues with elk too.
Let us know when you figure out grazing days. I'm looking at doing the same thing with some of my land -- convert to permanent pasture. JThink I can run 200 cows on my six quarters East Central North Dakota. But will need some help. Praying for the right son-in-law to come along! Rye is the most nearly perfect cereal crop! Friend of mine sprays out his alfalfa every few years and no-tills rye. Then right back to alfalfa. Says that's just enough to get rid of the pocket gopher mounds so he can keep baling 8 miles an hour. Rye all goes in silage bags.Well, I'm still working on figuring out what the potential is for grazing days, and for $$$ vs. cropping. I just got back into cattle in 2019 on the ground with the "converted crop ground" photos. The one of the drills is on 2020 spring conversion ground, and the spreader is in the soybeans from this year obviously. Haven't gotten the stocking density high enough to figure out what the carrying capacity potential can be yet.
I converted about 70 acres in 2019, started back into cattle by doing custom grazing. Did that again this year too, and will be next year too, and probably for some years to come. My "C/c guy" and I are on the same page and so far get along really well, great relationship where we both understand that we need each other, and it has to work for both of us, or it won't work for either of us. We can tell each other what we need, and get understanding... both ways. Anyway, from what I've seen so far, I think I could probably get to about 1.3 acres per C/c pair... we'll see. On 4-500# stockers, I think I could probably be at about 1.7 head/acre and carry them for the summer.
I think next year will be the real test. I'll probably be pasturing about 250 acres of converted ground, with only about 80 of that being first year seeding (frost seeding next spring). It seems to yield quite a bit more in the second year (the photos posted previously)....
Piece of advice... MAKE SURE YOU COVER EVERYTHING WITH YOUR DRILL!!! I've still got stripes on my 2019 pasture that's nothing but weeds. Where I had rye because I didn't miss any, it's absolutely beautiful! Guess my poor man's "OUGHT TO STEER" needs some work! I'd much rather dump out extra seed than end up with a bare spot! Last year on my fall planting of cover crops on my row crop ground, I had one drill run empty and I went all the way across the field before I caught it. SOLID waterhemp this spring! Where I had the rye.... nothing! I'll include a photo... And what I noticed when I got down off the tractor was, wherever there WAS a rye plant in that patch of waterhemp, there was a circle around that rye plant about the size of a silver dollar with no waterhemp.... allelopathy I assume. That's one of the reasons that I decided to broadcast rye into my beans this fall.... better seed distribution (not just rye in rows 7 1/2" apart), and an earlier start on the rye. And I upped the seeding rate from about 70#, to a total of about 115# (70# broadcast in early September, followed by the NT drill after harvest with another 45#).
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Vaccinated cows and calves today. Feeling 62 years old! Need younger joints!Let us know when you figure out grazing days. I'm looking at doing the same thing with some of my land -- convert to permanent pasture. JThink I can run 200 cows on my six quarters East Central North Dakota. But will need some help. Praying for the right son-in-law to come along! Rye is the most nearly perfect cereal crop! Friend of mine sprays out his alfalfa every few years and no-tills rye. Then right back to alfalfa. Says that's just enough to get rid of the pocket gopher mounds so he can keep baling 8 miles an hour. Rye all goes in silage bags.
Sounds to me like you need a fence with a built in shear pin every so far! I hate barbed wire just enough to where I think I'd figure out a way to have something like that.... I bet elk meat is sounding pretty good every time they do that to you. I agree with you on the battery chargers... I'm running everything on decent joule AC units. Not alot of options if you have to do battery + solar trickle when the sun doesn't shine strong enough in winter and it's -30. Pretty hard to find a decently big "solar" charger too.... drains the battery too fast.The fence that got flattened was a temporary crossfence. 80 acre field w a barbed wire perimeter. I ran a wire of high tensile electric down one side then have spools with aircraft cable to subdivide the field. I use step in posts as I move the fence every couple days when I'm grazing covers or swath grazing.
This year the elk ran through both the main and backup wire and pulled it all down. Pulled the high tensile off the side too at the same time since it was attached. I'm happy the 10 insulators broke and I just have to replace them and tighten the wire not replace a bunch of posts. Until you deal w them you probably just won't understand. They move as a herd and are prone to panic. I know people who have had them pull down huge stretches of 3 wire barbed wire - posts and all. You want something to break - ideally the wire between 2 posts. I have a stretch of old fence I'll never replace for just that reason - it's sh*try enough to break between the posts and they cross that fence almost every day. My neighbor w the new fence has way more issues than I do.
I use 3 wire high tensile as well. I like working with it better than barbed wire now that I have access to a staple gun for the insulators. But it just doesn't have my trust as a perimeter in most cases. The electric just doesn't work great in the winter and we have lots of willows and brush growing up on our fences all the time. Batteries don't hold much juice at -40 and the sun sometimes doesn't shine for days. I hate to be the person that says "that just won't work here" but for the most part it won't. I work out and when I'm making hay in the summer I don't want to go and fix fence. I'm pretty efficient at putting up a barbed wire fence so it's mostly just the cost that bugs me. I set a budget every year and do what I can. I usually run out of fence money and patience after a few weeks, lol. Barbed wire is extremely reliable especially when you move the cows often. I got one call this summer for cattle out - one last year
I'm sure it'll be significantly different up there than here... rainfall is for sure different, and carrying capacity of the ground too. Don't know what you have to figure for land costs... I'm using $200/a as a kind of average rent that I have to charge myself for my own ground on my spreadsheet. It mostly comes down to density of animals per acre that you can carry though (carrying density, not grazing stocking density). If you look at the numbers I gave you, I'm figuring I can get to 1AU (1000#)/a and maybe a little more, and keep 'em fed all through the summer. I'd like to have some row crop that I grow underseeded/interseeded covers in, and then let them use that as "winter stockpiled feed" once the "summer pastures" have been grazed off.... I think that can have real potential, especially in 60" rows. I'd be willing to leave some corn out there intentionally even for them... like maybe 10% or so, and let the cows do the harvesting.Let us know when you figure out grazing days. I'm looking at doing the same thing with some of my land -- convert to permanent pasture. JThink I can run 200 cows on my six quarters East Central North Dakota. But will need some help. Praying for the right son-in-law to come along! Rye is the most nearly perfect cereal crop! Friend of mine sprays out his alfalfa every few years and no-tills rye. Then right back to alfalfa. Says that's just enough to get rid of the pocket gopher mounds so he can keep baling 8 miles an hour. Rye all goes in silage bags.
One of the previous owners seems to have thought putting springs in the fence would help, but it doesn't haha. They definitely try your patience but overall I like having them around and occasionally in my freezer.Sou
Sounds to me like you need a fence with a built in shear pin every so far! I hate barbed wire just enough to where I think I'd figure out a way to have something like that.... I bet elk meat is sounding pretty good every time they do that to you. I agree with you on the battery chargers... I'm running everything on decent joule AC units. Not alot of options if you have to do battery + solar trickle when the sun doesn't shine strong enough in winter and it's -30. Pretty hard to find a decently big "solar" charger too.... drains the battery too fast.
You guys have me dying to try rye or triticale. Seeded a bunch for the guy I work for this fall but not on my own fields this year.Let us know when you figure out grazing days. I'm looking at doing the same thing with some of my land -- convert to permanent pasture. JThink I can run 200 cows on my six quarters East Central North Dakota. But will need some help. Praying for the right son-in-law to come along! Rye is the most nearly perfect cereal crop! Friend of mine sprays out his alfalfa every few years and no-tills rye. Then right back to alfalfa. Says that's just enough to get rid of the pocket gopher mounds so he can keep baling 8 miles an hour. Rye all goes in silage bags.