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Two options. Option one is to squeeze rhem on tighter paddocs ny dividing your current 1 thru 4 into 8 or ten and then bushhog current 5 thru 8 compeltely. When they get thru the first half, you flip it. Option two, bushhog nehind them and dont force them to eat it down. They are very young, so they need a lot of ice cream. You may want to have them in paddock 1 and bushhog 8 now. Let them take two weeks to get to 8 and it should be wonderful quality by the time they get to it.

Okay so they are on paddock 2 now so I’m going to go cut down paddock 1, I had them on there for 5 days and thought about continuing that schedule. What’s your thoughts on that? Should I go cut ahead? Also in a couple weeks I will have turkeys on the same pasture running 1 paddock behind the cattle.

Thanks ks for the comment. This is easoer said if you have a source for a ton of free poly. I find side jobs often and one was dismantling tens kf thousands of feet of poly rope and wire that had been used for only three years before the landlord sold the farm for development. One recommendation: dont buy thick poly rope. Buy a thicker poly wire. It goes further than straight poly rope and holds up over longer distances than poly rope. It is much stronger than polywire.

Devons cross very well on almost anything. If you are a grazier, you are more looking for the correct grass phenotype in your breeders. If you are unsure of what I am referring to, look up Jan Bonsma.

Thank you for the support!

Where would I begin... never plant fruit trees right into crappy ground during a drought when you have no water infrastructure, no mulch and no protection. During your buildout phase, focus on making chores easy. You don't have to move animals 3 and 4 times a day to regenerate soil. Yes, that is faster but it is also faster to burnout. Water infrastructure pays dividends in time and money. Buy animals from farms using your same production methods. Do whatever you can to not borrow money to pay for any depreciating asset like a tractor. Get away from the farm every once in a while. Have a core group of people you cab call during livestock breakouts or medical emergencies.

Thank you for all the information. I appreciate it.

I believe our cultivar was the standard cave-in-rock. I know a lot of progress has been made toward palatability with some of the more modern varieties. Regarding extending your grazing season and putting in cereal Rye... I would say it might be better for everybody if you went through and broadcasted cereal Rye during your last switchgrass grazing rotation. You would then use the animals hubs to push it into the ground. Trying to drill through the switchgrass while there is still quite a lot of vertical height may prove quite unsuccessful. And if you bush hog it down the Sach maybe too thick for the drill to get through. I know everyone's situation is different but long-term I would see if you could establish cool-season perennials to complement this warm season grass.

@@TheFaithful1234 Thanks a lots for the infos. Our main activity is to harvest grains of winter crops, thats why perennial cool-season grasses is not an option. We try this year to direct drill cereals in pastures with mixed legumes and plantain, but we think we miss perenial grasses, as you say. Switchgrass could be the warm-season one, and winter cereals drilled every year would our « kind of » cool-season grass. Our 6m direct disk driller can power through quite dense vegetation, lets see with swithgrass. But I take note of the broadcasting+trampling option, I like the idea of having lighter techniques which are often less expensive.

Yep. He is one of the reasons we started doing this a few years ago.

No worries at all; I love to help people get into or advance their grazing abilities. First, a perimeter fence is almost a must have but when we first started, it was a couldn't afford and let's risk it. We knew there would be escapes. Hindsight could have prevented the escapes with a much stronger protable charger. Ours was only two joules. Starting out, yes,we only used net fence and eventually worked up to installing our perimeter. One amazing thing about our perimeter is that we installed a hi tensile electric wire all the way around. So not only do we not need as much net when the animals are near the perimeter but we also can use a plug in charger near our house and jump power for the nets.

As for Winter, we are fortunate enough to rarely have any polar vortexes. That is the only time I will attempt to drag some sort of shelter out there and tuck them into a tree line. Another situation many will run into in Winter without grain is how fast they lose condition without good stockpile and hay when it is 34 degrees and raining and or when they are soaking ert and it drops below freezing and winds pickup. The best survival tool for sheep in winter is a getting them nearly overfat in the fall.

@@TheFaithful1234 In terms of electric netting I used quiet strong charger right from the beginning (which was march this year), and after two days the sheep have learned to stay away from the fence. They did not try to escape ever since that time, even when sometimes I forget to plug in the charger. Regarding the grain, I was planning to stop feeding them with anything other than grass or hay, but maybe You're right that in autumn they should gain some extra fat for the winter season (probably that's what they'd do in nature as well). But what about the summer time? On one hand it gets extremely hot and on the other, there are thunderstorms. Are you always able to provide some trees on the paddock or do You use some portable shelter as well (like big piece of canvas or something like that)?

We do get the occasional 50 -60mph gusts. Generally, the tarps aren't strong enough secured with bungees to act as a sail. There is enough play almost regardless of how tight it is. Unlike securing metal to the roof and having metal sides. If wind gets in one of those, it has to go somewhere. These tarps don't go all the way to the ground on sides.

We are in Southern Ohio. But yes, our got humid Summers are intense.

They are all katahdins. We adore them. We have been in the process of selling them but trying to stay local. As we dont want to go through all the vet inspection and paperwork for interstate transfer owing to the fact we have no handling facilities. We never "work" the animals. We just move them. A lot.

Where are you located at I would be interested in buying some from you this this year

We are an hour east of Cincinnati. Do you know how many you would be looking for?

What state?

@@johnscarboroughregenerativ7240 we are 30 min east of Cincinnati Ohio

Thank you kind sir!

Wow. Well I don't have hurricanes to contend with so my guess is not worth a lot. I would seek out other producers in Florida and along the coast and see what they do. Simply putting cinder blocks on top may prevent the tractors from blowing away but not prevent flooding. Our bigger problem is snow and hard frosts but may have the same solution: we put loose straw inside really thick when it snows. If we know heavy rains are coming a few days in advance, we try to get the tractors on a slope or on high ground. Good luck!!

Some of the things we look for is scouring or poop tails (could be coccidia), emaciated sheep (tape worm, babrer pole) and the worst: bottle jaw- a collection of fluid under the jaw of a sheep caused by a very serious infection of barber pole worm.

@@TheFaithful1234 thank you!

We sell the meat birds. We take them to a Mennonite USDA inspected butcher about 2 hours from our farm. They are by far our most profitable enterprise and a fantastic way to fertilize the pastures.

@@TheFaithful1234 that's awesome. I always wondered how hard it would be to sell the chickens and who you would sell them to. Was it hard to find people to sell them to I actually have a lot of Mennonites around where I live to oddly enough. I guess they mostly live out in the country anyways

@northgadent, for clarification, my own farm, SGR, doesn't sell the meat birds. These are for Turner Farm where I work. Turner already had a large following and very active on farm market. Last year, we sold 1650 chickens worth of chicken sausage, ground chicken and all chicken parts. This year, we are raising 7 batches of 300 to be butchered every 5 weeks. We will see if we exhaust our on farm market's ability to move product. Butchering at the USDA facility, we have the option to sell to restaurants with a simple additional permit, we can raise more than 1000 birds, and we are able to sell very rare foods like sweet Italian chicken sausage or tomato basil chicken sausage or chicken bratts.

@@TheFaithful1234 very cool thanks for the info

@@TheFaithful1234 little confused so 7 runs of 300 in one year, and you butcher at 5 weeks as possessed to 8? also curious how you get your buyers?

Thanks! All we want to do is help people help our world.

@@TheFaithful1234 that is what i am try to set up and do

If you have the ability, I would use pvc pipe to create pathways into the tote. Or you could use a large board hanging over at least 8 inches on every side so rain doesn't get in. We lost a lot of bees to that last year, even with the structures for them to use.

Make sure to keep an eye on the patty for small hive beetles. I stopped putting them in the hives because they are such an easy way for a few Beetles already in the hive to multiply quickly. One trick is to put an unscented swiffer sheet on top of the patty. It traps the beetles. You may lose a few bees but it is a small price to pay.

@@TheFaithful1234 Thank you!!!I have some traps in the hive

I know many concerned about animal welfare will be appalled watching this but I took the video to prove the concept. They are a huge advantage over cattle in Winter in that regard

The last few years we have purchased either angus steers or south poll x angus.

There is one dormer momma but the rest are all katahdins. Every few years we buy one or two rams so I would say not a closed herd. Haven't done that since 2019.

Dorper

@@TheFaithful1234 is their anything you vaccinated against? Do you have any worm problems with the dorpers compared to katahdins?

@@andrew-rp7uy We used to vaccinate against Tetanus and Clostridia when we would castrate (not at the same time). This dorper is our lone survivor. The others had foot problems and worms. She has been katahdin like with her hardiness.