There is a chance this winter grazing thing just might work. The sheep have been on the west side of paddocks 43, 44, and 45 now for 3 weeks and they have not broken the soil yet, even though it’s been in the 40s and raining like crazy! It’s kind of incredible. If I had the same AUs of horses out there, it would be a scene of complete and utter destruction.
I’m feeding the sheep one square bale a day out in the paddocks. I’m tossing it in a different spot every morning. There is this nice beautiful even layer of organic matter on top of the soil. It’s gorgeous. Today I’m going to put up some new fence and start the next step of the plan: putting the horses out. Here is how I’m hoping this will go: I’ll feed the horses on the ground in the same place I’ve been feeding the sheep. I’ll move them every day with a single polyrope (they are SO easy to move). I’ll have to alley them back to the barn for water and winter shelter; not sure how I’ll minimize the destruction of the alleys. My hope is that the horses will churn up and turn over the soil working in their and the sheep’s hay. By moving them every day, I’m hoping it’s the right amount of churning without too much compaction. Over the course of the winter I’ll cover paddocks 38-45. In early March I’m going to frost seed the paddocks with a mix of 50% Alice clover and 50% Potomac orchardgrass. The combination of worked-in organic matter from hay and manure, plus the frost-seeding action, should create some glorious legume-grass pasture for this coming year. Right?
I’m thinking I would have to let it get established so not graze it in the spring. Then in summer the grass will peter out, so have to wait until fall to graze. That’s fine, I’m not short on forage, I can rotate myself around these paddocks. But maybe I should graze it in spring to keep the grass vegetative, and to keep the grass short enough for the clover to get a good start? The general rule seems to be don’t graze until 8-10″, or the rule I love from Jim Linne when you see the tips of the grass leaves rustling in the wind you know it’s time to graze. I do love Jim’s advice that comes to me by text. I left him a message once wondering if/when/how I should bushhog a certain set of paddocks, and he just texted me “I would not with the bushhogging,” like some kind of blanket general rule of life. I LOVE it when someone tells me not to bushhog!
The horses this winter….sigh…. they are so hard to manage. I’m spending about 10 minutes per day on my 15 AUs of sheep, and about 2 hours per day on these 10 AUs of equines. First off, since they are monogastrics they need forage put in front of them so many times per day. I can trust the sheep to eat their bale in the morning and ruminate till the next day (in fact, I’ve seen them chewing cud at 7 am right before I feed them), but those horses need hay tossed to them every few hours like I’m their goddamn servant and I’ve got absolutely nothing better to do with my life.
I tried the free choice feeding with two bales in all-day hay nets. Feeding time was reduced to once a day, and the horses were happier. But: (1) the horses went through 2 small squares a day, and I’m sorry but I’m not a millionaire so that’s just not viable (2) Dolly’s fetlocks swelled to watermelons because she stocked up so much because did not move from in front of that hay net (3) there was SO MUCH POOP inside the barn, right about 7 feet back from the hay nets, because they stood there 24/7, so I was scooping manure like crazy, which I hate (4) it took me like 15 minutes each morning to fill the hay nets with usually frozen fingers, and I usually ended up cursing whoever made them while I did it. So I quit the free choice thing, for now at least. I do believe the advocates who say at some point the horses will be satiated and step away, so the money thing I think would eventually resolve itself. But I don’t like how the horses stand so still all day. It’s so bad for them, from so many perspectives: fetlock health, joint health, gastric health, mental health. And it’s bad for my pastures: nutrient dispersal by animal action is nil, so it all has to happen by my own labor and/or the use of fossil fuels and wear and tear on machinery, both of which I loathe.
So, I want the horses moving. I want them to spread their own manure. I want the manure to get churned into the paddocks. I want the hay debris out in the paddocks. I want to spend less money on bedding and spend less time scooping poop. I want to be out in the paddocks on a winter morning. It’s so much more rewarding than being in the barn. There is something special – dare I say romantic, a la John Wiley – about seeing a winter sunrise from the field. I call it The Farmer’s Reward. We get up early and go out in the freezing cold and dark, and our Reward is to see that glorious sunrise.
The other part of this winter experiment is training the sheep to polyrope. I put them into the winter paddocks three weeks ago with four lines of polyrope at 8″, 12″, 18″, and 30″; and posts about 8 feet apart. My plan is to reduce the number of posts and number of conductor lines over the winter until they are trained to 2 lines, hopefully?
It started out well. I had 7500 volts on all my lines. I did not see anyone even challenge the lines for the first few weeks. I thought, wow, they are sensing that electrical field and respecting it already! If course, they had nice forage to eat and nothing green outside the lines. So the animal pressure on the fences was not all that high. But nevertheless I was feeling really good, thinking this is going to work!
Then last week I saw sheep sticking their noses under the 8″ line to nibble at grass on the other side. I thought: I’ll have to drop that line down to 6″. Then, I saw sheep sticking their whole heads under the bottom line, with the line draping across the back of their necks. I thought, crap, their winter haircoat is insulating them. I checked the voltage and it was down to 2500! How did that happen? And yesterday I found two ewe lambs standing outside the fence line. They looked so sad, like they were thinking “How did we get here?” I’m sure they were nibbling at green stuff and just worked their way under the line. I was happy to see that they had a hard time getting back in – even when I brough hay to the flock, they did not try to get back in to eat with everyone else – because that means they still have some fear of the lines. I dropped the lines up near the barn to let them back in, but I could not disconnect the bottom line (goddamn copper connectors are impossible to unhook) so I laid it on the ground and pushed them back over, but they were VERY worried about stepping over that line laying on the ground. That is good news.
I’m thinking my voltage dropped because there is just so much forage up against my entire system (all the stockpiled fescue in the paddocks up around the netting that forms the outer coyote perimeter). There should be plenty of juice coming from my charger because I plugged it into the outlet in the barn. It could be something as simple as a fallen branch lying across the line somewhere, I just need to go look. I also should weedwhack the lineway and drop the bottom line to 6″ (where they will hit it with their nose instead of the back of their neck). Do I need to divide up my system and put two chargers on it? If so, I’ll have to go buy another 12 volt battery to keep in reserve. Is it time for me to buy a more powerful charger? Would the lines hold voltage better if I bought braided rather than twisted rope? Probably. But I feel like the braided rope is harder to handle on the reel. Is that really true? I also need to watch the Greg Judy videos on the lamb production year in polyrope. What does he do about pre-breeding? I can’t imagine polyrope holding a ram away from ewes in heat in the fall. The other question is lambing? Does he care of lambs get away under the lines? Does he add lower lines back in when lambs arrive? Does it matter? Is it better to set up this perimeter electric netting and find a way to keep the whole system adequately charged, or is it better to get a Maremma sheepdog? The dog would eliminate the need for netting. But then, you have to feed the dog, shelter the dog, train the dog to human handling and rides in the truck to see the vet, worm the dog, vaccinate the dog, clean the dog’s teeth, brush the dog’s haircoat, and just generally worry about another living breathing innocent creature whose life you hold in your hands.
The Tranquility Ranch 