cattle to clear brush

[mother katherine]

I’ve been reading this with a great deal of interest. We are as grass based as I can get for now. I have primitive sheep(Icelandics) who eat lots of browse. I put the pickier Romney lambs in with adult Icelandic aunties and they taught them to eat more variety.
I’ve used Jersey cross steer calves to brush out an overgrown pasture perimeter. When they were a few months old, they ran with the Icelandic sheep. When they were about a year I began to tie them to trees and machinery strategically parked in the scrub. I moved them about twice a day and they did a wonderful job clearing, fertilising and generally renovating these areas without my having to lift a finger. A place a mile or so from us began to renovate a massively overgrown field using cattle. Within a year or so, it looks terrific.
My boys just adored burdock(anathema to wool sheep), and, I believe, they ate poison ivy as well. Of course, the fruit got into the tail switches, which wasn’t so great. They’d swing at flies and it sounded like they were beating themselves with clubs. I worked at taking them out but some always remained.
I have read also that variety of what an animal will eat can be traced to its forebears genetics. As more and more cows are bred for confinement systems with hot feed, they are less and less willing to taste or eat growing greens.
Great topic. Thanks.

[Baystatetom]

Here in New England the stuff I am most often called to spray is multiflora rose, honey suckle, burning bush, buckthorn, barberry, and bittersweet. All are vines or shrubs although I have done a few swallow wart, knapweed, and stilt grass jobs as well. These plants are unpalatable to wildlife which is partly how they become so plentiful. The deer over browse the natives and the invasive plants are left with limited competition. The fall grazing idea sounds good as a lot of these plants remain green after the natives have browned out for the winter, however I would think if there is any chance of them getting browsed to any extent the spring of the year would be a better choice because the young shoots are much more tender. I wonder if for my application a first round of mowing would be best with a grazing follow up. This way the large woody stuff would be chewed up. The problem is mowers capable of that type of work are pretty expensive to run.
How many of those seeds make it through a cow or goat and have the benefit of a manure case to germinate in?

Anyway I look at it I think chainsaws, mowers and herbicide have to be involved to some degree. If I am going to charge people for the service they are going to expect a reasonable price for a job completed in a reasonable amount of time. I hope that incorporating animals into the program will enhance the job in someway and become a valuable tool to have at my disposal. The real hang up is convincing my wife that I need to go to the auction and bring home a barn full of critters, or should I say another barn full.

[Robert MoonShadow]

Baystate: Sounds like you’re into a lot of the same stuff I custom-graze my goats on. One of the tricks with using electric netting is to try to have enough netting ( and goats) to surround the entire targetted patch of nasties. I use 4 rolls (165 ft, per) which gives me close about 3/4 acre at a time…stocked with 12-15 goats. I’ve got a pair of loppers and a strong weedeater for when I need it, and when I move them about, I always leave one side in place (only having to deal with 3 sides, then). It can be a pain, at times, but depending on the browse, I usually only move them once every 7-10 days, and charge $10/day…not bad for me goaties eatin’ and poopin’. That’s compared to the larger operations around here, that charge $50+ per acre – I do the small sets tht aren’t worth their time.
Andy – It sounds to me, (based solely on what you described, of course, so I might be off on this), that you didn’t leave the goats on each set quite long enough…with the fence hot, they’ll stay in & eat or trample just about anything in there…including the bark off of a lot of things, especially wild rose. What’s left can then easily be reached w/ a chain saw…or, (my personal preference), a chain hooked to a draft animal, like me donks.
this is just based on my own experiences in the last 5 years out West here, so take that into consideration, too.

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