For a minute there I thought I had to get off my couch, when all the while the fact is we don't have to do anything much but keep things afloat for just a few decades more! In fact, we'd best shut up about PO, because if our offspring finds out we knew about it all along, they'll turn and wring our necks come 2036!
Yup Skyemoor, the Dexter and the Irish Moiled are two "rare breed" cattle native to Ireland. The Dexter is quite a small cow, more a "house cow" type, and I hear the meat is excellent. Most people who have them still feed them grain though, even the organic farmers. I wonder if anyone over here does pure grass fed? I'd be really interested to taste the meat.
Insurgent.. yes I realise that you raise them yourself. But you have to have the cow in order to raise it. I was wondering where one would buy a quality cow like that in order to raise. _________________ We've tried nothin' and we're all out of ideas.
I am only one. I can only do what one can do. But what one can do, I will do. -- John Seymour.
Wow.. the time delay between the posts is seriously messed up
Skyemoor, I'm nowhere any of the farms you posted, they're all in England
However, I'll ask around and see if there are any nearby that does purely grass fed. My butcher should know of someone. _________________ We've tried nothin' and we're all out of ideas.
I am only one. I can only do what one can do. But what one can do, I will do. -- John Seymour.
My dad raises cattle. He turns a couple out each year for "personal consumption" and feeds them a loving diet of grain for at least 9 months. Sometimes he gets buzy and they eat all grain for a year...
I dont know what the alure of grass fed beef is. My dads beef cuts with a fork and even my east coast wife will eat it rare. Hell I undercooked a roast a while back and while the women folk ate the outer parts us menfolk ate the meat a few degrees shy of rare... blood dripping from our mouths and nothing but groans of satisfaction to be heard.
Fat is nice. I trim the excess from steaks, fry it up and eat it. Yummy yummy yummy. _________________ Every morning a gazelle wakes up, knowing it must run faster than the lion or be killed. When a lion wakes up, it knows it must outrun the gazelle or starve. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or gazelle, when you wake up you'd better be running.
Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 6375 Location: My Grandkids' Farm
Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 5:15 am Post subject: Re: [Sm. Farm] Grass Farming
Tanada wrote:
Uhm gee, I guess my family was weirder than I thought, all of our steers growing up were graze raised, not grain fed.
This is another Back to the Future subject. My folks also raised Herefords on grass until the feedlot put on maybe the last 100#. People further in the past worked very hard to get grain and feeding it to cattle was foolish since they did fine themselves on grass. In the future we may again need to work hard to get grain and feeding it to cattle will again seem pretty silly.
But like everything else, knowledge in this area hasn’t stood still over the last 50 years. There has been quite a bit of experimentation in pasture management. In order to get the most out of a piece of ground - and keep getting it, takes a bit of knowledge and work.
Anyway, I signed up for a 3-day Grazing School the end of October. It’s put on by the extension and the USDA, I Googled and they are available all over - though it is a little late in the year for them now. _________________ Make a plan and work it:
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 11996 Location: zombie horde wonderland
Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 5:42 am Post subject: Re: [Sm. Farm] Grass Farming
Here's an organization who are trying to encourage ranchers to restore tallgrass prairie to their land here in Central Texas. I'm very excited about this movement and I hope it takes off. If we can get some help from the state, that would be terrific.
http://www.hrm-texas.org/ _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow..." - jboogy
Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 6375 Location: My Grandkids' Farm
Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 6:15 am Post subject: Re: [Sm. Farm] Grass Farming
A couple of weekends ago we went to the field day at the local extension research farm and they were very proud of the new "experimental" plot of native grasses they were preparing – kind of ironic huh?
Just as a sideline, I have been reading a local history book and it mentions several old timers who remembered the creeks and rivers here never flooding. In those days much of the Ozarks had very little timber; everything was prairie (prairie fires kept the trees down). Big Bluestem, Switchgrass, Indian Grass, etc all make a thick mat of sod that slows runoff and allows rainfall to percolate into the heavy soil. _________________ Make a plan and work it:
Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 10:56 am Post subject: Re: [Sm. Farm] Grass Farming
There is a huge push on in wisconsin to get farmers to practice pasture grazing instead of feedlot farming (I love WI) andway, here was an article that was in our local newspaper 2 weeks ago...
Quote:
Everybody knows the grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence. In Bruce Koenig's pasture, it looks taller and leafier, too.
That's because the rural Loganville farmer practices rotational, or management-intensive, grazing - a technique that continues to grow in popularity among Wisconsin farmers. Proponents say it is cheaper, more sustainable and less time-consuming than the conventional method of confining livestock and feeding them harvested crops.
With rotational grazing, a farmer divides his pasture into sections. He moves his cattle from one section to another as they deplete the grass.
The technique allows grasses and clover in one section to grow while cattle eat in the next. It also stems soil erosion and saves labor.
"They're out here harvesting their own feed and spreading their own manure," Koenig said Friday, speaking to a group of fellow farmers and agriculture experts during a pasture walk sponsored by the Greater Sauk Graziers Network. Behind him, a herd of clean, full-bodied heifers nibbled on orchard grass and clover in their paddock.
Koenig said he was attracted to rotational grazing because of all the time and effort he spent making hay for his cattle. He took a class taught by Doug Marshall at Madison Area Technical College-Reedsburg, and for the past three years has grazed heifers on about 20 acres of pasture.
"The reason rotational grazing works is because it's so much more productive," said Brian Pillsbury, a grazing land specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Pillsbury said each plant is most nutritious when it is leafy and still growing. With rotational grazing, cattle nip the tgrass and it rejuvenates several times before going to seed, at which point it is not as tasty and the animal won't eat it.
The technique seems simple, and on one level it is. Koenig said any farmer who divides his pasture in at least two parts would notice an improvement. But full-scale rotational grazing is full of nuance, from how soon the animals are moved to what seeds to sow and when to raze the weeds that inevitably pop up.
The goal is to get the plants so thick and leafy they crowd out weeds, Pillsbury said. It doesn't happen overnight, and for some plots cutting weeds and irrigating will maximize profit, he said.
Part of Pillsbury's job is to convince farmers to start grazing. He said his office has set a goal of increasing grazing acreage by 10 percent across the state every 10 years. He and nine other specialists educate farmers on grazing techniques and help them incorporate grazing on their farms.
Management-intensive grazing caught on across the state in the 1990s, growing from 7 percent of Wisconsin farms in 1993 to 22 percent in 1999, according to a study conducted for the Program on Agricultural Technology Studies at the University of Wisconsin.
Koenig's neighbor, Larry Wilkinson, started moving his cows in pasture five years ago. The technique works well for his 60 head of cattle, he said, because he has an older barn that is not comfortable for the animals. Moving them out into pasture where they are more comfortable increases their yield, he said.
Koenig and Wilkinson said rotational grazing is not for everybody. A farmer with state-of-the-art barns and feeding stations won't get much return on his investment by leaving it empty while his cattle roam a pasture, Koenig said. But for farmers like Wilkinson or for new farmers, rotational grazing means they don't need fancy shelter or a lot of harvesting machinery.
"For starting out it's a really good way (to go)," Wilkinson said.
And if it doesn't work out, Koenig said, a farmer could turn the pasture back into crops without losing much more than his investment in fencing.
According to several studies, it's also cheaper than conventional confinement methods. Sauk County Agricultural Agent Paul Dietmann told the group a study from the University of Minnesota found raising heifers in confinement cost $1.32 a day per animal, while management-intensive grazing cost 93 cents a day.
Dietmann also put together a sample budget for a Sauk County farmer. It compared costs per animal at $1.28 a day using confinement methods and 50 cents a day using managed grazing.
There is a huge push on in wisconsin to get farmers to practice pasture grazing instead of feedlot farming (I love WI) andway, here was an article that was in our local newspaper 2 weeks ago...
Quote:
Everybody knows the grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence. In Bruce Koenig's pasture, it looks taller and leafier, too.
That's because the rural Loganville farmer practices rotational, or management-intensive, grazing - a technique that continues to grow in popularity among Wisconsin farmers. Proponents say it is cheaper, more sustainable and less time-consuming than the conventional method of confining livestock and feeding them harvested crops.
With rotational grazing, a farmer divides his pasture into sections. He moves his cattle from one section to another as they deplete the grass.
The technique allows grasses and clover in one section to grow while cattle eat in the next. It also stems soil erosion and saves labor.
Why the heck is it that something considered common sense in Michigan in the 1970's is considered revolutionary today? I think it is because the bean counters and factory farms took over agriculture and removed all the common sense in the mid 1980's, what do you think? _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
It’s really not such a hard thing to understand. I could buy 12% -16% protein feed today and can get 2#-3# a day of gain – that’s maybe $1.50 - $2.40 gross per head from maybe $.80 worth of feed; not a bad return.
I wouldn’t need hundreds of acres of land worth hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to make a living either, just a fenced lot and a feed truck.
Of course that all depends on cheap grain and we know where that comes from. _________________ Make a plan and work it:
Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 6375 Location: My Grandkids' Farm
Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 9:04 am Post subject: Re: [Sm. Farm] Grass Farming
I attended a 4-day Management intensive Grazing class through the NRCS and University Extension this week. The main focus was how to feed animals on grass while minimizing other inputs.
Aside from overview presentations by just about every person in the NRCS, the main focus was on the mechanics of rotational grazing; water, fencing, forage estimating, stocking rates, etc.
Someone earlier in the thread wondered why this is supposedly such a radical new idea when they had been running cattle on grass for years. The point with management intensive is, instead of turning say, 20 head of steers out on 40ac and just letting them do their thing, you cross-fence (ether permanently or temporarily) that field into 8 or 12 small paddocks and move the animals to fresh forage every 2-3 days.
The difference in utilization of the forage increases from about 35% for continuous grazing to as high as 75% with a 12-paddock set-up.
The animals continuously have fresh new growth graze which is highest in food value. Additionally, the pasture benefits from extended periods of recovery with each paddock grazed only 2-3 days and rested for 15-30. The relatively heavy stocking rate forces the animals to be less selective, resulting in more even grazing. This reduces weeds and encourages plant diversity, and results in more even distribution of manure, less compaction and lower chances of erosion.
An additional and not small benefit is that by feeding the animals where the forage grows, most of the nutrients are returned directly to the soil instead of being exported in hay. The numbers cited were a $20 big bale of hay contains approximately $4-$6 of NPK.
It was interesting, from a PO perspective, how many times the costs and impacts of big machines, big fuel and fertilizer bills and big monocrop grain farming came up as the main reasons to put in a rotational system.
A presentation by a daemon economist on the topic of; bigger isn’t necessarily better, was a pleasant surprise.
As pip and cat mentioned there are cost sharing programs available for many improvements like planting warm season grasses, water and fencing. The course is a requirement for qualifying for the programs. The courses are held in just about every county in MO and I assume many other states. _________________ Make a plan and work it:
Joined: Apr 21, 2004 Posts: 508 Location: Republic of Texas
Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 10:16 am Post subject: Re: [Sm. Farm] Grass Farming
Is there a rule of thumb on how many or how big the paddocks should be? For example (my example), 20 cows on 160 acres. I'm sure even dividing the pasture in half would be an improvement, but not necessarily optimum. I assume carrying capacity factors in somewhere.
I've thought about this a lot and need to do some research or find a class. I don't know of anyone in my area that does this. _________________ The road goes on forever and the party never ends - REK
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 11996 Location: zombie horde wonderland
Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 10:37 am Post subject: Re: [Sm. Farm] Grass Farming
In a "brittle" area, where there are frequent droughts, the rest periods between rotations should be much longer than in moist area. In parts of Austalia they rest approx seven years between grazings, with good success. You also need to make protected areas in each paddock where the grass isn't grazed at all (like a little 6 foot by six foot fenced area) so you can see what the effect of the grazing is.
I'll try to find some helpful links. _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow..." - jboogy
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