Starting slowly with pasturing
Many of us get so excited
when we learn about multi-species
grazing and about rotational
pastures that we want to create a vibrant ecosystem
overnight. But Greg Judy cautions us to slow down.
If you already manage a
pasture, he recommends not increasing your stocking rate or expanding
into multiple species for at least two years. It will take you
that long to improve the quality of your soil so that it can handle
more feet.
Meanwhile, Greg
recommends that you figure out what your centerpiece animal is and
learn the intricacies of its care before bringing new animals in.
Yes, adding more species can make the patsuring system work more
efficiently, but so will focusing on what's most important rather than
scattering your attention in five different directions.
Meat animals make much
better starter livestock than dairy animals do. Making milk
requires a lot of energy, and it's tough (although possible) to keep
dairy animals healthy on pasture alone. In addition, a quality
milk cow is worth a lot more than a meat cow, so there's less financial
risk as you muddle your way up the learning curve.
Finally, Greg recommends
that you pay as close attention to yourself as you do to the
pasture. If you work a full time job and plan to pasture
livestock in your spare time, don't start with a complex dairy cow
rotation where you need to move animals seven times a day. On the
other hand, if you're unemployed and are willing to put in the time,
you can feed many more animals on the same acreage if you're willing to
rotate often so that high quality food is always available. Maybe
in a few years, you'll be able to run half a dozen different kinds of
livestock on that same pasture.
 This post is part of our Mob Grazing lunchtime series.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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First of all, I'm jealous of your pasture.
How many acres is it? My advice would vary a lot if you've got say, two acres vs. two hundred acres. (I know you don't have 200 acres, but can't remember how much you actually have.)
I think that if I were in your shoes, I'd start out by figuring out exactly what I have. I'd make a map that shows existing shrubby areas and open areas, and would overlay a soil survey over that to figure out whether there are rich and poor areas. I'd pay attention to streams and consider fencing in riparian buffers. (The Soil Conservation Service often has grants to help with the latter.)
Then I'd take soil tests in various spots to see where you're starting. Don't lime anything without testing the pH! If your soil is low in organic matter, animals are the best solution, of course, but you can also mow the ground a lot to simulate grazing, letting the cuttings rot into the soil. If you're very low in any micronutrients, it might be worth applying rock dusts to even things out.
I'd also spend some time out in the pasture looking at plants. Is the grassy area mostly grass, is it growing up in goldenrod and blackberries, does it have lots of legumes mixed in? Legumes are what will add richness to the pasture, so one of your first goals might be to help them make a comeback. That can involve mowing an area in the late summer before the weeds go to seed, then spreading a bunch of clover seeds (white if you're going to be doing Voisin style grazing; red if you're going to be mob grazing.)
As long as the trees don't get too big for a bushhog, I don't think you'll hurt the pasture by letting it grow up. Some combination of sheep, pigs, and bushhogging would open it back up pretty quickly. So I might choose a small area and focus on it rather than trying to improve the whole pasture all at once. Perhaps just enough land to keep three sheep happy if that's the type of animal I wanted to start with.
If you want to plant trees that will help your livestock, now is a great time to get them established so they won't be destroyed by livestock when small. Persimmons, mulberries, oaks, and chestnuts are good for pigs --- see the book Tree Crops for more information.
It's also worth starting to think about fences. That's one of the most expensive and time-consuming startup costs, so if you can make a bit of fence every year, you'll be much happier than if you buy sheep and then struggle to start fencing.
Finally, remember that I'm an armchair pasturer and take everything I say with a grain of salt....
Using the Google Planimeter tool and cross referencing it with the TN Assessor's website (which also has a distance/area calculating tool), I estimate we have a little over a half acre that is currently finish mowed (the area around the cabins and sheds), another half acre where the old farmhouse used to sit, a little less than 1.5 acres adjacent to the barn that is grownup but no trees (I haven't had a chance yet to attempt to identify what is growing), and about 1.2 acres above that that is grownup with young trees. If you don't mind, I've provided links to a couple pictures that show what we've got. It looks like mostly grasses with weeds to me, but I know little about botany.
July 2011 http://www.flickr.com/photos/scmtngirl/5974253942/in/set-72157627277108352/lightbox/
July 2011 http://www.flickr.com/photos/scmtngirl/5974083088/in/set-72157627277108352/lightbox/
December 2011 http://www.flickr.com/photos/scmtngirl/6666558249/in/set-72157628374850961/lightbox/
Our water source is a stream that does not bisect or edge any pasture areas.
Legumes are cool-season crops, so that is why we would mow the summer weeds before going to seed to allow the legumes to grow during cold weather?
We have a big ol' Chestnut tree - maybe that would be an ideal spot to start some pigs in.
Definitely plan to do at least some fencing first. My hub, Justin, wants to try to do a permanent perimeter fence using the existing tree line and then cross-fence/paddock for whatever we end up getting.
Here's an aerial image of our land with my really anal-retentive markups: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-i-bj2gG8uUU/TrmNgrrG9KI/AAAAAAAAA00/Zj9abet22SA/s640/aerial+overview.JPG
I think it will be a least a year or two before we actually get any animals (we're not actually moved out there yet either - hopefully this summer). Baby steps for sure. In the meantime, I can't help but gobble up anything homesteading-related. And I second Cheri's comment about the MEN nomination!
Sarah --- I think you're not the Sarah I thought you were....
The Sarah whose blog I read lives way down south, but it sounds like you're closer to our neck of the woods.
Your first photo, with the troubled barn, looks like it's got a lot of Queen Anne's Lace and probably goldenrod, which is actually probably a good sign --- less fertile soil would have other plants.
In your second picture, with the lawn, I wonder if that plant in the right foreground is a sedge? That might mean that area is damp.
The pastures actually look quite good to me --- not so grown up as I'd expected. Of course, your lawn is prime pasture, just waiting to be grazed....
The reason you'd mow before planting legumes is because legumes aren't very good competitors. They depend on livestock to cut back the taller weeds or they'll get shaded out, but you can simulate that by judicious mowing of your own.
Your chestnut tree is definitely an asset! You might plan to graze pigs there in the fall to fatten them up before slaughter --- that was the traditional approach.
It looks like your farm has a lot of potential! I'll look forward to hearing how your experiments go.
Cheri --- Thanks so much! I'll email you some photos this evening or tomorrow morning.
Yea, it's a common name for sure! Coincidentally, my middle name is Anna. But I go by Mitsy on my blog. Maybe I should change my login to reflect that...
We're in Hancock County, and our property is actually just one parcel over from the Virginia state line!
The spring is near the area with what you think might be sedge, so that would make sense. We were thinking of using the lawn area mainly for gardening since it's closest to the cabin, but I might keep the chickens in that area, too.
Anyway, thanks so much for letting me pick your brain!
~ Mitsy (aka Sarah)
I'll have to start reading your blog now that you included a link - then I'll at least remember there are two Sarahs commenting.
My brother's living in Hancock county at the moment. I think we're about an hour or two away from your new homestead.