I let my subscription lapse in the mid-1990s. I was very pleased to see that they still exist.
Universals
One of the marvelous things about the SGF is that they publish articles from people who graze animals in all parts of the country.
Some of them are in high-desert. Others in the deep-South. Some are in the mid-West. Others are in the Canadian prairies. Others are in the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida.
The first priority is to have a fence that your animals will respect. If you cannot control your animals you cannot "manage" them.
The "University" will teach you breeding, forages and nutrition. It is all lost if you cannot control your animals.
The seed-bank in your soil and any seed that you bring in on hay will be sufficient for your needs. In most cases, spending money on "seed" is wasted especially if you cannot control your animals.
A field treated as a hay-crop will produce about four times as much forage, by mass, as a field treated as "commons", that is, continuously grazed. The miracle of management intensive grazing is that it delivers hay-crop yields without the fixed cost of tractors, cutters, crimpers, balers and twine. Grazing is also less sensitive to weather.
Own your animals out-right. Finance the land. Banks hate collateral that can go Tango-Uniform.
The bigger the antlers, the more expensive the land. Property in counties that are not known for trophy Whitetail deer is significantly less expensive than "Trophy" producing counties. In general, the farther east you go, the less expensive on a per-cow/calf unit the land becomes.
Manage your pastures to produce 30% +/- 15% legumes and your animals will do fabulously.
Configure your electric fences to make shorts easy to diagnose.
Buy the best electric fence energizer you can afford. A new, utility diesel tractor costs about $1000 a hp. You can afford a $200 fence energizer.
Bonus links
The Stockman Grass Farmer has articles on the free side of the pay-wall. Here are a few to whet your interest.
Are you an accomplished grazier?
What is the Return-on-Investment of subdividing pasture into paddocks?
Managing insect pests without synthetic pesticides
Happy, productive cattle are quiet cattle
If you pop open any of these links, please be kind. The writers are FARMERS, not professional writers. If you find value in these essays, please consider asking for a FREE sample ISSUE or subscribing to Stockman Grass Farmer for a year.
Disclosure: I get no benefit from this "plug" other than knowing that I might be helping a fine magazine last a few more years.
I subscribed for 6 years, still have them somewhere. Turned an overgrown woodlot into prime pasture and kept the big pecans scattered throughout.
ReplyDeleteLots of good info.
Did you ever see the pictures of the land rush I think in Oklahoma in the 1800's? That picture ,for some reason, reminds me of it
ReplyDeleteMy wife owns a small 2 1/2 acre pasture which is broken up into thirds in deep south Texas. Two different water sources, a pair of steel bath tubs used to water them. We run two small cows and a donkey on it to maintain ag status. The donkey to keep a small noxious shrub under control. The cows would not touch it, the donkey ate it with little reluctance. Very protective instincts the donkey has. It is rather abusive, he pushes the cows around quite a bit. Even with castration, he is pretty controlling.
ReplyDeleteGRAZE magazine - grazeonline.com - is another good resource.
ReplyDeleteI read the article "Happy Cows Don't Bawl" just to get a feel for the thing. The funny thing is, you could apply a lot of the wisdom contained in that article to people.
ReplyDeleteWhile I am not a subscriber, I did get the free issue several years ago from SGF. I enjoy their practical information and have implemented a good bit of it with our small acreage and handful of sheep. I recently spent some time listening to talks from their latest grazier's conference while driving (via their Youtube channel). I've learned a lot from Greg Judy in particular.
ReplyDelete