Grazing- Who does it?

My Dad got a call from a guy who's working with him to try to come up with a plan to better manage the farm and the nutrients in the soil etc, and he came up with the idea that our farm would be the perfect canidate for a grazing roatation.

Being that we've been full till traditional farmers for all of our lives, this idea is new to us. I know others do it and plenty of people have done it successfully, including this guy who owns a beef herd, and his dad manages for him.

We're not completly convinced that it would work for us, but at the same time, we're all ears because of the potential cost savings of fuel, not having to do as much feildwork, and less wear & tear on the equipment. Our home farm is about 50 + or - acres of tillable land, plus another 20 or so up the road that would not be able to be grazed, so would go towards our winter feed storage.

Apparantly there are gov. programs that would help with up to $.93 or so per foot of the fence building (either 5 strands electric on wood posts 20' apart, or 1 strand of barbed top & bottom, 3 strands electric in between, and net wire on the outside along the perimiter, right on the property line), plus the costs of building the roads to the pastures, burying the water line, and everything else involved in the process.

There is a 3 day seminar coming up in about 3 weeks about 100 miles away that we're considering going to just to learn more about it.

What do you guys who do it think about it? How does it work on your operation, how many head/acres are involved, and how does it work to still cut some of the pastured land and get a crop from it?

A lot to think about, but still interested in learning more.

Donovan from Wisconsin

You could work it any way you want to. If you still want to grow row crops, you could work that in. Although having a bunch of equipment for limited acreage might not be too practical. If you've got hay producers nearby, you could graze the whole piece and purchase the hay. Cow-calf won't bring in as much as stockers, but there is more cushion for inexperience when you're running cow-calf. Learning how to manage the grass and rotate the critters for optimum forage production is critical. There is a huge learning curve with this. It doesn't really matter what you read or advice you're given, there's nothing like actual personal experience in doing this.

As to any government cost sharing, be careful. The best fencing for grazing is very, very flexible. It allows you to learn without getting tied into a narrow way of thinking by permanent fence. Before you accept Uncle's help, make sure what He wants to buy for you makes sense in what you want to do. As for our operation here, we installed a really good perimeter. All of our interior fencing is portable electric. You've got to train your animals to respect the electric fence, but once they learn, it really gets easier.

Christopher

PS- You'll need to plan ahead for winter, spring and other wet periods. As you probably know, having cattle on wet ground can really wreck it in a hurry.

It'll definately let you run more head on the land.

Gene

I've always found herbivores to be the best grazers... Sorry, couldn't resist.

I've always been a believer in grazing animals. A cow can harvest feed a whole lot more efficiently than you or I can with a swather/baler or combine. I tend to disagree with the statement that there is more room for inexperience with cow calf pairs than with stockers. Bulls, calving, twins, etc, etc all have the potential for problems. Stockers show up self sufficient. Feed em, water em, doctor any that may get sick, Kill em and eat em. Not to say that they will always be easy. I just think they are easier.
Intensively managing your pasture will greatly increase your yields and profitability. Cows tend to be picky eaters if given their druthers.

I'd say go to the conference and hear what they have to say.

Ben

Hmmmm....
When the MiG prophets come up with a way to make 3.9 or better milk on grass instead of 3.1 or 3.3... mabey I'll be more of a believer.

We always pastured in summer. After I came home from college, we started doing MiG. One thing is for certain... it's Management intensive for sure.


You need to be carefull listening to these guys... I notice that ~most~ of them don't milk cows. Most of them don't own ~any~ meaningfull amount of equipment. Most gloss over the winter related feeding problems of swath grazing or whatever gospel they follow on that end... or simply suggest you buy your winter feed, etc. That etc.... carries a lot of variables.

After 10 years of this, I'm at the point where I'm just as happy to spend another day and a half chopping the summer's feed and another day and a half hauling manure.
You can maintain your routine. You can maintain your production and I think when you run the numbers you'll find that you're further ahead now than if you had to spend thousands building fence, then labor on top of more labor to move fence twice a day, every damn day.

If I was somewhere where I didn't need to store feed for 7 months I might think differently as I wouldn't need to own equipment, etc... and that would drastically change the economics of it... but this way, we're fully equipped to graze and fully equipped to feed and neither one being fully utilized. Think ~carefully~ about that.

Rod

If you are willing to learn more.. DON"T use barbed wire on electric fences.It is not recommended, too many bodies [human]got caught up and electrocuted.

Sounds like a bunch of hooey to me Don. A mix rotational grazing for cattle and some no-till farming as well? I haven't seen anything in the farm bills coming out of congress in the last 20 years that are doing many favors for small family farmers. Never heard of the program to help pay for a fence. It doesn't sound like anything connected with CRP either.

Is this guy some type of fertilizer salesman? Do this and this and oh by the way, you have to put down my miracle grow fertilizer to make it all work. I've heard of that scam before.

Call your local county agent and get the real low down on this can let us know what he says.

I have a friend that I've talked with for close to 10 years now in Wi. With the winters you have there there's no way you can winter graze as good as we do here in Va. I've(my family) used stockpile fescue since 1957. Only difference from then to now is I use far more of it than then. What kept us limited in winter grazing then was water and fences.Back then we had 3 pastures. Since high tensile electric came about that's now gone to 13 rotations and hay fields are used for grazing and stockpile too. I've never been able to get by with zero hay feeding but have had it many years that I fed hay less than 30 days for the entire year. You can't do that with the snow cover you have there and temps far below what we have here.

All that being said ,you can't go wrong with fencing and cross fencing to extend your grazing in the growing season. Once grass is grazed or cut for hay it needs min. of 21 days of rest before it's grazed again in my area and I expect it's pretty much the same everywhere.

Rotational grazing is a wonderful thing and is different across the country and from person to person. You do what works for you, your farm and your region. I've never been able to cut hay and feed it and get the same growth and health pattern as the cow can do it. They are so good at what they do to go through life. They eat and grow and put back a good % of what they eat. Most folks that haven't figured that out overgraze and wear the soil and grass out. I have stands of grass that have been in production from the early 60's. Only seeding that has to be done here is from drought. If it rains proper the cows do the work here. I just keep them water and a good hot fence around them.

When I call my cows I just holler come on girls and they follow me where I go. We don't drive cows here. They follow because they know it's going to be good where they are going. We cross the highway in 2 places. They have crossed so many times they all know what to do. I can move 90 head across the highway in less then 2 minutes. They are trained. Make it easy on yourself ,rotate and rotate often.

we have been using grazing since 2001. i was skeptical about turning some of the cropland into pasture, until we bought the farm adjoining ours. that gave us enough total land to raise crops on and still turn some into pastures. there are a number of funding sources that helped with the infrastructure. for example, we are along the river. putting a 35' strip along the river and its feeder streams into crp, paid for a bunch of fencing and a crossing. also since we were fencing off a stream from the cows, we got help with a pond water system for part of the pasture. a multicounty grazing grant paid the bulk of improved lanes to get to the main pastures. another year, there was help for developing an old spring into a dandy watering system for the rest of the pasture fields. the whole thing evolved over 3-4 years. i had already seeded the fields down with ladino clover and orchardgrass.
we only let the cows out at night and feed in the barn in the day. morning chores are a pleasure when the cows go out. the mid/late summer milk production is a challenge sometimes because i am slow to adjust for short pastures. in the spring, the pastures definitely grow faster than the cows can eat them, so we bale some of the lots.
our water lines are above ground. i talked the nrcs guy down to 4 strand smooth wire around the property line and 3 wires interior. he wanted 5 &4. i told him the cows had been staying in with 1 strand of hot barbed wire. you need the best low impedance fencer you can buy.
this is with 120 milkers and about 55-60 acres. hth.

It is always nice to read how different areas farm especially since I do not understand how you guys turn a profit having cows that live in a building 24/7 and with herd sizes of 30 to 50 cows.

While it will do you no good since I live in a different climate zone; this is how we did it back in the 70's when I was a teen on a dairy farm.

We had 100 milking cows on 80 acres so we really milked about 83 head a day. You were a class A fluid drinking milk dairy or you did not milk. No cheese around here.

We had 3 structures on site. A roof to store machines and hay under; A grain bin and mixer to store corn and soybean meal in; and a building that had a milk tank a double 4 stall herringbone. 4 milkers and 8 stalls.

Everything was trucked in. Corn; soybean meal; alfalfa hay. The only thing we grew was grass. We had a summer grass; usually Bahia and about 1/2 (50 acres) was disked in the fall and planted to winter rye grass.

Our cows were grazed 24/7 365 days a year. The only time they went inside was at milking time.
They were brought onto a concrete holding pad waiting their turn to be milked. They were feed a grain mix while being milked and then moved to a different pad where they were allowed access to water and alfalfa hay. Then it was back on the pasture for another 12 hrs.

This was very typical of all the dairies in the area.

Today the only thing that has changed is they do not truck in hay; and the size has gotten bigger.
Typical size is now about 300 cows and they bale Bahia off the field for hay. They also added some more soybean meal to the ration to composite for the protein loss in the hay.

I can see your point about the cow-calf being more difficult. I've done well with cow-calf, I guess I just never paid attention to the extra work.

Christopher

Don
Your WI University did a study on dairy profitabilty a few years ago. I believe they found a seasonal grass based sytem was as good as any. I'm sure you could google it up. One of the profs at Penn State came up with system to graze 300 days here in PA. You can't get out of the tillage game because of the need for a forage chain. But you won't have to burn fuel and time to harvest. Good Luck. Check out "Stockman Grass Farmer" Send me an email I'll send you all my resource links.

Not sure I understand.........there's been a lot of research/promotion in the last 20-25 years about INTENSIVE rotation/grazing. Around 'here', the commercial cattlemen (as opposed to the hobbyists) have always practiced some form of grazing rotation. It takes about 2 1/2 acres per cow/calf pair and most pastures are split into 2, 3, 4 or more smaller pastures, with permanent, albeit not as good, fences as cross fences. There is always excess growth in the Spring, which is cut for hay. Never was interested in the INTENSIVE rotation; didn't see how it would work in my situation. The ones I'm familiar with use temporary fences to divide the pastures.

When I think of all the hours that I wasted in my life chopping feed for the cows with a flail chopper,I could cry. The last 5 years or so that I milked I rotational grazed 50 cows on about 36 acres. I had it set up with single strand smooth electric wire in 30 paddocks so I didn't have to move fence every day. When I'd go out to get the cows every morning,I'd just open up the next pasture. When the weather got dry,I'd still have to chop one load for them at night,but it beat the heck out of twice a day,every day. It got them on green feed 3 weeks sooner in the spring too,so that cut feed use and got them up on milk that much sooner.
In 2001,I was starting to plan the switch to beef cows,so I fenced 2 forties with 5 strands of barbed wire perimiter fence,then split them both into 4 pastures with 4 strand cross fences. Depending on the weather,I can run 36-40 cow calf pairs on each 40 for the whole season.
If you wise up and go ahead with it,you and your dad will be slapping yourself right in the forehead and asking yourself why you didn't do it 20 years ago.
And I'm right across the lake from you,here in Michigan,so the growing season is about the same.

I had a small grazing dairy for 5 years until I got out last March.

Definitely go to the grazing conference. I think I know which one you are talking about and it is definitely worth it. Also, definitely check out graze.com and if you get serious about grazing then absolutely get a subscription as it is worth its weight in gold. McNair is the only person around who focuses on US style dairy grazing.

Grazing can definitely save you money and increase your net profits. But it is not an overnight solution and it will require a good bit of management. But, the same can be said of growing any other high quality crop. If you grow corn, do you just throw it in the ground in the spring and then forget about it til fall? Not if you want to make money! Treat your pasture just like any other crop and focus on the most efficient way of turning that grass into milk.

There are some "consultants" in the grazing field that are useless and a waste of money. If you to the conference try to meet other dairy farmers who can give you "real world" advice. And most of them will tell you to avoid "consultants" like the plague.

Personally, I would never even consider farming without intensive grazing. It is such a labor saver, and gives you a lot of tools for increasing profitability. Remember, unless you are going to start bottling your own milk, your best chance for profits is in cost control and grazing can do that very well.

Be wary of graziers that are very low/no grain feeders. They are doing something that can take years to learn to do correctly and I still feel they are leaving profits behind. You can feed less grain during the summer months than the winter but I would not want to go below 10-12 lbs or so.

Feel free to email me if you want more info or have other questions as I have always loved to talk grazing.

Jake in CT

We had dairy cattle in Wis for 70 years and always combined grazing with tilled crops. That works the best, especially if you have land or can access (rent?) nearby land that is suitable. The only kind of grazing that could be done in cold weather would be a very hardy breed such as the Highlanders on "Winter Hardy Alfalfa" and then when the snow gets 3 feet deep that would be a problem. Otherwise, the deer have no problem getting through 2 feet of snow down to that nice green stuff. Have you seen it? Unbelievable. My dad followed a program with the dairy cows that has gone out of vogue and no one does it anymore but at one time was the Univ W recommended program and that was to have the cows freshen in Sep/Oct and stand dry in Jul/Aug. That way, you get the advantage of turning cows nearing the end of their lactation cycle out on fresh, lush, green pasture the first week of June. You'll get an increase in milk production that will astonish you for that last month. Then, those dry cows have nice pasture all summer. We turned them out on hay fields after baling and let them clean up the leftovers (broken bales, missed corners, fencelines, etc.), for a day or two. My dad used to let them graze along side the road a few times during the summer. They kept the roadsides trimmed really nice. He'd put the collie dog on one end and he'd sit in a lawn chair in the shade on the other end and read books, just to keep them on our section of road (about a mile). But we still needed thousands of bales of hay and granaries and silos full to feed those holsteins through the winter.

I've read all the posts so far and some guys seem to be pretty helpful. It at least sounds doable with our herd that averages around 50 head total. Right now we keep our girls in a small pasture and feed them either corn or haylage from a bag, or dry hay from the barn. When inside they get corn silage from the silos and dry hay. We also feed oats, but not regularly and other than that no grains.

The guy working with my dad is from the NRCS, and was originally working with us in other areas and was working with us to get soil samples from all of our fields and try to come up with a nutrient management program for our land. He has a beef herd that he owns, his father manages, so he has some experience at it. It just isn't dairy experience.

As far as the fence, the 5 wire would be the perimeter, and then the 50 acres would be split up into 10 pastures, with each pasture being split 5 more times with temporary fencing. I'm not on the farm very often, so it's mainly my dad's decision, but it does have an impact on me as well so I am trying to learn what I can.

The soonest we could possibly do this would be 2011, but that's if the field manager from the milk company doesn't cause us more problems with our milkhouse which he seems to be trying. He wants us to go grade A by August, which would mean a new milkhouse. He also wants us to replace our cooler, which is fairly old but it serves the purpose and was just tuned up this past fall.

Donovan from Wisconsin

I grazed milk cows for about 15 years before we started to move away from grazing and feeding corn ans hay silage .You can keep far more cows on the same number of acres growing corn silage than you ever will growing grass. Stop and think of the $ you have invested in land, and the amount of milk per acre you can produce with corn silage verses grass.

If you're feeding 50 cows on 70 acres the experts ought to be asking you how YOU'RE doing it...
Trading corn ground for forage is going to leave you buying feed. Probably not a little bit either...
You're talking about trading off 15-20 tonne per acre for mabey 5-7 tonne per acre of feed.
Question every single thing they tell you in every detail... and think very carefully about how a .5% drop in butterfat will affect your bottom line. It may not matter so much to you, depending on how your payments are based, but here, we're payed on fat, proteing and lactose... with the bias being on fat at somewhere around 65%. A small drop in fat makes a big drop in cheque.... If you've got to start feeding 15 bales of hay a day and adding bicarb to the feed to give them some fiber and buffer their stomach acids... all to drag the fat back up to somewhere just above pitifull, ya just took the shotgun to your own foot. You can make cheap milk on grass, but it sells as cheap milk too.

A lot of this grazing stuff is just dogma, preached by people who don't have to deal with it when it hits the fan.

Rod

Rod, there are a lot of very successful graziers out there who will gladly help a rookie grazier so your statement is not correct. NRCS and other agencies like MIG for a number of reasons but that is not a reason to throw the idea into the bin.

If you are looking to maximize your milkcheck then grazing is probably not for you. Grazing is all about cutting costs and watching profitability. Keep in mind that Canada's milk system is not like ours. There is no quota system here, so not too much in the way of price supports until the financial bleeding has already reached a torrent and then the politicians step in and apply a small bandaid.

IMHO, don't trust anything about dairy that you read in the Stockman Grass Farmer. Graze magazine is the best publication out there for dairy grazing knowledge.

Also, fencing doesn't have to cost thousands of dollars. You can experiment for far less before making an investment in permanent fencing. And there are shortcuts that can be made with high tensile that will still result in a long lived fence for less $$$.

Jake in CT (former dairy grazier)

Never said we weren't buying feed. As a matter of fact we end up buying feed every year, basically all hay. Usually we can make enough corn silage to last us 10 months if we stretch it, or if we can fill a bag we can sometimes make it last 11 months. We've found that being able to bag either 1st crop hay or corn silage, as well as being able to fill both of our small silos with corn, seems to work the best.

Then we can really stretch out our dry hay to last for quite a while. So far they've managed to not have to buy hay yet this winter, but that's only because we had a surplus from buying it off the field in 2008. This year the good hay will probably be out of our reach because of the short supply, but better quality rained on hay should be plentiful and the cows can still milk pretty good from it.

As far as what the pastures would be seeded down with, it sounds like it's still be alfalfa as the main forage, but then we would maybe add timothy or alsac to it as well.

For now, my wife and I are on our way out to go to a show at the theater so I can't tell more at this moment.

Donovan from Wisconsin

What statement is incorrect??

I don't think our supply management has anything to do with this either. While it's true that we don't have 9 dollar milk like you guys have had in the past year, we don't see the bonanza when it goes the other way either. It's just a reasonably steady price. Don's not carrying a million dollars in quota either....
The economics are just as thin here on average. We're just slaves to a different master.

It would also be hard to get setup with even basic fences for less than a couple grand. Even a smaller energizer is going to run the better part of a grand and it's not hard to sink another grand into poly wire, step in posts and insulators. I'm well aware of it. I bought a lot of them...
We never spent anything on lanes and very little on water as we had a couple old flat top 300 gal coolers with dead comp's... Just strung 3/4" line on the ground. All of our perimiter fence is 2 strand Gallagher hi tensile on 2 nail insulators. It's not a fortune to set up, but it's not cheap either. We reused most of the hi tensile from when we had it setup as a 6 strand for sheep...
Number one thing you do if you have old page wire fences around is take the dozer to them...
Believe me, I've done a lot of fencing and I don't make any more work of it than I can get away with... but I still don't see much of a labor saving, if any at all.
Most of our fields are set up that we work a lane down the middle, stripping off one side, then when we get to the end we retreat back on the other side. Back fences are moved ahead every morning. Lead fences morning and evening...

I'm not saying you can't get good grass production. You can. Far better than if you just mob grazed the land all summer... which is what we used to do. I just don't see where it ever paid us. Honestly. Cows would go on grass. Milk would jump by 200 liters a trip... and at the end of the month the statement would come. Components virtually unchanged.... Then there's the crash in the fall when they go back on stored feed that seems to take all winter to recover from.
There's no shortage of data to back it up either. Here, down the road, province and nation wide...

At the end of the day a person has to ask a lot of questions and figure out how this will fit into ~their~ routine and operation, not Joel Salatin's operation... because 90% of it IS about DOGMA.

Rod