Ever wonder what stockpiled pasture looks like on a cold and rainy December day? Well then you should have been at the Carneys’ pasture walk this past Saturday!
Luckily, Bruce put us in the stock trailer so we wouldn’t get too wet…
One brave soul who arrived a little late even walked out in the rain to join us in the pasture (Jake Myers). (more…)
Ryan and Gene Herman welcomed 24 people to their farm in Allamakee County, Iowa on November 15th. The Hermans utilize Holistic Management principles to set goals for their farm and monitor their progress in achieving those goals.
Our first stop before heading out to pasture was the pen where the Hermans had three bulls they had just bought from Pharo Cattle Company. Unfortunately, it seems I did not get any photos of the bulls. The Hermans want to select bulls that will work well in their low-input system and will produce calves that finish easily on grass. This has meant small frame sizes, but Ryan brought up that some of the grass-fed beef companies are suggesting larger bulls recently. He also is concerned that with small cows, he may have to continue selecting smaller and smaller frame bulls to not have calving problems, because the small cows cannot handle a large calf. As with many producers, animal selection and genetics is a continuous learning process for the Hermans.
It was advertised as a pasture walk – but it was so much more! On Saturday, November 19th, eleven people gathered at Jake and Amber Wheeler’s farm to discuss winter grazing, cattle genetics, cedar tree removal, farm profitability, farm enterprises, marketing, time management and more.
The Wheeler Family
To begin, we brainstormed all the farm enterprises we could think of – that might remotely fit into the Wheelers’ system and be consistent with their values. We had quite a list (which I left with the Wheelers). Most of those enterprises the Wheelers will not start on their farm, but hopefully gave them some ideas of all the possibilities out there.
Fourteen hardy folks gathered on Garth Lloyd’s farm in Scotland County, Missouri to go for a stroll and look at grass and cattle.
Garth showed us around his pastures and shared some of his experiences. Garth is a cooperative seedstock producer for Pharo Cattle Company in Cheyenne Wells, Colorado. He practices high-density grazing on his farm, meaning he moves his herd to a new paddock 4-6 times a day during the growing season. This results in stock densities of 300,00-500,000 lbs. of live animals per acre, and rest periods around 150 days.
Garth uses temporary fences for paddock divisions, and uses a piece of PVC with a notch at one end to lift up the fence for a temporary “gate” (as shown in the photo above).
It is amazing how much green grass is still in these pastures, especially considering that they received almost no moisture from the end of June until the week before the above photo was taken. Most of the stockpiled grass is tall fescue, which stockpiles well but is not so great in the heat of the summer. Due to the drought, Garth has less stockpile available to him this year than normal. He will need to decide whether to buy hay or sell animals, as he does not make any hay himself.
When grazing stockpiled grass, Garth moves twice a day, saying that high stock density can cause damage when the pastures are not actively growing.
Garth’s only culling criteria for cows are whether they wean a calf or not. Using that criteria and by selecting smaller-frame bulls, his average cow size has decreased drastically over the last nine years, with most of his cows weighing around 1,000 pounds now. Many of his remaining older cows that were black and weighed closer to 1200 pounds aborted calves during the heat this summer, and have therefore been culled.
Garth also pointed out places where he has healed gullies through his management, and other places where new gullies have formed. He says water is a constant battle with his hilly farm.
Shanen and Beau Ebersole grew up in different surroundings. She grew up with horses but had little exposure to production agriculture. She feels this gives her an advantage in knowing the viewpoint of her customers. He grew up in a family that raised beef cattle and crops, and has since worked in hogs, as an AI technician, managed feedlots, and most recently as a feed salesman for the local co-op, so one could say he knows cattle.
The Ebersoles have combined their talents and interests to create their protocol for pasture-raised beef that they sell at farmers’ market, direct to customers, and through some wholesale outlets. They raise their animals in a natural, humane way, not receiving any artificial hormones or non-therapeutic antibiotics. They feed grain to their beef animals in a creep feeder on pasture (less than 2% of bodyweight) and harvest them at 14-16 months of age. The bull calves are never castrated, which Beau said acts like “a natural growth hormone”. Shanen likes that they don’t have to go through the stress of castration. From weaning on, the bulls and heifers are kept separate, and they have not had problems with aggressive behavior or with off-flavors in the meat.
We also heard about the lick tubs the Ebersoles use to provide their cows with adequate minerals and protein to supplement the pasture. Beau pointed out that it is important that cattle get chelated minerals, which are more available for uptake by the animals and improve performance. These tubs also contain natural rumen enhancers (not the ionophore Rumensin).
The Ebersoles also talked about the importance of good cattle handling facilities to their operation. This is especially important since they do a lot of custom grazing, which often involves treating animals and artificially inseminating (AI) cows. When they set up this farm a few years ago, they used many of the concepts from Temple Grandin’s book “Humane Livestock Handling” to design their facilities, including ideas like moving cows in a counter-clockwise direction and only moving a few animals through a squeeze tub at one time.
Running custom cows provides good cash flow for the farm, allowing them to prepay all of their pasture rents and then have enough paid-for pasture left over at the end of the season to be able to stockpile graze in the fall and winter with their own cows. Most of the cows were fifteen miles from the farm, so we unfortunately were only able to see a few of them at the field day.
The Ebersoles would like to improve a lot of things on their farm, such as fencing and watering infrastructure, to allow them to rotationally graze more intensively. Their farm also needs to have the fertility built up a lot to improve grass growth.
This past weekend I lost a heifer to bloat. My first reaction was to keep this to myself, as this was a painful and embarrassing experience, especially considering that my professional title is “Grazing Coordinator” and I sometimes even get called “Grazing Specialist”. But after further reflection, I decided to share my experiences, in the hope that someone else can learn from my bad experience, or that I might get some good advice from others.
I only have seven animals, all heifers of various breeds and crosses, what I hope will be the start of my milking herd. I keep these animals on a pasture at my in-laws’ farm, about a fifteen-minute drive from our house.
Svanhild and Kevin this September
The heifer who died was named Svanhild. I bought her, along with her half sister Gunnhild last year when they were about six months old. I am currently in the process of having them bred; Svanhild was due to come into heat this coming Friday. She was raised on a nurse cow, so she was always on the wild side, but had just learned to enjoy some scratching in the last few weeks.
I started grazing them on alfalfa last Monday. I knew this was potentially risky, but I had grazed the same field of alfalfa last year, and I was easing them into it slowly. I wanted to graze the alfalfa now while it is still good quality forage, saving my remaining grass pastures for grazing later in the fall or hopefully even into winter. I started by giving them a strip that was only about 20% alfalfa, since a lot of it drowned out in 2008. They still had access to a portion of the perennial grass pasture as well. I gave them a new strip of the alfalfa every day, with the percentage of alfalfa in the strips gradually increasing. By Friday, the new strip they got was probably over 90% alfalfa (Actually, on Friday they got out of the fence minutes before I arrived in the morning, and I fenced around them so they were no longer “out”. Polywire and step-in posts are great!).
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