Riceland Meadows Farm Plan Part 2

Ralph Rice of Riceland Meadows Farm in Jefferson, Ohio owns and operates a small sustainable, diversified, draft horse powered farm.
This is the first in a three part series showcasing his farm and the way he plans and runs it.
Ralph takes us on a tour of his farm yard and buildings explaining his long term plan he developed 20 years ago.
In this episode Ralph explains his hog, battle and sheep feeding process as sell as his manure competing, pasture rotating and his mixed power barn.
Ralph shows us his hog pens inside the barn where he keeps them and the inventive way he has designed it to easily maneuver the animals in and out of the barn to the feed lot in all weather. The barn has a dutch door for increased ventilation and sunshine which leads directly to the feed lot. He keeps 1-2 hogs in each pen and cleans the pens every 1-2 days. The all have self feeders and waterers. Ralph normally keeps two hogs for his own consumption and sells the rest.
He explains that he allows the sows to farrow outside in locations of their own choice. He checks up on them for the first couple days and then takes a boar pen out to isolate the piglets for inspection.
The feed lot is paves which keeps mud out of the barn, makes for easy cleaning and accessibility. Ralph recently added a section with a covered cattle feeder. This structure is gated off for isolating the cattle from Ralph when he is working and from the hogs if they are out in the feedlot. It is quite the flexible design.
Ralph then explains his grazing pasture rotation. He does not rotate the horse pasture, but does the other livestock. He will overgraze some fields if he plans to frost seed it in the spring. This allows for better seed to soil contact. He will frost seed a field for two years before planting corn to naturally increase the nitrogen.
Ralph then explains his use of round bales of spelt straw that are vacuum packed so they can be used all winter and left outside. He keeps square bales in the barn for winter feed.
Lastly, Ralph takes us inside his machinery barn to see his grain drill, drag and lump smasher, 268 New Holland Baler and Massey Ferguson Baler as well as his Gleaner E Combine for spelt. He also shows us a roof he added off the side of the barn to house his wagons and disc.
Watch the other episodes:
Riceland Meadows Farm Plan Part 1
Riceland Meadows Farm Plan Part 3
Read Ralph farm blog:
ricelandmeadow...

[@theajones6080]

I really enjoy listening to Ralph Rice explain the process of whatever he's doing. I hope everyone is doing well.

[@benjohnson1082]

What fantastic series and fantastic farm and farmer.

[@MarkWYoung-ky4uc]

There's no substitute for keeping your equipment under a shelter.