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Post by lakeportfarms on May 3, 2013 11:58:02 GMT -5
I guess I never really answered the questions posed, so here it is: 1. How many Acres do you graze? 382. How many cattle are in your Herd? 60 on average. Yes, I said 60 of varying ages on 38 acres!3. Number of Paddocks in your rotation? 6 permanent, and divided by temporary step ins to at least 150-200. Modified: Actually, I should be more specific, we have 6 permanent pastures, 4 sacrifice areas of an acre or so, and each permanent pasture has approximately 60-75 .5 day grazing strips utilizing step ins with polywire. This allows 30-40 days between grazing of specific areas. 4. Number of days in each paddock? .5 days 5. How do you handle the Daily water Requirement of the cattle. Movable cart with water and mineral using auto waterers, hose, and hydrants scattered around the property. 6. Make up of Pasture such as what type of plant material and soil type. Primarily fescue with some timothy and orchard grass. Soil ranges from clay to sandy loam depending on the area. Read more: dextercattle.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=feed&action=display&thread=2912#ixzz2SFWG7kHO
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Post by shortfencefarm on Dec 9, 2013 23:38:39 GMT -5
1. How many Acres do you graze?
3 2. How many cattle are in your Herd?
3 3. Number of Paddocks in your rotation?
30 4. Number of days in each paddock?
1-2 depending on the available forage 5. How do you handle the Daily water Requirement of the cattle. 1-2 20 gallon bucket filled with captured rainwater 6. Make up of Pasture such as what type of plant material and soil type.
Mostly mix grasses and fescue with a bit of clover planted in clay
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Post by wagradexters on Dec 10, 2013 5:33:12 GMT -5
Now I am curious, how do you fit 30 paddocks into 3 acres? Margaret
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Post by lakeportfarms on Dec 10, 2013 8:22:18 GMT -5
As Sheri said, it's better to have them spend too little time in a temporary pasture than too much. With only three cows, the space should be REALLY small and moved daily to get the best results. What they don't eat gets trampled and fertilized and helps build a good base for re-growth.
In such a small area it may be necessary to run electronet. In a larger space even with more cows we have no problem containing the yearling to adults with a single wire at about 30", which saves a lot of time and simplifies the process of creating the temporary strips.
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Post by shortfencefarm on Dec 10, 2013 15:59:38 GMT -5
Friends, This whole thing for me was a science experiment. But basically I use 1/10 acre to get the property stocking density. I use 4 reels with polywire and with only about 8,000 ft of fence on a 50 mile fencer they respect it, plus when they are moving into a new "buffet" everyday they do not want for much. It took a while to condition free range cattle to high intensity grazing, but after awhile they were lined up and ready to move every time I when out to move them. It is a little more effort to move water and salt block/mineral blocks, but since I work a straight job my cattle are "mental floss". I would spend all day with them if I could, they all came from a great guy who really cared about his animals and they are good with people especially the herd sire who comes to his name and demands your attention. Since this whole thing began in June the partly wooded area has changed dramatically, I overseeded fescue and clover in September before I would release them into a paddock so they could stomp the seed in and it took off. I now have 12 acres of stockpiled forage that I plan to let them loose on in the next week and that should last quite awhile at 1/10 of an acre at a time.
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DoubleD
member
So no one on here has tried giving hemp to Dexters?
Posts: 59
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Post by DoubleD on Jan 15, 2014 22:47:18 GMT -5
1. How many Acres do you graze?
24-26 acres
2. How many cattle are in your Herd?
12
3. Number of Paddocks in your rotation?
Depends. I do not use a fixed number of paddocks. Spring paddocks are larger due to grass starting, summer paddocks smaller when grass is dense.
4. Number of days in each paddock?
1 usually, 2 maximum
5. How do you handle the Daily water Requirement of the cattle.
I manually haul 8-12 18 liter (5 gallon) jugs of water to my cattle. If you put cattle near trees in mid summer (shade), water consumption gets cuts in half.
6. Make up of Pasture such as what type of plant material and soil type.
Typical ontario grasses and some other grasses/legumes. Timothy, big blue stem, meadow broom, orchard grass, canadian blue grass, fescue, red clover, trefoil, crown vetch.
My wife and I have completed the HMI (Holistic management international) course, which helped us in planning our grazing rotations. We did alot of experimentation with our herd of Dexters to get the timing rest time down. If anything we really under utilized the pasture. Next year already gearing up and getting ready for next years grazing. We had great recovery with the pasture this past summer.
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Post by blessings farms on Jan 22, 2014 6:16:57 GMT -5
Would like some comments on our plan. 11 acres 4 -8 dexter 8 - 12 mini goat 100 x 200 permenent fenced Hay alpalfa grass hay 60# $4.00 700# $45.00 Local cattle/goat mix 100# $14.10 bulk. Plan for meat, 4-H, milk products, sale, and retirement.
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Post by lakeportfarms on Jan 22, 2014 7:36:50 GMT -5
1. How many Acres do you graze? 24-26 acres 2. How many cattle are in your Herd? 12 3. Number of Paddocks in your rotation? Depends. I do not use a fixed number of paddocks. Spring paddocks are larger due to grass starting, summer paddocks smaller when grass is dense. 4. Number of days in each paddock? 1 usually, 2 maximum 5. How do you handle the Daily water Requirement of the cattle. I manually haul 8-12 18 liter (5 gallon) jugs of water to my cattle. If you put cattle near trees in mid summer (shade), water consumption gets cuts in half. 6. Make up of Pasture such as what type of plant material and soil type. Typical ontario grasses and some other grasses/legumes. Timothy, big blue stem, meadow broom, orchard grass, canadian blue grass, fescue, red clover, trefoil, crown vetch. My wife and I have completed the HMI (Holistic management international) course, which helped us in planning our grazing rotations. We did alot of experimentation with our herd of Dexters to get the timing rest time down. If anything we really under utilized the pasture. Next year already gearing up and getting ready for next years grazing. We had great recovery with the pasture this past summer. DoubleD, since you're roughly in the same area as we are, you'll have no problem with your stocking density. In fact you could probably have some cut for hay and then stockpile your forage for grazing later in the season using strip grazing. Near the lakes we get a later start than other areas so you'll probably want to wait to put them on the pasture until mid May or a bit later, but then the challenge is keeping up with the growth for the next couple of months. Rather than putting them on fresh grass because you have it available, rotate based on the condition of the just grazed area and decide what to do with what areas they are unable to get to, if that makes sense. You'll see the biggest improvement in your pasture that way.
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Post by littlecowfl on Jan 16, 2017 8:05:30 GMT -5
I should have added a few details.
We have very poor, sandy soil and the growing season begins in May and ends by October (in a good year). We have enough pasture to graze them longer, but we also need to rest pastures long enough to break parasite cycles. We do get freezes here, but sometimes not until January, so parasite management is our biggest concern. If we rotate too often, we will spread the parasites and allow our animals to reinfect themselves. We leave them on larger pastures for 30 days or so, or when the pasture begins to look uneven, and then rotate. Sometimes, we rotate more often, but we have to make sure they don't return to a pasture until it's been at least 30 days since it was last grazed. When we do fecal samples, we rarely have any parasites, which is very good for our area.
Our new farm is clay/sandy with excellent potential pasture. We will only have two main pastures with a sacrifice area. We will divide it further in the future. We are clearing it now and will be planting the pasture in May/June. The cows will not get there until the pasture has been fertilized, mowed and grown back. They may not even graze until winter. For the first time, we will overseed with winter rye grass in one pasture to see how that does. We need to find some pasture to rent as well, but we will need to be careful because we won't be able to change much. If the cows pick up noxious grasses in the rental pasture, they will spread those seeds to our farm pastures.
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Post by helenbk on Jun 14, 2018 13:08:04 GMT -5
New Girl here, we don’t even have cows yet but we are 2 years out from moving to AL or GA so we can get them. Our plan is to buy 2 cows for milking purposes and have them calve 6 months apart so we never completely lose our milk supply. Bull calves would be steered and eventually eaten or meat sold, heifers would be sold so we only ever have 2 full grown ladies on the pasture. We want to use rotational grazing all the way and not need to purchase any feed. Assuming our future land has crappy weedy pasture and that we would seed it with some forage 6 months to 1 year(?) before any cows hit the grass....what is the minimum pasture acreage we would need?
Our original plan plan was for a 30 acre home but we may not be able to afford more than 12-15 and want to keep 2 acres for yard, garden, pool and chicken run.
Your expertise would be very welcome!
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Post by otf on Jun 15, 2018 6:50:40 GMT -5
Wherever you end up settling, get in touch with your county agricultural extension agent, as well as the nearest NRCS office near you, and a local/regional soil and water office. No doubt the people in these organizations know each other and should able to advise you on your property's stocking rate, how to prepare your pastures, how to fence them, how to provide water, etc. The critical things in rotational fencing is providing water AND shade for your animals. Can't guarantee not having to purchase feed, especially if you are milking a cow.
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Post by MacCC on May 19, 2019 10:54:27 GMT -5
New guy here. Love all the information this website is giving. I am very happy to see others running very small paddocks on minimal acres. I just started this adventure in Dexters and was not sure it would work to keep a small herd in a very small space. Right now this is what I am doing:
-Grazing right around 5 acres -3 cows in my herd -Not entirely sure on number of paddocks. Two permanent pastures with strip grazing going on inside the perimeter fences. My original measurements to give me 30 total have gone out the window, so I am running TurboWire to make a 45x45 area for once a day moves, and a 90x45 area for once every two day moves. (I work 24 hour shifts randomly throughout each week) -Daily water is with a moveable 50 Gallon Rubber Maid trough. The front pasture is filled off of a well hydrant and garden hose. The back pasture is filled off of the same well and garden hose, except I have to drop a hose into the well itself and pump it out using an 18 volt battery powered Milwaukee transfer pump. -Pastures are made up of 50% mixed grasses and forbs, and 50% white and red clover.
Right now I can not stay ahead of the seed heads, so I am considering clipping the paddocks ahead of us very high to just eliminate the seed head and keep the grass in the growth curve. Not to hijack the thread but I would love to see "shelter used" added to this threads list! With such small paddocks my herd does not have 24/7 access to the perimeter tree lines or the centrally located animal shed I have in each pasture. I am curious what others do!
EDIT- I was advised that pastures should be clipped AFTER the herd is moved off. High enough so just the stalk and seed head are removed. "Never clip before turning the herd in."
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Post by cddexter on May 25, 2019 19:52:17 GMT -5
MacCC: yup, clip after. I don't see where you mentioned your location. Count on a Dexter eating about 1/2 what a Hereford or Angus would in your neighborhood. Cheers, Carol.
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