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Have you ever had a moment when someone asks you the exact question that you have been spending a lot of time thinking about? Well that is what this episode is all about because a while back Dan asked me a question via Facebook that I had been considering for quite some time. The question: If you could add one enterprise to the farm what would it be, and if you needed to take one thing away what would it be? That is probably a question that you need to ask yourself yearly, but now that we are almost seven years into the farm it is a question that I need to probably be taking some serious action on … if that is what is needed.Check out The Beginning Farmer Show on Facebook!
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Instead of getting out of cattle or sheep, have you thought about changing the way you manage them to lower your workload?
I’ve read your blog almost since the beginning, and it seems like your grazing management is mainly focused around MiG with daily moves, temporary fencing, etc. I see the benefits that can come from daily moves, but I’ve always used a rotational grazing system with multiple pastures and longer rotations.
In the beginning, moving to longer rotations would be as easy as building a bigger paddock using temporary posts and poly-wire, then it could move to using some type of semi-permanent electric fencing (permanent posts and steel wire). You could use a simple 3-5 day rotation and move from paddock to paddock, or you could “strip graze” away from the water source by moving a temporary fence every couple of days down the paddock to stretch out the rotation longer.
With a rotational system and some semi-permanent fences, it might also be easier to keep the sheep controlled, and/or combined into a single herd with the cattle (at least that’d be the theory).
If semi-permanent fences were eventually built, you could also easily convert a paddock to a pig pasture simply by moving the cattle and sheep out, and moving the pigs in.
A longer rotation might not give you all the benefits that daily moves would, but grazing and moving cattle every 3-5 days has to be better for your pasture then having no cattle grazing if you decided to get rid of them entirely.
Rich, lots of great thoughts there! Basically I have been doing strip grazing this year … I set up a long run of temporary fence that will last between 5-7 days depending on the length of grass and the size of the area. Then I start the cattle at the bottom and take away a fence, still allowing them access to the first part. I guess maybe I talked to much about the labor. It isn’t so much that the labor is too much, but rather that I sometimes wonder about the amount of time compared to the number of animals I can have. With keeping back heifers (or selling some) I honestly only can process about 5 steers per year. It’s important to remember that I’m only working with roughly 20 acres of pasture … and I estimate that I have about the equivalent (between cows/calves/bull/sheep) of 15-17 full size steers or cows on those acres.
I do like the semi-permanent fence idea. I’ve just always been wary of doing it because our pasture is smaller and I just am not sure how I feel about splitting it up. You give me a lot of great points to think about!
Glad to hear a new podcast. I can relate to the challenges of this year and doing regular podcasts as I restore our family farmstead.
My first thought about making hogs your primary cash crop is putting all your eggs in one basket. I remember 15-20 years ago when the price of pork collapsed and many of our local pork producers went belly up never to return to pork production. You can gain efficiency in single species production, but diversity spreads the risk and frankly improves the beauty of a small farmstead.
Larry, you are right about the diversity. If I did focus more on the pigs it would not be the only venture as I would also at the same time focus more heavily on poultry (meat chicken, turkey, and egg-layers). Another way to think about diversification though is diversification of markets. I really don’t concern myself with what the conventional hog market is doing (except for when I buy feeder pigs). We see our farm as a “price maker” instead of a “price taker” and we set our prices based on what we need to make the income we desire. So in the instance where hogs along with poultry become our main priorities then diversification of markets is important … selling whole/half animals … individual cuts … institutional sales … etc. Besides, pigs on pasture can be beautiful and then we could even mix in some crops after pigs move through 😉
Have you thought about moving your cattle/sheep to different pastures? that way you could give the grass a rest. Is your ratio of sheep to cattle balanced? I would have more cattle than sheep in the same area, that way the sheep would not devour the grass as fast. Also, How many bushels of oats did you harvest?
Unfortunately we are limited on pasture space … about 20 acres right now. As far as the oats, around 2,500 bushels 🙂
Have you thought about letting your cattle/sheep graze in the oat field after harvest?