You can do it!

This has only become more fascinating over the course of the last year. I don't know about you, but I don't plan on feeding my family Beyond Meat and crickets.

@@tun0fun Except freezing in the winter would be an issue here with a siphon over the dam.

@@tun0fun Nah, you bury a frost free valve (in a PVC pipe sleeve for a tool to reach the valve handle) back in the dam with an outlet that goes to a frost free (partially buried) stock tank. geo-thermal warmth keeps everything thawed. Our winter temps only range from 35F to 0F normally and 0 is fairly rare. I've seen it get down in the -10's a few times here in MO, wind chills for sure that low but very rarely and buried water never freezes here if it's over 12"-14" deep minimum.

Hi im new to farming. When you graze cows are you breading them for beef or milk? Or is it for both markets?

Why would you look at running cows there? We have 80 acres and I've fenced out quite a bit of the pastures to block access. Cows aren't designed for rocky pastures. I'm in NZ when they have crap pastures like that, people get sheep. Each cow is 600kg plus. I don't know what that is in pounds but what it equals in lost work for you or added health issues (broken ankles and legs, yep cows fall). It doesn't equal efficient farming practices.

I want to know this as well. I have a mix of cattle. Regardless of color, they all seek shade.

68Tboy , plenty of videos on KZfaq about making portable shade structures (wheeled or skid). Interesting stuff. Watch a few and use your imagination and what you have available to make what works for you. Also, plant trees and selectively leave those that volunteer. I’ve got four acres with shade only around the edges, but I’ve been leaving trees that come up in a good location and planting some in other locations. It’ll be a few years, but worth it.

Do not irrigate, you will go broke.

fence out the creek with poly - use syphon/waterwheel/battery powered pump to elevate to an IBC on the bank and then pipe out from there.

I'm in the process of doing this. You buy outriggers. The poly line is not HT line. if your HT is live then hook the poly to it. You use gate hooks eg isolated handles so you don't buzz yourself

You can just hook the reel to the hot wire on the permanent fence, or use a wire with insulated clips to join the fences.

You are correct on the grazing question

you can get lightning breakers for your fences -

If you get the Cyclops charger Greg recommended it is protected from lightening by easily changeable glass fuses. In fact it comes with extra fuses. If you do want to disconnect a charger the most important thing to disconnect is the ground side/wire connection. Lightening strike electricity mostly comes through the ground side. Trees can get struck by lightning so in my opinion cows under trees in a lightening storm might not be such a good idea.

www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=g780 Seed costs over $25/lb for Sorghastrum nutans, commonly called Indian grass. Just for seed $ales, that might be a productive acre! I want to cut some into a paper sack just so I can have some more growing elsewhere. It'll grow well under black walnut trees too, according to MO botanical gardens. I'm learning so much here - so thanks Greg Judy & your students too.

Joe, btw - For Indian grass: now's the time apparently. " ...Propagation Material: Seeds Description: Propagate by sowing unstratified seed in fall or stratified seed in spring. Sow 1/4 deep. Division of older plants is difficult because of a dense, tangled root system. Seed Collection: Collect seed in fall. Seed Treatment: Seeds require dry stratification. Commercially Avail: yes Maintenance: Indian grass tolerates imperfectly drained soil. It is a good accent plant, however it needs tall companions to remain upright. ..." npn.rngr.net/renderNPNProtocolDetails?selectedProtocolIds=poaceae-sorghastrum-288&referer=wildflower Yeah, I know this might seem extreme but the Native Plant Network ( NPN ) actually has this above propagation protocol for Sorghastrum (nutans).

​@@roberthayes2027I'm glad I'm not trying to buy any. The majority of it got plowed and planted to squash. I guess a hired combine could probably have tripped what the landowner paid got without silting in the stream in the bottom.

Ethan McCormick your farm can be different. I live about 200 miles west of Greg. I burned my pasture this spring. It killed a lot of weeds. It also reduced my grass yield all over the farm. I burned in late March. It is December and I still have Bare patches of ground. I started the year with 3 cows. Now have a mix sized herd of 6. All the land I burned is short ( had hayed end of June- not to be done again). My cows barely touch the grass that has grown back despite excellent rainfall this year. Wish I had seen Greg’s series much earlier. Based on what I see I should have enough. Unfortunately having burned, and hayed I am left with a very poor quality of winter grazing land. I am feeding back what I took off earlier. They love my summer growth but pretty much ignoring 69 to 70 percent of what is left out there. I spent half the summer fixing my perimeter fence, trimming brush and replacing barb wire. About two months ago I finally got my new Staflix Fencer and started strip grazing. Seasonally not that it matters but getting my cows acclimated to poly wire and pasture move. Two of my cows were problem children until a smack from my charger at 92 to 9600 volts. I have a lot of work cutting lanes through the woods strip that cuts my property in half. But by spring I hope to be caught up and have water access and fence lanes to open up all my property. From what I see, similar climate, I think that 4 acres here in eastern Kansas and central Missouri is doable.

We average around 2.5 acres per animal unit for the year.

Same question from me

Leslie Gray No, he’s saying just take up your back fence and let them have a bigger area each day. They’ll eat the fresh forage, but be able to walk back across the already grazed area to get to water.

fomoco300k : ok, that’s what i THOUGHT i heard him say, but i didn’t see how you could prevent cows from re-grazing an area, especially a pasture with grass kept as long as his is.

@@ldg2655 If they have pooped and trampled all over the pasture they are not going to eat it again any time soon. You only need a backfence if your pasture is regrowing fast enough that you are worried the cows might come back and graze it. In that case you could make a laneway back to the water.

You definitely need to keep the horses off your pasture. Dry lot them and feed them hay, they will absolutely rob your pasture of grass that could be feeding a cow. Horses bite the grass off flush with the ground. Your whole pasture is toast. What is your annual rainfall? How deep is your top soil?

@@gregjudyregenerativerancher We just bought this property and it hasn't been kept up. Our soil is a lot of clay. Not sure how to answer about how deep the topsoil is. We get about 17.5 inches of rain annually and about 110 inches of snow, if that factors in.

I’m in a similar situation. I’ve got 5 acres for grazing. Lots of weeds. Clay soil for the most part. Been out here 2 years, had 3 horses but down to one horse and he has a muscle disease that means he can’t be stalled or confined to a small lot. He does best out moving. So dry lot isn’t really an option but there has to be a way to do this with a horse. Right now I’m feeding hay and he’s grazing whatever winter native grasses are growing. My barn is in the middle of the pasture and has a permanent corral attached. Hoping to have a plan by spring when the grass I do have takes off.

@@nancyspringer9797If you could use some temporary step in posts and polybraid or poly tape might be better for visibility, then rotate your horse while feeding hay around your farm, that would pay huge dividends in the spring!!

Great question I was wondering the same thing

Yes, he said he knows they’ll overgraze it. He’s just buying time for the rain and for the other paddocks to grow.

in a way you are sacrficing that paddock and the animals in order to grow their future food. works well with planned animal nutrition - ie dont be having calfs milking on mums when theres no/little grass growth.

In reality, animals dont just graze the top third of plants anyway. If they like a plant they eat it right down to the ground. So long as you let that plant fully recover before you let it get grazed again then you are not overgrazing. If you see that they are eating plants right down to the ground you need to give them a smaller area and make them eat EVERYTHING right down to the ground. That way you are grazing evenly and not penalising the more palatable plants. Then let it recover fully. This is certainly the case here in Victoria Australia. It might depend on the climate, time of the year, the plant species and the animals concerned as to how the grazing happens.

We use high voltage plug in chargers to distribute the electric power around our farms.

There is a hot electric temporary fence around the pond excluding them them

When you tighten them up in smaller paddocks in the summer slump hot weather period, you are buying more time before you get around your whole farm. You are trying to but time for a rain and increase your rest periods between grazings. Yes, you may overgraze a few paddocks, but it is better than just continuing to graze like you did in the spring. Your whole farm gets grazed into the dirt that way. Also you should be reducing your stocking rate in the summer slump, this preserves your pastures for your best cows.

@@gregjudyregenerativerancher Ah I understand better now, thx you very much!

Having both classes in September

Go back and look at your recovery on existing paddocks that you have grazed is where I start.

watch your recovery rates - the 3 leaf grass growth is what i use - if its not there in your older paddocks youll need to slow down - its all about measuring the rest/recovery of the previous paddocks.

You might have to provide hay in a drought situation. We had a moderate drought this summer and into early fall here in SW Ohio. Almost no rain for 3 month and an 18 acre pasture planted a few months earlier in April followed by that horrendously wet period. (2019 weather has not been helpful for starting a grazing operation from scratch.) Thankfully, I had a 7 acre silvopasture area I could let them overgraze. But, even with that, I was only a few days away from starting hay in September when we began getting some rain. I started hay two weeks ago.