Cows as a tool

Drought-proofing our pastures has come about as we changed our grazing management.  It’s hard to hit it right every day, but I am getting better at it.  It isn’t just rainfall that makes pasture, as a quick drive around my immediate area will tell you.  Neighbors think we have abundant grass because we have had abundant rain, but the rain clouds have dumped on their land too, and they are almost out of grass.  Well, actually they are out of grass, but they don’t really think so, as long as they can look out and see their cows eking out a bite of grass they are happy.  The thought of feeding the cows now and giving the meager pastures some respite from the continuous grazing is virtually unheard of.  These days many of our neighbors think we don’t have cattle anymore because they rarely see them because of the rotation schedule and we have grass!

Last year for the first time I started really grazing my hayfield headlands aggressively before we cut hay.   Our old practices were to cut the hay and then maybe let the cows in to clean up the edges.  But we were violating the second bite rule by doing that.  The cows pretty much left the edges and  preferred to eat the tender new shoots coming up where the hay had been cut, which really set back quite a bit of acreage.

Obviously grazing the edges does sacrifice some hay, but the benefits have far outweighed that problem.  This photo doesn’t show really how steep and shady this pasture gets, and by grazing the steep, shady part before the hay gets cut, voilà, that pesky outside round dries better.  If you have made much hay you know what I am talking about, even if the entire field is double raked, the outside round just does not dry as well with less air circulation.  I hate heavy, damp bales – we have to set them aside, if they don’t heat up, they will mold.

In our fields we have definite keylines,  so a straight fence isn’t always in order, as you can see I followed the contour of the hill with my fence.  This photo also shows that on our ridge tops the soil is poorer, hence the false dandelion strip.  Just to the right to that on the south-facing slope you rarely even see a false dandelion.  While some may think I need to eradicate that weed, I just look at it as a tool to tell me what is going on with my soil and plan accordingly.  And really the biggest factor is if the cows readily graze a weed or not?  They relish these false dandelions, so by not tensing out and getting out the chemicals and amendments, but by applying grazing pressure I can relax and enjoy the art of soil building.

This is kinda, sorta in the same hayfield, but is right along the county road.  As long as I can remember there has been Scotch Broom there in that fence row, where the soil is good the Scotch Broom doesn’t take hold and encroach into the field, but just over the ridge, where the land is weak and grows a poor pasture stand, it tries to spread.  We aren’t doing anything different, but the plants know what to do.

Since I really want to build the soil here, I want the cows to trample some of this forage, not clean it up.  Trampled forage = carbon, manure = nitrogen.  A great combination for building up pasture quick.  But alas, hard to do, every paddock.  If the paddock is too large, they waller the grass down and don’t really cover it entirely with manure, so to use the cattle as a tool, instead of hog mowing this, I made skinny paddocks and moved them twice a day.  You can really change the herd interaction with a narrow paddock.  They move around more, and trample more.  The twice a day move gives them plenty to eat, and gives me the coverage I want.  I also waited to do this until I had removed my 2-year-old steers from the herd.  They add a little too much herd action, and I didn’t want any breakouts into the hayfield.  That is tempting fate too much for me.  After this treatment once a year, this soil will be too rich for the Scotch Broom, it won’t set seed here.

Something I don’t ever really see anyone mentioning in grazing articles is that you get no manure coverage near the electric fence.  So it is imperative that the fence be moved a little each time you rotate back to the same paddock.  If you’re truly getting a good size rest period built into your grazing program, it isn’t a problem.  The strip where my cows are presently was one paddock in early May, now it will yield 7 or 8 paddocks.  That is how I am increasing my rest period – as the grass grows more, the cows need less space for a day.  But it does require observation of the cows and the forage.

Good litter and plentiful disturbed  cow pies.   Woot!  Makes you wonder if I am a little disturbed?

Here we’re looking across a hayfield into the next field, the cows are in the strip I mentioned above.  One days grazing in early May, now it is at least a weeks worth.  It’s hard to see but the cows are down in the swale of this pasture.  When they get done with this strip I will move them uphill where you can see again poor soil on the hillside, but still some excellent grass just above the strip they are in now.  Cows naturally gravitate to the more fertile areas, which over time makes the fertile areas better, and depletes the poor zone more.  To remedy this a I will build a wide strip and then divide that into two paddocks as I inch the cows ahead in the strip – one day they will graze the bottom fertile ground, the next day uphill to the poorer ground.  By doing this the cows will be depositing different seeds and more fertile manure (from the more nutritious plants) on the poor ground, and it also benefits the cows to not eat on depleted paddocks for a week.  They do get crabby, just like us when we aren’t fed nutritious food.

I don’t have all the answers, and building soil with grazing management takes time.   And it is fun to see the changes!