Cattle Starter

Category: Pasture

  • Winter Comes Early on the Cattle Farm: Snow, Ice and All That’s Nice (and sometimes, not so nice!)

    Hay bale grazing site #1 after first storm, November 13, 2019

    As it happens every year, winter has officially begun here on the cattle farm. Technically, this is still “fall-time”, but mother nature doesn’t pay attention to a calendar. Dreams of the snow and ice waiting until December, are just that – dreams. For some reason, I am having a harder time adjusting to the start of winter than I did last year and the year before. I am pretty such it has to do with the fact that last winter was BRUTAL for this part of the country. The absolute worst winter in a very long time. Spring was wet. Summer was a nice break but also so incredibly buggy (rare August hatch of black flies in addition to the usual May-hatch). We did have a few nice fall days and now, winter. All in all, our spring, summer and fall brought a lot of rain, which was great for pasture growth and for the haying season. There just wasn’t enough of those nice sunny, bug-free days, though…..

    The boys and I made our rounds on Veteran’s Day, enjoying the bare ground and NO SNOW. I explained to the boys that by this time tomorrow, we would be full into winter and that the pasture grounds would not visible again for a good 6 months. Sure enough, the next day saw us with school canceled, as a major storm dumped snow on us all.day.long. Hello, winter. It has certainly not been long enough since we last visited….

    So, yesterday morning found me chopping ice off of hay bales and removing heavy ice from hay bale grazing wires.

    Chop, chop, chop, take a breath, chop, chop, chop, contemplate my life choices, chop, chop, chop, and there goes that top frozen layer…bye bye and hello, nice hay below… See you again this afternoon!

    Ice can really weigh down your wires and take away the tension. This was the aftermath of storm #2. Neither the cows nor I were impressed. But, life continues, as does work on the farm. You gotta hunker down and get it done.

    We feed out our hay via hay-bale grazing during the winter months. The location for our hay-bale grazing sites rotates each year, allowing us to add fertility back into the soil, promoting increased grass production and ultimately, allowing us to get more summer and fall grazing days out of those same pastures.

    Summertime fun! This pasture used to be a field full of TREES and weeds and moss. After chopping down the trees for firewood and using it as a winter grazing site, it is now a productive pasture!

    We have had great success with this method. It has been really incredible to see a previously under-performing section of pasture or pastures, flourishing, with good quality grass and clover and not choked with weeds, following a winter hay-bale grazing season. Good validation for what we are trying to do.

    Keeping pasture improvement in mind and knowing that winter loves to come early to Northern Maine, we placed a certain number of hay bales in a separate pasture, away from our main hay-bale grazing sites. We knew that our cows would rotate into this final pasture as winter approached and having a hay bale site already set up, would make the transition much easier for them and for us. With the unpredictability that winter can bring, we were certainly glad that we planned this way.

    hey, mama’s!

    The morning of November 13th, found me at the hay bale site, calling “hey mama’s!”, to the herd way across the snowy pasture. The cows know our voices and they know when we start calling, they better start coming. Slowly but surely, they made their way through the snow, to the hay bale site and started chowing down! Good, Mama’s!

    Hay! Yay!
    Chow time
    Good job, Mama’s!

    Be sure to check-out some of our winter related posts below. We will be adding many more for winter 2019-2020. Also, be sure to check-out our new blog series on Hay Quality as well as our updated thoughts on Beef castration banding and delayed castration!

    Staying Warm in the Winter on a Cattle Farm: Carhartt Women’s Insulated Bib Overalls

    Christmas Gifts for the Cattle Farmer: Clothes, Books, Tools and More!

    Winter Hay Bale Grazing: Part 1 of 4

    Beef Bull Castration: How to Use Castration Banders, including the Callicrate SMART Bander

    Testing and Measuring the Quality of your Cattle’s Winter Hay – PART 1: Why should we care about hay quality?

    Testing and Measuring the Quality of your Cattle’s Winter Hay – PART 2: Testing Hay Quality

    Raising Beef Cattle in Brutal Winter Conditions and Sticking to the Routine

    On the Cattle Farm – Cold, Snowy Winter 2018-2019 Update

    2017 Update: Part 1

  • Leasing Land for Cattle Grazing

    294
    A property near where we live that has been for sale for years and sadly, starting to turn back into woods.

    Are you wanting to expand your herd size but you are running out of pastureland?

    Do you drive by abandoned fields, longingly wishing that your cattle could graze there?

     

     

    Are those fields quickly turning back into woods?

    Are your neighbors looking for a natural and cost-effective way to manage their overgrown fields?

    Have you ever considered leasing pastureland??

    Leasing pastureland can be a win-win for all parties involved.

    As the leasee, it may be just the ticket you needed in order to buy those 10 new heifers or it may provide you with the additional pastureland you needed in order to allow your existing pastures time for grass regrowth.

    Leasing those extra 20 acres may allow you to graze further into the fall season and help lighten the load a bit on your winter feed cost (hay!).

    By allowing your cattle to graze their land, the lessor may be finding just the ticket they needed to help manage their fields.

    031
    August 2012 –  56 acres of old potato fields that had reverted back into woods, over-your-head grass and patches and patches and patches of alders and dogwood.

     

     

     

    In our neck of the woods, we have an abundance of abandoned potato fields that are quickly reverting back to woodlands and forests.

     

     

    198
    August 2014 – Our 18-month old son is now standing where we stood in the picture above.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    For some landowners, the cost of maintaining these fields as pastureland is just not worth it – financially and otherwise. These fields take more than just a little push mower to maintain.  Because of the woody elements in these fields, mowing has to be done with either a bush mower or a tractor with a mower attached.  This equipment costs money.  The fuel needed to run these machines costs money.  And for many, the time element and the physical labor required is the biggest obstacle of all.

    420
    Our farm – October 2012

     

     

     

    063
    July 2014 – Our farm with cattle. 🙂

     

     

     

     

     

    For some people, though, buying an old potato farm and clearing it back into pastureland and putting a herd of cattle on it is a dream come true.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Mowing and maintenance aside, the landowner(s) may simply find pleasure in the animals themselves.  They may find the sight of cows grazing in their backfield pretty neat.  There is certainly something to be said for the calming affect of animals such as cows.  I often find myself escaping to the pasture to simply watch our cows.  Not for any particular purpose.  Being a wife and mom while running a farm can have it’s stressful and overwhelming moments.  Being with our herd reminds me of why we are doing this and recharges my batteries for another day or at least another hour. 😉

    179
    Part of the 20 acres we lease from our neighbors

     

    This year, we came to an agreement with our neighbors that worked for all parties involved.  We need additional pasture land to support our growing herd and they were more than happy to let us cows “mow” the field for them, even though they do have the equipment to mow it.

     

     

    192
    Our cows grazing on leased land.

     

    We walked away with an additional 20 acres of pasture land for our cattle to graze!   We agreed to fence the property and remove the fencing if at any time the lease situation was not working out.

     

     

     

    281I can’t tell you how many times our neighbors told us how much they enjoyed seeing cattle grazing on their property.  Coming from the West, where cattle are as abundant as black flies here in northern Maine, I get a kick out of how much people around here enjoy just seeing our cattle…..from the road, as they go on an evening summer drive.  I know I have said this in a previous post but I will say it again:  We used to be the only people on our road that didn’t have cattle;  now, we are the only ones on our road with cattle.  ha!

    We hope that this is just the beginning of us being able to lease nearby land.  Like I said earlier in this post, we have a lot of abandoned or unused potato fields in our area, and we would love nothing more than to see our herd grazing on them.  It is hard to see these beautiful fields and pastures turn back into woods.  By allowing grazing on these fields, we hope that we can turn back the clock and restore these fields to their former glory.