Conventional farmers allow cows to graze anywhere they want, within a secure perimeter fence. This is known as “continuous grazing”.  Even farmers who raise grassfed beef most commonly allow cows to graze in this manner.  While this approach requires the least labor, the drawbacks are numerous in regards to soil fertility and pasture quality.

First, cows, like people, eat what they like, and eat it a lot.  If they see a tuft of grass or a legume they’re particularly fond of, they’ll devour it and continue grazing for a few days until their favorite food just begins to grow back. Then, they’ll devour it again, severely damaging its root structure. Ironically, this pattern results in the cows destroying the forage they love, now that the roots are gone, and allowing undesirable plants to emerge, now that they can compete for solar energy thanks to the absence of foliage that normally blocked the weed’s access to sunlight.  Thus, thistle, locust trees, brambles and the like emerge, with the cows having none of it and picking here and there at what they can get.

Broomsedge pasture in Georgia

Second, cows, like people, like comfort. In the heat of the summer, this means shade. Thus, the cows graze the pasture in the morning, robbing it of its nutrients in the form of grass, and then wander to the woods or near a tree, and deposit the nutrients right there, in the shade.  The result is that we deposit the nutrients where we don’t need them, so the organic matter erodes in pastures. This is the same effect of haying, which in time creates a monoculture where plants such as broomsedge thrive.  We don’t want broomsedge in our pastures.

Rotational Grazing
Many of the new breed of farmers practice one of various methods of “rotational grazing”. The simplest method being to rotate cows every few days with portable electric fencing.  A more intense method, as the name will suggest, is “management intensive grazing”, which calls for daily moves of cows.  We practice this at Nature’s Harmony Farm. Still more intensive methods call for multiple moves per day with ultra-high density stocking, or “mob grazing”. This is what we will practice once we build our herd to sufficient quantities.

With rotational grazing, the aim is to provide a paddock large enough for the cows to graze down in one day.  The goal is for them to either take one bite of everything, or trample the rest (weeds).  Then, they are moved to the next day’s paddock, which they look forward to eagerly.  As you continue this succession across the pasture, the previously grazed paddocks have a chance to rest and regrow.   Grasses shed roots when eaten (or mowed) commensurate with what was taken off the top. This shedding of roots creates humus and enriches the soil.  Then, the grass begins a growth spurt, like a teenager, and sets new growth. If access was available, the cows would love this…and that would be very detrimental to the plant. But they are down the road a bit, grazing new grass, so they’re not aware of it. And because of our management intervention, the grass does regrow and produce leafy forage. Leafy forage that hogs sunlight and restricts solar flow to the undesirable weeds that are forced to stay embedded in the soil.

Portable Shade

Shade shack, rear view

The challenge with rotational grazing, of course, is how to provide shade to your cows (and sheep, etc.).  Even if you have trees in your pasture, you don’t want them always hanging out there for the reasons stated above.  A solution we use at Nature’s Harmony Farm is a portable shade structure we call the shade shack. This is simply a cotton trailer fixed with an overhang on three sides to provide portable shade.  Granted, it’s a rickety design, but then again, so is our eggmobile, turkey trailer and most things we have to improvise to make farming work this way.  There are lots of ways to solve the shade problem for your animals. The point is to figure out what’s right for you.

This solution works for us. Every day when we move the cows, we follow them in pulling the shade shack with our Gator.  I can pick any location I want in the new paddock, which is usually a place that appears to be in need of additional organic matter.  Essentially, I can force the cows to deposit nutrients where I want them.  Ha!  And they thought this was a free lunch.

Cows under shade canopy

The cows love hanging around the shade shack. The fact that we used a cotton trailer gives us other options as well, as we can line the insides with tarp as the weather cools, and this setup will allow them to congregate and retain heat, thus heating themselves when needed. Even now in the morning before the sun comes up, I see some cows just standing next to it. I don't know...maybe it makes them feel secure or something. But they seem to like it.

The lightweight design makes it easy to pull, but naturally vulnerable in severe storms.  If we get damage, repairs should be easy. We'll let you know how it goes...or better yet, come to the farm and see for yourself!
 

Yesterday reminded us why we farm. It was a great farming day. And yet, we were off the farm all day long. Our day started at 5:00 a.m. when we arose to do chores. This included me moving the eggmobile, feeding the hens and getting their water. They squawked that I shouldn’t be doing this in the dark and that it was too early for breakfast. I agreed. Next I moved on to the turkey trailer, where I opened their door, filled their feeders and waterers. I checked the float valve on the cow’s water tank, which was working fine. Thank goodness the cows and sheep eat grass, so no need to feed them. On "The Reds" to the meat chickens, the “reds”, as we call them, which required the filling of two feeders and four waterers. Since we would be gone all day, I had to

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Yesterday I had an experience that you can only get in the country. Around 7am I was going about doing the morning chores. I came to the Poulet Rouge chickens on pasture. They live in two portable hoop houses, which we close up at night for protection and open in the morning so that they can free-range. We have been battling some very disturbing behavior with them that has just about caused us to give up on the breed and opt for another type of broiler in the future. You see, a couple of weeks ago we checked on them in the afternoon to find 2 chickens had died and were partially eaten. We assumed a predator had attacked them so we put up some temporary fencing around their houses so that they could

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Nature can be so cruel. We were very excited to find that our roosters are maturing and that we had our first broody hen. We named her Gertie and watched her travel from the Egg Mobile to her nest every day to lay her egg. She didn't pick a very good spot for her nest. It was way out in the open grass and after collecting about 9 eggs she began to sit on the nest a bit longer each day. Every time I passed her I would stop to check in on how things were going. One day I saw her sitting on the nest in the hot sun panting away. I felt so badly for her that I wanted to make her a little shelter. I also worried that once she began to sit overnight that she would be very vulnerable to predators. Tim sort of rolled his eyes at me and said, "You can go building shelters for every hen that decides to make her nest in a bad spot." Ok, he had a good point, but...just this once wouldn't hurt! So without letting Tim know I

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We have been raising guineas for a few months now. Partly because Liz wanted them to seek and destroy every tick in the county. Partly because we like the fact that they play security guard. Partly because we just love nature, and adding to our family. We started with 30 keets (babies), but now have 20 for various reasons. Our goal was to release them to different sections of the farm and train them, if you will, to guard over various parts. Our neighbors told us this wouldn't be possible. Then again they told us we'd never get the hens back on to the eggmobile every night. We started releasing the guineas a couple of weeks ago. We placed 6 near the pond in a grove of trees. For a few days, we didn't see them anywhere. Then we did, and now we see them regularly. This is a picture I took of them this morning. They often sleep behind the pond, on the ground of all places. Imagine that. I suspect we'll see them in the trees increasingly, but for now, I just see them covering the ground, carrying out Liz's wish of devouring ticks. I haven't seen a tick in months.

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