Does anyone here use Joel Salatin's movable pens?

[babalubird]

We want to similate his grazing methods. We are in central Texas. He told us personally that we would have to make our daily movable pens 1/10th acre in order to use the 150 day rotation he advocates.

How many calves-young steers do you think we can put in this 1/10th acre in our drier climate? He couldn't answer that for us since he is in PA, I think.

Thanks.

 

[big brown horse]

Hi Connie,

I love Joel Salatin! But I don't have cows. Good luck and welcome to the herd!!

-Sally

P.S. I lived in TX for 35+ years, heck I lost count now. Mostly north in Denton, then Austin and Houston.

 

[Beekissed]

Have done this ala Salatin, but couldn't advise for your climate.

 

[FarmerChick]

1/10 th of an acre is very small.

then how is the grazing and are you ONLY grazing and no supp. hay and feed etc? You have to know exactly what is required of that 1/10 th acre and how that will support your program.

It depends on grass and feeding. Calves do not have to have grass, you can have a more barren 1/10th acre and feed hay and grain and it would support more calves. If you are feeding only off that pasture, you can support less calves depending on amt. of forage.

Even if you move this pen every day, without enough grazing it won't support one calf let alone more. So know your grass and then go from there.

 

[Beekissed]

I think this is a case of just doing it and monitoring the results. If you find all the grass is not well grazed in a day's time, you might add more cows. If they run out of graze before the day is ended and are overgrazing the existing forage, then you cut back on your cows or increase the size of your paddocks.

Salatin uses mob grazing, or grazing quite a few animals on a very small space, so that all the grasses are eaten as the animals compete for the available food. This insures that the pasture isn't just "creamed" for the tastier, more tender herbage.

If you don't use this method, you may wind up with the grasses they do not particularly like reaching maturity and going to seed~ producing more of the grasses that the cattle don't prefer as much.

That is why his methods are called "intensive" grazing. If you are doing it Salatin style, no supplemental feeds are used unless you feed some hay during the droughty periods in July/Aug.

 

[hickoryfieldfarm]

Just attended CCE conference on grass-fed beef and got a lot of info on mob-grazing....they recommend 500,000-1,000,000 lbs of cattle/acre for maximum benefit. If you are only moving once a day they would go lower, maybe 300,000 or so....some people are moving every hour!
they also emphasized that with this method, you do not want to re graze that area again more than one other time that year, and prefer it get a full year to recover.....
Terry Gompert, University of Nebraska/Lincoln Cooperative Extension Educator gave a great talk on the subject, I am sure if you emailed him tgompert1@unl.edu he would give you more info...

 

[amysflock]

Connie, how much land do you have? We are considering trying MIG (Salatin-style) this year, too, with our Highland cattle, knowing we'll have to supplement (as he recommends) with hay during the first rotation (grass is too rich and we don't want them to graze it too short), and probably again during the heat of summer. We want to try this more for pasture improvement (allowing the "good" grasses to be grazed properly so they compete better with the rye grass and others the cattle don't like as much), with hopefully an added benefit of getting our cattle to eat more pasture and less hay. Last year was so dry and hot that we ended up feeding hay from July on almost exclusively.

All that said, we have a scant 3 acres and by grazing time will have three mature Highland cows (two lactating by then) and one long yearling heifer to feed. We haven't figured out the paddock size or shape yet. I'm quite sure we're too small (and the grass not in peak condition) to get a 150 day rotation, at least not this year. I"ll be happy if we can just keep up with the grass and move the cattle at a pace that allows no more than a short break in the sacrifice paddock with hay feed as we cycle through the last adjustable paddock each time.

 

[Jammy243]

I Bookmarked this thread for future



Regards


Jammy243

 

[amysflock]

UPDATE:

We are now a couple of months into our first experiement with Salatin's methods, modified to work around our weather, which has been abysmal. Today is the 6th of June and only the second day with temps over 60 and sunshine, and may was one of the coldest and wettest on record. Not so good for growing grass.

We have rotated the cattle through four different paddocks, sized probably bigger than they should be, but trying not to put too much pressure on what grass we do have, and pull them off periodically to feed them hay in the sacrifice paddock. The cattle learned quickly that when we approach the polywire fencing we're probably going to open it up, so they caught on to moving paddocks very quickly. It's hilarious to see them run and buck and kick in excitement each time they get to move. We have two 1.5-month old bull calves who have hopped between the two polywire strands we've used, but they're old enough now that we plan to restring with 1 strand, using the 2nd from the top "holder" on our fiberglass step-in posts, and figure if they duck underneath from time to time, they'll come back to nurse. They can't get into too much trouble, are big and fast enough to run from a coyote (should one even enter the pasture), and can't escape the perimeter fences anyway.

We are pretty sure we're not doing this MiG "right" but are confident what we are doing is an improvement over the full-time access they had the past two years during spring and summer. We plan to apply chicken manure this fall, and may overseed with white clover as well, we'll see. The pasture can only improve from here, right?

Anyone else doing MiG this year? How is it going?

 

[Beekissed]

I started out doing this but had to stop and protect my trees. I had been doing it through my apple orchard and until then, my sheep hadn't ever gnawed on a tree. Now, being confined to small paddocks that have a tree or two in them, they started stripping bark.

So, for now, they are not in small paddocks and are running the whole place....and they stopped eating the trees. Go figure...out of boredom? Who knows?

Until I get wire cages around each and every one of the 15 trees, I can't put them back into the orchard, which is half of my total pasture. Plus, I have one ready to lamb and I don't want her in the upper orchard and out of reach of my LGDs electric boundary.

Hope to return to rotational when I have a better setup for my trees.