The future of the dairy cow??

[Nat(wasIxy)]

@OldKat 19463 wrote:

John,

I think you and Ixy are actually talking about two different things. I think she is talking about using material that has been already been FULLY composted. It is possible for some composts to be high in potash (K), or potassium carbonate, depending what plant material or other organic (carbon containing) parent material was composted. It is NOT a given that ALL composts are high in potassium, but it clearly DOES happen.

Yes we were talking about the two different things – re: the potassium, I was purely referring to rotted cattle manure&straw and pasture. usually it’s applied year in, year out without any knowledge of what’s in the pasture – perhaps needlessly pushing up potassium. You need to get the pasture tested to find out what it’s short of before applying anything is my point.

[jac]

Ixy the mob stocking idea sounds exactly what the native Americans did with the buffalo to create new pasture.. they would select an area and wait till the grass was mature then chase a huge herd of buffalo/bison over the area..usually in a rainy season.. this would create the same effect. Nothings really new is it..
When you move the herd onto the next strip are they kept off the area they have just left ? Also does this system do away with having to plow out old, tired pasture ?
John

[OldKat]

@jac 19479 wrote:

Ixy the mob stocking idea sounds exactly what the native Americans did with the buffalo to create new pasture.. they would select an area and wait till the grass was mature then chase a huge herd of buffalo/bison over the area..usually in a rainy season.. this would create the same effect. Nothings really new is it..
When you move the herd onto the next strip are they kept off the area they have just left ? Also does this system do away with having to plow out old, tired pasture ?
John

John,

The people that I know that use mob grazing have done away entirely with plowing or renovating the pastures in anyway, unless you consider the beneficial grazing patterns to be a form of renovation (which usually is the case). Some of them have actually done away with feeding any hay, or have cut it back to a fraction; maybe 10 to 20% of their previous total. That would be fantastic for me to get to that point; hay is easily my biggest headache and most expensive input.

You make a great point about the various tribes that actually “managed” the grasses with pressure on the herds to move into or away from a specific area. Often they did this with fire. Supposedly the grass responded really well to this and grew back thicker and lusher than it had been before.

There is a grass that is fairly scarce in the US called Eastern gamagrass (Tripsacum dactyloides), but happens to grow in abundance in some of the creek bottoms near where I live. Just south of town there is a real wide flood plain along a creek there and probably 2,500 acres or so of it is in native gamagrass. They generally cut it for hay (my horses will do back flips to eat this stuff). Several of the landowners have been combining the seed for a couple of years and there is some interest in planting it elsewhere to get stands established.

Unfortunately it has proven to be a bear to get established. One of my friends combined some seed and planted about a 45 to 50 acre field in it. After about 2 to 3 years he had next to no gamagrass, but a great weed crop. The next winter someone told him that gamagrass responded well to fire, so that spring before it greened up we burned that place off. That summer he had probably an 80% cover in it. The next year it was probably 90% and this year he is cutting hay off it. It is nearly a pure stand now. Amazing response to a low tech, low input management practice that the “uneducated savages” (not my belief, I am being sarcastic) would have easily understood.

[Nat(wasIxy)]

@Stable-Man 19462 wrote:

This makes sense, but what do you do with the 2 months of bedding? Or are they fed out in the open?

At the moment – use it to grow our veg in.

[dlskidmore]

@OldKat 19480 wrote:

The next winter someone told him that gamagrass responded well to fire, so that spring before it greened up we burned that place off.

How do you control that type of fire? The native Americans didn’t have to worry about the neighbors, the neighbors wanted their grass burnt too.

[Nat(wasIxy)]

@jac 19479 wrote:

Ixy the mob stocking idea sounds exactly what the native Americans did with the buffalo to create new pasture.. they would select an area and wait till the grass was mature then chase a huge herd of buffalo/bison over the area..usually in a rainy season.. this would create the same effect. Nothings really new is it..
When you move the herd onto the next strip are they kept off the area they have just left ? Also does this system do away with having to plow out old, tired pasture ?
John

Up until recently we have only managed to keep them off areas on a field-by-field basis, but now we have a backfence so we have the grass returning while they are grazing the field they are in, giving even more grass – we’re hoping tis extra will counteract the effect of the drought this year.

We never plough, fertilise, top or reseed the pastures – essentially, they lie fallow the whole year except for maybe two or three ‘grazing days’, so there’s plenty of time for them to recover, self-seed and cycle by themselves.

[jac]

Certainly sounds like the sustainable farmers dream.. the only issue I would say is that you would need to be 100% sure your fields were clear of ragwart and any other poison plant. Would cattle and horses not be sort of forced to eat it towards the end of the grazing day ? An interesting concept though and if I can get away from that combine for a day i would like to visit on that open day you planned Ixy.. BTW OldKat did you ever get the chance to try out that recipe for the fly repelent? or did it prove to be a load of croc:D..
John

[near horse]

This GMO bulls**t is also a rigged game. It seems that while there’s solid evidence that GMO corn and soybeans have left us with “super weeds” (resistant to roundup or what have you), stupid USDA is in the process of approving Monsanto’s RR alfalfa seed. The superweed complaints are coming from farmers who actually bought into the original plan and are now asking, “what the hell do we do now?”
It shows the power of Monsanto and other big corps over policy here in the US. It didn’t take a genius to predict that some weeds would survive and pass on the resistance to their progeny – DOH! That’s selection and genetics 101 which doesn’t give a hoot about economics 101!
As far as dairying goes, with processors so far and few between, it’s hard to imagine how big the transportation component of their carbon footprint is. Also, those freakin’ mega dairies haul in huge amounts of commodity feeds everyday – just seems to me you can bend the numbers in which ever direction you’re already leaning towards. Don’t despair – you’re doing the right thing.

[OldKat]

@dlskidmore 19482 wrote:

How do you control that type of fire? The native Americans didn’t have to worry about the neighbors, the neighbors wanted their grass burnt too.

We disced a couple of passes around the perimeter of the field to create a barrier to the fire creeping out of the field. He also owns the adjoining fields on each side, so he shredded a couple of passes on the sides adjacent to the controlled burn about two weeks before and was getting just a hint of regrowth in those areas. These really didn’t come into play, but they are good insurance.

The main thing was that we had about 20 people out with shovels, flappers (old mud flaps off of pickup trucks mounted on an old shovel handle) and back pack sprayers of water to stop any embers that crossed the barrier from flaring into larger flames. We also had a sprayer with a water tank mounted on a trailer to use as a fire engine until the fire department could get there in case it escaped. Fortunately that was NOT required. We also started with a back fire, in other words on the down wind side of the field we let it burn 100 feet or more into the wind before we went to upwind side and ignited the burn. This gave us a really nice buffer.

This was during one of our many recent droughts, so there was a county wide burn ban in place. However, you can get permit to do a controlled agricultural burn if you have a detailed plan on file with the county fire marshall, other ares may do this differently. We had to factor in wind speed, relative humidity and ambient temperature; couldn’t be too hot, too windy or too dry on the scheduled date. All variables were within tolerances. The burn really went well and was actually an enjoyable thing to participate in. It was fun to watch the regrowth, too.

Since then our conservation district has sponsored a controlled burn trailer with all of that equipment in it, except the trailer mounted tank/sprayer deal.
The FFA chapter at our high school actually built all of the racks inside of the trailer to hold the shovels, flappers (store bought this time), sprayers, walkie talkies, hard hats, fire proof vests, etc, etc. They also purchased all of the equipment, with conservation district money. It is a really nice rig. The people that have used it say it is great, but I have never been there when it was actually in use.

You still have to coordinate with the fire marshall, but there are step by step instructions for the whole process on laminated placards in a book inside the trailer. Our FFA won an award for their work in making this trailer happen. It serves our conservation district, which covers all or parts of about three or four counties.

[OldKat]

@jac 19484 wrote:

Certainly sounds like the sustainable farmers dream.. the only issue I would say is that you would need to be 100% sure your fields were clear of ragwart and any other poison plant. Would cattle and horses not be sort of forced to eat it towards the end of the grazing day ? An interesting concept though and if I can get away from that combine for a day i would like to visit on that open day you planned Ixy.. BTW OldKat did you ever get the chance to try out that recipe for the fly repelent? or did it prove to be a load of croc:D..
John

If you can go to a field day, do it. If you like that sort of thing it will really fire you up.

Just about the time I got ready to try the stuff out our fly problem suddenly got better, so I wasn’t going to be able to tell if it was working or if there just weren’t many flys out anyway. As soon as the next batch hatch out I am going to try it out. I don’t really like spraying my animals with those harsh commercial formulas.

[OldKat]

@Ixy 19483 wrote:

Up until recently we have only managed to keep them off areas on a field-by-field basis, but now we have a backfence so we have the grass returning while they are grazing the field they are in, giving even more grass – we’re hoping tis extra will counteract the effect of the drought this year.

We never plough, fertilise, top or reseed the pastures – essentially, they lie fallow the whole year except for maybe two or three ‘grazing days’, so there’s plenty of time for them to recover, self-seed and cycle by themselves.

I have come to know more about drought than I ever wanted to know, so I understand where you are coming from. It may not be enough to completely solve your problem, but I can assure you from first hand experience that it will help. I don’t have near as many cells as you have, because I can’t be there to move them from cell to cell. Still, last summer my pastures were literally the only ones in the immediate area that ANY green grass in them.

The grass was short, because we got virtually NO rain for about 60 days; while we were experiencing 100 plus degree temps for about 25 of those days in a row. We then had another 60 days of below “average” (whatever that is) rainfall. However, I at least had some green grass the entire time. Most people fed hay the entire summer and well into the fall. I had to feed for about 3 or 4 weeks. Big difference; $$$$$$$$$$$$$

[OldKat]

BTW: all of this may not seem like it has much to do with the point of this thread; the future of dairy cows. I don’t think so, because I think ultmately the confinement dairies will collapse under their high costs of doing business (overhead) and the fact that they are selling a commodity product at a very low margin. I honestly think in the long run seasonal, grass based dairies will become the norm. Of course, I will probably never live that long to see it.

[OldKat]

@near horse 19485 wrote:

This GMO bulls**t is also a rigged game. It seems that while there’s solid evidence that GMO corn and soybeans have left us with “super weeds” (resistant to roundup or what have you), stupid USDA is in the process of approving Monsanto’s RR alfalfa seed. The superweed complaints are coming from farmers who actually bought into the original plan and are now asking, “what the hell do we do now?”
It shows the power of Monsanto and other big corps over policy here in the US. It didn’t take a genius to predict that some weeds would survive and pass on the resistance to their progeny – DOH! That’s selection and genetics 101 which doesn’t give a hoot about economics 101!
As far as dairying goes, with processors so far and few between, it’s hard to imagine how big the transportation component of their carbon footprint is. Also, those freakin’ mega dairies haul in huge amounts of commodity feeds everyday – just seems to me you can bend the numbers in which ever direction you’re already leaning towards. Don’t despair – you’re doing the right thing.

Geoff,

I once met a lady whose family contract grazed stocker cattle on farm land they leased from other farmers. They were in Nebraska, I think. She said one year that the cattle ate all of the weeds in the field, any grass they could find and so on. They would NOT touch the corn stubble or any grain they found on the ground. The corn turned out to be GMO corn. Tells me about all I need to know about it. Bad stuff.

[clayfoot-sandyman]

@Ixy 19455 wrote:

The way I see it is that cattle and grassland have evolved together for thousands upon thousands of years perfectly well without human intervention and we can’t possibly know better than that! We may think that doing X, Y or Z would improve it, but we always overlook some tiny detail that makes it unsustainable in the long term, and we’re always going to have to revert to the default system that nature devised….

….It’s an interesting thought, I can’t help but think though that the ancient wild cattle wondered over vast areas, seeking out forage in specific locations at specific times of year, and weren’t squeezed up into little fields. So many problems associated with compaction, grass varieties, soil fertility etc weren’t there because the land was inherently fertile enough and offered the right forage for cattle to stay for short periods of time and then move on without damaging the ground.
We keep them longer than they’d probably like to stay in a given location and the only way that I know to really deepen the fertility of a field so that it can offer more is through applying compost, which applied at the right time adds humus which as we well know is the foundation of healthy soil. My experience of just allowing the cattle to graze and muck the field as they go doesn’t really add much because one is simply cycling nutrient through the cow eating the grass and returning it directly to the field, albeit transformed and partially broken down but it’s not really targetted as in well composted FYM being applied on a specific field and a lot is lost through exposure to the elements when it’s not been broken down to stable humus. Ultimately if one is aiming for closing the inputs from outside so that a farm is relatively self enclosed for fertility then one is probably just moving ones nutrient budget around the farm to some degree, but I think if you don’t do compost at all then a lot more must be lost through leaching and gaseous release?
But you’ve probably had other experiences and I’d be intrigued to know (the proof being in the pudding!)…..still intending on coming up by the way though will be after students break up, up to my arm pits in paper work at present! Ed

[OldKat]

@clayfoot-sandyman 19491 wrote:

….It’s an interesting thought, I can’t help but think though that the ancient wild cattle wondered over vast areas, seeking out forage in specific locations at specific times of year, and weren’t squeezed up into little fields. So many problems associated with compaction, grass varieties, soil fertility etc weren’t there because the land was inherently fertile enough and offered the right forage for cattle to stay for short periods of time and then move on without damaging the ground.
We keep them longer than they’d probably like to stay in a given location and the only way that I know to really deepen the fertility of a field so that it can offer more is through applying compost, which applied at the right time adds humus which as we well know is the foundation of healthy soil. My experience of just allowing the cattle to graze and muck the field as they go doesn’t really add much because one is simply cycling nutrient through the cow eating the grass and returning it directly to the field, albeit transformed and partially broken down but it’s not really targetted as in well composted FYM being applied on a specific field and a lot is lost through exposure to the elements when it’s not been broken down to stable humus. Ultimately if one is aiming for closing the inputs from outside so that a farm is relatively self enclosed for fertility then one is probably just moving ones nutrient budget around the farm to some degree, but I think if you don’t do compost at all then a lot more must be lost through leaching and gaseous release?
But you’ve probably had other experiences and I’d be intrigued to know (the proof being in the pudding!)…..still intending on coming up by the way though will be after students break up, up to my arm pits in paper work at present! Ed

Ed,

I pretty much thought the same thing before I started experimenting with this stuff, but so far I have not experienced any compaction problems etc. In fact I think I have LESS compaction than I did when the cattle had access to the entire place anytime they wanted.

Greg Judy, one of the frequent contributors to the Stockman Grass Farmer wrote an article recently describing how he now has his cell sizes down to the size where he can move them to a new cell every 12 hours. He has his cells PURPOSELY designed so that they are trampling some of the grass down, defecating and urinating on some of it and then moving on to a fresh cell. He said they do not revisit that cell until the grass has fully regrown, yet is still lush. He said his soil fertility and structure is soaring. I have met Greg before. He is one of the most visible faces for holistic grazing that I know of in the US, outside the consultants that are promoting these concepts. I think that if Greg says something is so, it probably is because he struck me as a straight shooter. In other words I have no reason to doubt him.

Thing is, you would just have to try some of this stuff out so you can see whether it benefits you or not. It has for me and I am no where near where I want to be with it. The funny thing is that people all of the world have utilized these concepts, often with dramatic results, yet people just down the road will invariably say; “That won’t work around here, because ….”

I suspect that Ixy has neighbors that are sitting around watching and waiting for her experiment to fail so they can say “Told you that wouldn’t work here!” My guess is they are in for a long wait. Sounds like she has it going for her. Go Ixy.

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