Thanks, Michael! Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours…hope to have another video out this weekend on our small scale Johnson-Su compost extract rig and application. Thanks for following along!
@14:40, you mention bags of leaves. If you see those bags of leaves, you should toss them into your truck and bring them back to the farm to make more bioreactors. 🙂
Thanks, Rip! Man, drought is so hard when you’re grazing. Have you had to sell any animals? Hopefully, when the El Niño weather pattern let’s up, things will be back to normal precip next season. Hang in there, friend.
No we just homestead, so we kept all of our animals. We did have to start feeding hay back in august though. Hay is becoming scarce and expensive around here. We did just get some rain a few days ago, and my rye grass is starting to come up. God is good!@@birchfieldfarming
Loving the videos. Really looking forward to regenerating our ground. Right now trying to get rid of the hedge trees that took over the mismanaged land.
@@birchfieldfarming some could be used for that but there are thousands as this property was overtaken by them. a good chunk of them are piled in a brush burn pile and some taken for firewood. Very invasive around are area. Will keep the hedgerows in the fence lines and use some but most will be taken out as they take over and destroy land out here along with cedars.
I'm about to buy some Johnson Su compost from someone since I'm gonna wait for mine to mature in 12 months. I'm new to farming, so I hope you can explain how I can apply this compost "in-furrow" without disturbing the soil. I am going to play around with 1 acre and do row crops I guess, but do you suggest any hand tools to use to create this furrow and apply the compost at the same time while not damaging the soil's health from plowing. Thanks for all these videos! They are super helpful!
I would suggest a small plot trial to begin. Jay Young at Young Red Angus and David Johnson both have extensive information on making the compost and application. Jay Young I believe treats his seeds with extract before running thru the planter.
Hey Jason, I love the videos you post. Question for ya. When you were just getting started with rotating cows, I'm assuming that you quickly found out what the cows desired vs undesired in terms of forage. After you moved them, whatever they didn't graze, did you ever come in behind with a mower or weed trim to "level" the playing field so that the grasses would eventually push out the undesirables?
Great question and this is really where the art comes in with selective vs non-selective grazing. If your stock density is high enough (ours is between 40K - 50K lbs/acre), we’re seeing a pretty good non-selective graze especially when we can get multiple species together. My view is the trample is never a waste. Your animals will eventually learn to eat what’s there and trample the rest. I mowed in the beginning but have tried to get away from it now. It can certainly have benefits and is even necessary if you’re stock density is not high enough and you’re seeing selective grazing.
@@birchfieldfarming Hey Jason. It is definitely an art. I’ve got 1 momma cow, 1 bull and a 10 mo old steer-all black angus. I’m in the central TX area on about 28.5 acres where about 7.5 is grazable. I put the 2 adults on the ranch in August 2021 and initially gave them access to the whole ranch. About a month ago, I began rotating the cattle on smaller paddocks-for the initial size I used your Salatin example of 300 cows on 5 acres, extrapolated to my situation and then observed the cattle’s behavior. Obviously there are factors that come into play such as how dense the forage is in a particular paddock, temperature, rain, and the cattle’s body condition and behavior that can affect paddock size and frequency of rotation. I suppose that’s where the art comes in. I don’t have sheep (yet) but I do have some egg layers and a rooster that I’m rotating once a week with the Premier 1 poultry netting and a mobile chickshaw (Justin Rhodes design). Designing the paddocks can be a challenge this time of year in TX because I do need to make sure these animals get outta the sun into some shade. So lots of work with loppers and a chain saw. Thanks for your insight on mowing. My paddocks don’t look nearly as lush as yours or some of the other YT channels I watch, but I’m hoping to get there by deploying more effective management practices.
@@bonsukanSounds like you are doing great already within your context! Those chickens behind cattle will work magic on the pasture. Keep on with it!🤠🐄🥩🌱
I would like to know more about how you winter your chickens. Do you put the leaves and wood chips in the coop (aka a building) or in their run? Do you add to it like try deep litter method of keeping animals? When do you pull it out, and how long before you can use it on your pasture or garden? Thank you!
Hi Pam! 2 sets of chickens over winter for us: Roosters and Hens. The roosters stay out all winter in a chicken tractor (Salatin style) with a heated waterer when necessary. I continue to fertilize pasture with them all winter. The hens go in a coop with limited access to outside. The coop is filled (about a foot deep) with wood chips and leaves to start winter. As they manure and scratch thru, we add more wood chips to the top (yes, deep bedding method). Once Spring hits, the hens go back out in the pasture rotation to follow cattle and sheep rotation to bust up manure pats. The coop is cleaned out, piled up, and generally speaking we follow the 90 - 120 day rule with manure application (Google for more details on that organic gardening rule). We’ve applied many times prior to those timelines without a problem tho. The carbon and nitrogen really do well together in the garden, as the woodchips don’t take near as long to break down. Hope this helps and best wishes with your system!
…forgot to mention, we actually keep 4 rabbits above the chickens in the coop as well. The extra, diverse manure source has been fantastic, as the chickens sort thru the dropping rabbit manure as well giving us extra disturbance in the woodchips.
They’ve tried it and the issue is it takes so much longer to break down. I do believe you could do it, but I bet it would take at least 3X as long to get to actual soil you could test.
@@guyhickson7332Yes, we have one over-wintering paddock we keep all cattle and sheep when temps are below freezing, primarily due to an auto waterer with buried water lines. That’s the one thing I’d recommend for winter - we’ve had great luck with Ritchie waterers!
Love your channel, Brother. Selfishly wish you posted more. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.
Thanks, Michael! Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours…hope to have another video out this weekend on our small scale Johnson-Su compost extract rig and application. Thanks for following along!
@14:40, you mention bags of leaves. If you see those bags of leaves, you should toss them into your truck and bring them back to the farm to make more bioreactors. 🙂
Right on👍
Well said.
Thanks Stuart, hope ur well!
Man thats awesome, learning alot from your videos. We have been in a exceptional drought down here on the gulf coast of Mississippi.
Thanks, Rip! Man, drought is so hard when you’re grazing. Have you had to sell any animals? Hopefully, when the El Niño weather pattern let’s up, things will be back to normal precip next season. Hang in there, friend.
No we just homestead, so we kept all of our animals. We did have to start feeding hay back in august though. Hay is becoming scarce and expensive around here. We did just get some rain a few days ago, and my rye grass is starting to come up. God is good!@@birchfieldfarming
@@ripdinecola4755You got it, Rip!🙏
Loving the videos. Really looking forward to regenerating our ground. Right now trying to get rid of the hedge trees that took over the mismanaged land.
Thanks for following along! The old farmers here planted hedge trees for fence posts. Can you use any of the ones you’re removing?
@@birchfieldfarming some could be used for that but there are thousands as this property was overtaken by them. a good chunk of them are piled in a brush burn pile and some taken for firewood. Very invasive around are area. Will keep the hedgerows in the fence lines and use some but most will be taken out as they take over and destroy land out here along with cedars.
@@Hawkgx28PyroInteresting, sounds like ur set on firewood for awhile!👍
I'm about to buy some Johnson Su compost from someone since I'm gonna wait for mine to mature in 12 months. I'm new to farming, so I hope you can explain how I can apply this compost "in-furrow" without disturbing the soil. I am going to play around with 1 acre and do row crops I guess, but do you suggest any hand tools to use to create this furrow and apply the compost at the same time while not damaging the soil's health from plowing. Thanks for all these videos! They are super helpful!
I would suggest a small plot trial to begin. Jay Young at Young Red Angus and David Johnson both have extensive information on making the compost and application. Jay Young I believe treats his seeds with extract before running thru the planter.
Hey Jason, I love the videos you post. Question for ya. When you were just getting started with rotating cows, I'm assuming that you quickly found out what the cows desired vs undesired in terms of forage. After you moved them, whatever they didn't graze, did you ever come in behind with a mower or weed trim to "level" the playing field so that the grasses would eventually push out the undesirables?
Great question and this is really where the art comes in with selective vs non-selective grazing. If your stock density is high enough (ours is between 40K - 50K lbs/acre), we’re seeing a pretty good non-selective graze especially when we can get multiple species together. My view is the trample is never a waste. Your animals will eventually learn to eat what’s there and trample the rest. I mowed in the beginning but have tried to get away from it now. It can certainly have benefits and is even necessary if you’re stock density is not high enough and you’re seeing selective grazing.
@@birchfieldfarming Hey Jason. It is definitely an art. I’ve got 1 momma cow, 1 bull and a 10 mo old steer-all black angus. I’m in the central TX area on about 28.5 acres where about 7.5 is grazable. I put the 2 adults on the ranch in August 2021 and initially gave them access to the whole ranch. About a month ago, I began rotating the cattle on smaller paddocks-for the initial size I used your Salatin example of 300 cows on 5 acres, extrapolated to my situation and then observed the cattle’s behavior. Obviously there are factors that come into play such as how dense the forage is in a particular paddock, temperature, rain, and the cattle’s body condition and behavior that can affect paddock size and frequency of rotation. I suppose that’s where the art comes in. I don’t have sheep (yet) but I do have some egg layers and a rooster that I’m rotating once a week with the Premier 1 poultry netting and a mobile chickshaw (Justin Rhodes design). Designing the paddocks can be a challenge this time of year in TX because I do need to make sure these animals get outta the sun into some shade. So lots of work with loppers and a chain saw. Thanks for your insight on mowing. My paddocks don’t look nearly as lush as yours or some of the other YT channels I watch, but I’m hoping to get there by deploying more effective management practices.
@@bonsukanSounds like you are doing great already within your context! Those chickens behind cattle will work magic on the pasture. Keep on with it!🤠🐄🥩🌱
I would like to know more about how you winter your chickens. Do you put the leaves and wood chips in the coop (aka a building) or in their run? Do you add to it like try deep litter method of keeping animals? When do you pull it out, and how long before you can use it on your pasture or garden? Thank you!
Hi Pam!
2 sets of chickens over winter for us: Roosters and Hens. The roosters stay out all winter in a chicken tractor (Salatin style) with a heated waterer when necessary. I continue to fertilize pasture with them all winter.
The hens go in a coop with limited access to outside. The coop is filled (about a foot deep) with wood chips and leaves to start winter. As they manure and scratch thru, we add more wood chips to the top (yes, deep bedding method). Once Spring hits, the hens go back out in the pasture rotation to follow cattle and sheep rotation to bust up manure pats. The coop is cleaned out, piled up, and generally speaking we follow the 90 - 120 day rule with manure application (Google for more details on that organic gardening rule). We’ve applied many times prior to those timelines without a problem tho. The carbon and nitrogen really do well together in the garden, as the woodchips don’t take near as long to break down. Hope this helps and best wishes with your system!
…forgot to mention, we actually keep 4 rabbits above the chickens in the coop as well. The extra, diverse manure source has been fantastic, as the chickens sort thru the dropping rabbit manure as well giving us extra disturbance in the woodchips.
Thank you!
What book do you recommend for rotational graze?
Grass Productivity by Andre Voisin
Would JS compost work with woodchip? Cheers
They’ve tried it and the issue is it takes so much longer to break down. I do believe you could do it, but I bet it would take at least 3X as long to get to actual soil you could test.
Are you practicing no-till? Juust curious as I often hear no-till mentioned in unison with grazing, cover crops, and compost
Yes, we are no-till. Mostly perennial pasture, but also no-till in our garden now.
What do you do with in the winter for your sheep?
Sheep and cattle stay out all winter, very hardy animals.
@@birchfieldfarming regarding your paddock rotation grazing, do you have different areas for grazing in the winter?
@@guyhickson7332Yes, we have one over-wintering paddock we keep all cattle and sheep when temps are below freezing, primarily due to an auto waterer with buried water lines. That’s the one thing I’d recommend for winter - we’ve had great luck with Ritchie waterers!