Tough Grazing

The lack of rain this summer has been rough on the pastures. July was a very dry month. The beginning of August saw nearly daily rain for about two weeks and the pastures nearly recovered, but now it's been quite a while without rain and the pastures are starting to suffer again. Add to the lack of rain the high temperatures we have been having and I feel very sorry for the pastures and the sheep. We've had to feed more hay than I ever wanted to, but the sheep are happy.
I have been roping off sections of the yard for the sheep to graze and they had been very well behaved, until today.

I had them in area bordered by the stream and the raspberries. After they had been out for about an hour I looked out the window and saw them wandering around the blueberry bushes, definitely not in their little paddock. When I went out to try to get them back inside I saw all the rope down on the ground and the sheep had other ideas rather than going back into their pasture.
As I kept calling them to come back to the barn, they were exploring around the house, towards the road. By the time I got a scoop of feed (as a bribe) they were very close to the road along side the driveway. As I was moving up to them I heard a car coming and I was imagining the worst. Luckily, the driver had spotted the sheep and was going very slowly. The sheep saw the car and freaked and came running towards me so we all sprinted to the barn. The sheep were happy because they got a midday snack and I was happy they were all okay and back behind sturdy fencing.

Meanwhile...Back in the Pasture

Just taking a nap.

"What? It's hard work running around after my big brothers and sisters. You know I'm only a week old."

We both have vacation this week and are trying to get some pasture work done between the rain drops. This section of pasture doesn't get much sunlight so we cleared back a bunch of brush.

Looks much better.

And the sheep had fun hanging out with us too.

Oh Mercer!

Poor Mercer got his head stuck in the cattle panel wall of his pen yesterday. I found him being rammed by Elwood while he was trying to get himself free. We got Elwood preoccupied with some hay and tried to get Mercer unstuck, but every time we tried to push his head back he pushed against us. So next we tried giving him some time without Elwood ramming him. After half an hour he had made no progress. All the other sheep have heads small enough to get easily in and out of the cattle panel. Mercer has a much larger head and must have really worked hard to get through. We ended up having to cut the cattle panel to get him out. Then Alan did a nifty job weaving a repair.

As a treat we let the rams out to graze on the lawn today. It was time Elwood was reminded about electric rope and Mercer had never experienced it. They each got a little zap then kept their distance from the rope. They were very well behaved and ate grass for over an hour. But they were still happy to get back in their pen for a grain treat.

Little Sprouts

Earlier this week I took the sheep for a walk to check on the newly seeded area in the upper pasture. The sheep had a blast, especially the lambs.

The lambs took off over the hill and the ewes freaked out a little!

But the clover is starting to sprout. The weather is perfect for new seeds. We've been having nice showers every few days. I can't wait for more green.

Happy Lambs

We spent yesterday grooming the new pasture area, planting seed, and raking. The weather is forecasting rain tonight and tomorrow morning so I really wanted to get this seeding done. After hours of back breaking work we rested and let the ewes with the older lambs out to play. And play they did (well the lambs did!)

We had issues with videos but I think we have it figured out now. Hopefully, better videos to come.

More Pasture Clearing

Various ruminants were busily working away at the brush in the upper pasture for most of the summer. Last spring it looked like this:

Now it looks like this:

And over the hill looks like this:

It hard to get a photo to give a good sense of scale, but the area is about 300 feet long and about 70 feet wide. Next up is raking, then spreading seed and praying for rain. This work will nearly double my largest pasture.

I am really looking forward to seeing how the pastures perform next year. Between all the sheep manure and urine and the liming the soil fertility and environment should be improving and giving a better harvest of grasses.

Odds and Ends

We've been on a push to get a lot of landscaping projects finished up. I finally got the last of the grass seed and straw down...

and the grass is starting to come up around the front/side of the garage. A week and a half ago we had four inches of rain in three days and nothing since. But that was enough to get the first grass planting off to a decent start. We had a scant shower this afternoon and maybe more to come later today but nothing in any measurable amount is predicted.

Liming is coming along. I have the largest, and highest elevation, pasture to go. Pushing heavy lime up our hills is not fun.  And since we haven't gotten any rain yet, all the sheep are in small paddocks waiting for the lime to get watered into the grass. They seem to be liking the hay I've been giving them in lieu of grazing though.

Alan was able to get a little framing of the gable end wall over the garage. Next up siding.

Liming

Today was the start of liming the pastures. But first I had to purchase a spreader. It was tough to find a push spreader that would work on our hills and would last. Our local mower/snowblower dealer had a nifty little contractor model that hopefully will fit the bill. And Tractor Supply has pelletized lime on sale.

Six 40 pound bags down, only 19 more to go (of the first 1000 pounds.) I am tired just thinking about it.

I figure I have about two acres of pasture to spread with lime, at a ton and a half per acre that's 6000 pounds. Everything I've read says you should spread out that much lime application over two years. So I just have to spread 3000 pounds this fall, well now it's only 2760 pounds.

Soil Fertility

A couple weeks ago I sent soil samples from the vegetable garden, the orchard, the lower pasture and the hilly pastures to the Penn State Agricultural Analytical Services Laboratory. The results were somewhat as I expected and a little surprising in other areas.
This is the report for the vegetable garden:

Apparently the soil is perfect in the garden. All they recommend is an application of a 10-10-10 fertilizer. I think I'll stick with compost and composted manure.

The orchard is almost the opposite of the vegetable garden; every value is below optimum. The pastures were not too bad. They just need lime, only 6,000 pounds! I've been reading up on liming pastures and found out you shouldn't put that much lime down at once. Usually half is spread one year then the other half the next year. That's great, I only need to spread 3,000 pounds now. That's only 150-50 pound bags. Most farmers have a truck come in and spread lime and it's not expensive. But I don't think a truck could get into my pastures with all the fences, gates and hills.  We are still figuring out the best way to do this but we need to come up with something soon since the lime should be spread before the reseeding.

The most surprising result though was the selenium. I paid extra to check selenium levels and they are more than double the top of normal for this area. I guess I don't need to worry about selenium deficiency in my sheep. The risk of selenium toxicity is something I need to think about. Chronic toxicity may take a while to show any symptoms but so far the sheep are doing fine on the pasture and have no signs of selenium toxicity. I can send a whole blood sample to the lab for selenium level for $25 or I can send a liver sample and get results for calcium, cobalt, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, selenium, and zinc for $34. Since I will be butchering a couple of rams soon I think the liver sample is the way to go. I need to know if the selenium is just in the soil or if it is being taken up by the plants and eaten by the sheep.

Pasture Renovation Update

There is much work still ahead on the renovation of our pastures.

The sheep and goats have been busy munching away on the brush. Fall is the best time for seeding (by end of Sept) so it will soon be time to get out the roots and stumps in prep for seeding.

Our new brush hog to mow pasture after grazing worked great. I had been trying to scythe down the tall weeds left in the paddock when I moved the sheep. But the brush hog works so much better.

Took a bit of work to get going. Alan had to grind/sharpen blades the blades to get a decent edge.

And add a rubber edge (in place of the mangled up back edge) to prevent projectiles.

That man does love to tinker.

The other big pasture work will be reseeding. I sent off soil samples so we could correct any deficiencies now in preparation for reseeding. Now I am just waiting for the results to arrive.

Moving the Sheep, Again

The ewes have really gotten used to being moved. This last move was a little more complicated than most of the others they have experienced though. Usually they move into the next area, but this time we moved into a whole new area, out of one paddock, down a hill through the woods, and across another pasture. They are happy with their new grazing.

By evening their rumens were stuffed!

That's Clara's huge rumen sticking out on her left side (on the right of the photo.)
The pasture they are in now does not have any shed in it so I rigged up a shelter for them using two cattle panels, two t-posts and a tarp.

Most of our cattle panels have been cut in half then rejoined with hinges bent in the wire ends. This makes it easier to carry and I can make this teepee structure easily. The right side is pushed up against the old trailer and held on with a ratchet strap. The left side is up against the t-posts and pulled out with another ratchet strap. The sheep were totally freaked out by the tarp when we were unfolding it. I was afraid they wouldn't go in their little structure based on the way they acted. No problem, they went right in for their mineral trough.

Sheep on a Mission

The sheep have figured out the whole rotational grazing thing. They stick close to me in the morning to figure out where we are headed for the day's grazing; and in the evening they head back to the barn for their evening snack without waiting for me.

Once they get through the gate and can see their barnyard they take off running. A little grain and hay is a great bribe training tool!

Learning More About Rotational Grazing

The rams have done a pretty good job eating down their pasture, so it was time to move them again.

On the left in the photo above is the area they have been grazing for the past 5 days. Even though Alan was able to take a vacation day Wednesday I wanted to move the sheep without him. I need to be able to do this myself and always having him help me is not making me learn.
Anyway, Mackenzie, our youngest child is home from college for the summer and was a willing helper. Good thing too, since we had to move a calf hutch about 250 feet down the meadow. I wanted to start grazing the area at the other end of this pasture where it tends to get very wet. We have been seriously lacking in rainfall recently and this area is perfect for grazing right now. If we suddenly start getting a lot of rain this area will become off limits. Alan actually reclaimed this area last fall. It had been totally overgrown.

I actually set up two grazing areas. I want to try to always have the area they will be moving into next ready to go.
So what did the silly rams do first? They check out the calf hutch and ate some hay. I am still giving them a flake of hay daily until their rumens have totally adjusted to the grass diet.

After they ate some hay and the grass in their calf hutch they got to work on the good stuff!

I am learning how to make the electric rope fence work for me and the sheep have really learned to respect it. They won't get closer than a foot or two. I suspect I will be fairly proficient in fencing once I move the rams another three or four more times.

Moving the Ram Lambs to New Pasture

We spent a part of the past few days getting things ready and then moving the ram lambs.  We moved the calf hutch to the pasture on the other side of the stream. Good thing we have the crane attachment for the tractor.

Then we strung up temporary fencing.

Yesterday afternoon Maddy and I were able to coax everyone mostly everyone over the bridge and into their new pasture. Ram 004 made it on to the bridge then decided he would rather stay in the old barn. Alan ended up picking him up and carrying him to the new pasture.
Once everyone was in the new pasture they took to eating right away. After a while they went into the calf hutch and saw they had feed and water and hay in there. Of course, we had our first rain in over 3 weeks that evening and they stood outside and got completely soaked. Good thing, though, as they are very dirty.

They seem to have bonded into their own little flock and all the head butting and posturing has stopped. And everyone tested the fence, some a few times, and we had no escapees over night. So far it has been a successful move!

Learning the Ropes

While waiting for the pastures to be ready for grazing the sheep have been busy learning all about electric roping. With the permanent perimeter fencing and the semi permanent fencing down the side of the stream in place the sheep need to learn to respect the temporary electric rope that will delineate their grazing areas. We fenced in a small area outside their barn run with the electric rope and have been letting them out to "learn the ropes."

After quite a few zaps, ram 0006 was the slowest learner, they all seem to respect that little white rope. Yesterday ram 0006 came up to within a foot of the rope, looked at it, then backed away. Good boy!

Worming and weaning ram 0004 happen this weekend, then it will out into the pastures the following week.

Expanding the Pasture

Alan got to play with the drag harrow today; after using his ratchet rake to pull out all the little stumps from the area the goats cleared at the top of their old pasture. He has always said he doesn't want to be a farmer, but he sure does have fun with all the equipment!

This work today adds at least 50 x 150 feet to the top of the pasture. There is still about 250 feet left to go in this upper field and the goats are getting to work on that. They've done a pretty good job so far. Still over 200 feet to go though.

Next task up is seeding this area, but that will depend on the weather.

Fencing Along the Stream

For the Management Intensive Grazing (MIG) that I plan to use for the sheep I need to be able to attach my fencing to a hot electric wire. Our permanent perimeter fence has a hot wire along the top, but the middle pasture is far away from the perimeter fence for the most part. Today we strung a semi-permanent 3-wire electric fence on T-posts all along the stream. Total length was 385 feet. We used 23 T-posts. At our old house it would have taken nearly a week to pound in 23 T-posts!
We also got this cool tool- a Spinning Jenny. Very useful for rolling out the high-tensile wire.

Alan has the whole electric fencing thing pretty much figured out, but I am slowly coming along. It's finally starting to make some sense. These cool fencing tighteners work really well.

The fence looks pretty nice. Not only will it be my source of power for the portable fencing, it will also help keep the sheep out of the stream. Now we just need to add a couple connectors and hook up the knife switch so we can turn it off when needed. One step closer to MIG!

Clearing Brush

Over the years our pastures have been encroached upon by the brush growing out of the woods. We can probably increase the size of our grazing area by at least 15-20% by clearing back the brushy areas. We already cleared a good bit of brush before the fencing was installed. Now we need to get to work on the main pasture areas. Time for the goats and sheep to get to work!
Here is an example of one of our areas in need of clearing (probably a good 25 feet wide and 10 feet tall and many, many feet long):

The first area we put the goats to work on is now looking like this:

We have to pull up the stumps and roots and seed but already the pasture looks so much bigger!

Frost Seeding

With the snow fall we had on Friday of 7-8 inches, and the rapid melting immediately after, Saturday was a great day to frost seed.  We bought an Earthway broadcast spreader and the snow cover, down to 3-4 inches by Saturday afternoon, helped me learn to use the spreader's settings and tell where I had already seeded. I could get a nice even spread over about a 6-8 foot swath as I walked along. The hardest part was not slipping all over the place and dropping the spreader since I had the slippery melting snow to contend with. And our property is mostly hills making footing even trickier.

The Earthway spreader is a pretty neat gadget; very easy to figure out the settings and easy to operate. I was really happy with the coverage I was able to obtain. 

Mapping It

Maddy has a degree in Geography and made us a great map of our property. I then added a bunch of details, so anything that looks amateurish is my handiwork and not my daughter's work.

The map helps to demonstrate the hilliness of our property.  The bottom corner is the highest elevation and the stream runs along the lowest part of our little valley. The stream also loses about 5 or 6 feet as it runs down towards the house (at the top of the image.)

In this close up of the area around the house it is easier to see the elevation lines. The bottom right corner of the house faces pretty much towards the south.

The area right around the house and on either side of the stream is fairly level . Across the stream from the house is the firewood processing area.
The back or farm part of the property is much hillier.

The green shaded areas are woods and/or shrubby areas. The pastures, in white, are slowly being encroached by brush. This year's task for the goats and sheep is to clear back the brush so we can expand the pastures back to their original size.  We should be able to increase the pastures by approximately 25% by clearing the brush. And we will make the goats very happy with that job too.

It is hard to see, but the pale, thin line around the perimeter of the back part of the property is the new fencing and the gray rectangle in the upper left is the barn. We will have three main pastures, the first on the south side of the stream, the other two split by the finger of green shaded area in the middle of the image. Each main pasture will then be managed intensively, moving the animals around with temporary electric fencing. I am excited to see how this all works. The chickens caught on quickly to the concept and would get all excited when I was moving their electric fencing.  I am hoping the sheep and goats will be able to be out on pasture by May, but the snow had better start melting faster!