I mentioned last week that our grass is late this year. My wife, Anne, never reads my blog posts, but she read that one and asked what I meant. I meant that usually by May 1st, our cattle are out on the pasture grazing grass. But today is May 2, and our grass is still not tall enough, so the cows are still eating hay. Everybody is tense while we wait for the grass. For most people, watching grass grow is the ultimate in boredom. For us it is maddening. It’s kind of like that episode of Northern Exposure when everyone went crazy waiting for the ice to break—except without Janine Turner. (Note: Anne, if you are reading this, that didn’t mean anything at all.)
Posts Tagged ‘Management Intensive Grazing’
Almost There
Posted in Farming, tagged grass-fed beef, Janine Turner, Management Intensive Grazing, Northern Exposure on May 2, 2011| 1 Comment »
Daily Move
Posted in Farming Philosophy, tagged grass-fed beef, Management Intensive Grazing on October 25, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Here is a short video of Steve moving the cows today. Nothing special about this—we move the cows every day to a fresh piece of pasture, sometimes twice a day. On the other hand, we just learned that the feedlot beef industry considers it acceptable to use electric cattle prods as long as you use them on 2% or fewer of the cattle you handle. I thought maybe folks should see how cattle behave in our management system. Needless to say we don’t own a cattle prod.
Grazing School
Posted in Farming Philosophy, tagged grass-fed beef, Greg Judy, Holistic Grazing Management, Ian Mitchell Innes, Management Intensive Grazing on October 13, 2009| 1 Comment »
Yes, we are farming nerds. Omar and I just attended a grazing class in Missouri taught by master graziers Greg Judy and Ian Mitchell Innes.
For our fellow nerds: the question is how to get the most profit out of an acre of pasture. The Management Intensive Grazing (or “MIG”) school of thought is to graze just when the grass is about to mature. Since grass grows quickly in the spring (more…)
