Question re: dealing with separated pastures?

[Nao57]

So I wanted to ask how you guys deal with separated pastures when you can't always get them cheap next door.

Like an example, most of your pastures are next to each other, except you have a couple that aren't right next to your others. Maybe its a few hundred yards away or a mile away with other neighbors or farms in between... (or maybe there isn't anything there but its just separated>?)

How do you deal with this?

This seems like a pain in the.... coughs especially if you were herding something like sheep or even cattle. Or even if you were growing stuff, ...

This seems like a mess.

But when you are saying growing a farm over time it seems like you wouldn't always be able to acquire everything all clumped together in the same locations right?

So what do people do to deal with it, manage it, etc etc?

 

[misfitmorgan]

When we had split pastures(we still sort of do) the livestock get loaded on trailers and moved but the summer pasture is about 14 miles away so no walking that. For moving on farm we just set up lanes/or alleyways. Alot of people keep electric net or steps in pots and electric line to make temporary lanes/alleys to move livestock between pens, pastures or buildings.

Some people use permanent lanes/alleys with gates they can open or close to move animals and direct them where they want them to go.

 

[Nao57]

When we had split pastures(we still sort of do) the livestock get loaded on trailers and moved but the summer pasture is about 14 miles away so no walking that. For moving on farm we just set up lanes/or alleyways. Alot of people keep electric net or steps in pots and electric line to make temporary lanes/alleys to move livestock between pens, pastures or buildings.

Some people use permanent lanes/alleys with gates they can open or close to move animals and direct them where they want them to go.

That makes sense. Lanes would be useful.

 

[Baymule]

My sheep barn is connected to two pastures. Easy, just open a gate. I have 3 other pastures that are not connected. I just open their gate, shake a red coffee can and they follow me. To put them up for the night, I go in their barn, yell SHEEP SHEEP SHEEP! and put feed in the trough for them. By this time they are yelling at me BAA BAA BAA BAA!!! I open the gate of the pasture they are in and they run as fast as their little hooves will take them-back to their barn. Sometimes I let them in the yard, I have to take down the bird feeder and make sure the door is shut on the porch.

 

[Alaskan]

My sheep barn is connected to two pastures. Easy, just open a gate. I have 3 other pastures that are not connected. I just open their gate, shake a red coffee can and they follow me. To put them up for the night, I go in their barn, yell SHEEP SHEEP SHEEP! and put feed in the trough for them. By this time they are yelling at me BAA BAA BAA BAA!!! I open the gate of the pasture they are in and they run as fast as their little hooves will take them-back to their barn. Sometimes I let them in the yard, I have to take down the bird feeder and make sure the door is shut on the porch.

Yep.... train them!

My grandfather had his cattle trained like that... as you drive through the pasture you honk the horn a few times... drive to the new pasture, you open the gate to the new pasture, park the truck in the new pasture, honk the horn a few more times...

Pour out feed, and get into the truck bed before the herd shows up...

Then stand there and count....


Get in the truck, drive off and close the gate.

 

[Nao57]

Yep.... train them!

My grandfather had his cattle trained like that... as you drive through the pasture you honk the horn a few times... drive to the new pasture, you open the gate to the new pasture, park the truck in the new pasture, honk the horn a few more times...

Pour out feed, and get into the truck bed before the herd shows up...

Then stand there and count....


Get in the truck, drive off and close the gate.

That is really cool! I like it.

 

[Nao57]

Do you have to have water troughs in every partition? How do you work this part out?

 

[Alaskan]

Do you have to have water troughs in every partition? How do you work this part out?

Yes... each pasture must have water.

You just... work it out...

My grandfather had one back pasture that only had a seasonal pond... so... that one was only used when there was water in the pond... had to watch it.

For when you need to make a water trough (one where water is piped in) you either fence in the water trough, in it's own little sacrificial pen, and that sacrificial water pen you stick it in the middle of several pastures.. think like the hub of a wheel.... so the sacrificial water pen has a bunch of gates... each to a different pasture...

Or...

You set it up so the water trough is through the fence and so can reach 2 pastures.

Or...

You have ponds or rivers or some other water in each pasture... or you HAUL the water.

 

[Mini Horses]

My animals follow me when I call and walk. The Pied Piper method. Feed is a great training tool! I have a fenced alley the length of my farm, 15' wide. Open gates at any pasture, either side. I have a few panels that I can use to even close the alley in between the main gates at each end, excellent for times you may need to separate animals. You just have to think first. Yes, if a pasture is several miles away, a trailer is often needed. Depends on animals and their numbers, plus roads/terrain between. People do this all the time.

You should ALWAYS train animals to come to a "call". When they get out of a fence -- they will! -- you can get them to return to you by calling them to you! Habit! Food! Results!

 

[farmerjan]

Most of our summer pastures are 5-25 miles away from the farm we call the " home farm or Doug's farm" ... we rent that also, but it has multiple fields and lots and the barn and working facilities that we use. They are attached to lanes to move the cattle or a few have just gates to go from one to another. Again, like @Baymule and @Mini Horses , the cows come to call most all the time so not hard to move from one to another.... or into the lane to then move them to a different field.
All the summer pastures, the cows are trailered there, and then some of them have multiple fenced sections so they are rotational grazed there. Come time to get them out, we have acquired over time many portable fence panels that we set up, call the cows in with grain, shut them in the confined area and then trailer them back out to the "home farm" for weaning of calves, pregnancy checking and then moving cattle to winter fields. Used to have a cattle drive (actually drove the truck and called and they would run to follow) down the road from one place to another about 1 1/2 or 2 miles away...dirt roads and not much traffic..... but the one place got sold so no more. The roads are too busy to try to move them from a couple of others that are fairly close to the home farm.... trailer is safer. We actually will trailer the cows from the working pens to the one back pasture on the same farm because there are no fences along the roadway out back through the property, and it opens up to the orchard grass hay field, and don't want the cows deciding that it would be more fun to run through it, instead of turning right and going up that short lane to the pasture gate.