grrrrazing!
I wrote a post last weekend about my general mental / emotional state and I’m feeling weird about posting it. Writing this is as much for future me as it is for other readers (maybe it should have been called The New Farm - a Cautionary Tale) and only showing the high points or huge projects at the beginning and end like a DIY show is not an authentic representation of what life is like for me, so I feel that it was important. In case anyone else is thinking, "you brought this on yourself", I am aware.
Enough of that! The reason I wanted to write today is because of a huge and exciting event that happened this morning! THE EWES ARE OUT ON ROTATION!
Just a primer here on rotational - or management intensive grazing. This is where you move animals around to different fields (or paddocks) throughout the grazing season. There are SO many benefits! Again, this is just the information I have as an 'enthusiast' level grazier. There are WAY better sources out there, you should check those out if you want more information or clarification. I'm partial to Cornell Cooperative Extension or of course, my alma mater Michigan State University Extension.
- When ruminants go out and get their own dinner (and breakfast and lunch), we don't have to use heavy equipment to harvest it, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels.
- The sheep deposit their manure (fertilizer) as they graze which means that I don't have to use a tractor to scoop it up and then spread it - NO fossil fuels and NO synthetic fertilizers!. One special thing about sheep manure is that it is little pellets, so this gets incorporated in the soil quickly unlike manure of larger ruminants.
- Sheep have sharp little hooves that aerate the soil and incorporate their own magic manure.
- Grazing increases carbon and nitrogen in the soil. The additional nutrients signal the plants to release sugars which feed microorganisms thereby increasing soil organic matter!
- The root masses of healthy pastures sequester carbon! That's RIGHT PEOPLE! As in: carbon footprint?? Guess whose carbon footprint is like zilch? Grass farmers! And the grass farmers aren't buying fuel either, it's a double whammy!
That got real cheerleader-y. I LOVE this stuff.
The basic components required for rotational grazing are, sheep, fencing, and a well thought out grazing plan. I'm not sure if it's a requirement to lose sleep over the plan, but it can't hurt.
Sheep? CHECK Grazing Plan? CHECK! and now... Fencing? CHECK!!! sort of...
The perimeter fencing has been finished since earlier this week, but the ewes have been trapped in the barnyard while I got my act together. Before the grazing system in the spreadsheet is fully operational, we need to take down all of the existing temporary fences and then set up a whole bunch of interior fences. This is going to take some time.
Monday night after work we took down all of the temporary fences. We use two types of net fences, sheep net and permanet.
Setting sheep net is a job that I enjoy, but setting permanet is one of my least favorite jobs. It does a super job of keeping animals contained and protected in all kinds of weather including deep snow, but moving it is a feat of strength and patience that I’m not equipped for. Usually with sheep net, I hold the bundle of posts in one hand and pick the next post from the ground with the other hand. It only gets hard to hold on to them for the last few. With permanet the posts are way fatter and way taller and everything goes fine until halfway through the roll when it becomes too hard to hold and then after that it gets heavier and heavier and the cursing gets louder and more creative. Also, mixed in with our permanet are rolls of poultry net which are WAY heavier and they get tangled in EVERYTHING. I realize that this is super boring for anyone who hasn’t had this particular pleasure, but the work was hard and it was really humid and I was working myself into a top notch snit. Chris was surprisingly chipper, these fences aren’t as hard for him, and he kept getting distracted doing other jobs which is good, but I just wanted to be done and his enthusiasm was driving me MAD.
Trying to circle back here to the point of this post. The ADD is strong today! Last night I had a big plan to put the ewes out into our freshly designed rotational system, but sheep are always working against the shepherd! A super important component of moving sheep onto pasture when they have been eating mostly dry hay is to put them out when they aren’t hungry. This may seem counterintuitive, but if they gorge themselves on any kind of new feedstuff, they can become very ill or even die.
When I left for my herding lesson with Tip (just look at this gorgeous guy!) in the afternoon, there was a little bit of hay left so I thought it would be perfect timing. Ewes would be full. Well, when I got home 2 hours later they had cleaned the place and were doing the ‘bad farmer’ look where they stand all close together staring at me while one designated animal airs their grievances. They know it's less effective if they all talk at once. They were hungry. So they bought themselves another night of dry hay.
This morning we could be sure that they were full so we set some sheep nets up temporarily to move them onto Pasture 4 and got them out there!! We still have a TON of work to do to have a fully functioning rotational grazing system, but watching them out there today fills me with this incredible sense of joy. Like it’s a surprise milestone in this process of building a new farm. I didn’t anticipate how this would feel, but I am going to bask in this for a bit.