Richard Cropper

I don't have a problem moving them every day or couple of days, that is what I have been doing for the last week. I was just curious if I was making more work for myself or if it was the right idea. I need to work on the pastures overall health because it was a previous mono-crop land and very sandy. So I need to work on getting the top soil layer built back up and organic material on.

Afternoon! So we purchased our first Dexter heifer the other day. She is 7 months old and is currently on pasture with a mini donkey. We are getting a second heifer in October once she is weaned. Currently we have fenced in 3 acres of pasture. The front half is decently established but the other half is slower to come up and more weeds. My question is should I strip graze them, moving them every couple of days or let them have free access to the whole pasture since it is a large area for just the two of them. Thanks!

Noble Bowman wrote:Got clipped weird, but something like this --->

I like this idea. Is there a specific reason to the rotation you made versus going the other way? We are just trying to save money off the start and then reinvest the saved money back into the farm for future growth.

So do you think it would be best to have a reel system that I can strip graze them essentially over a couple of days then move the reels to the next strip so on and so forth. Then during the winter time have the reels setup to the larger sandy area and roll out hay over different spots to keep the foot traffic and waste spread out?

That was my plan to unroll the round bales in area 1 to help build the top soil layer and keep one area of the paddock from being heavily used. I'm trying to establish cool season fescues, orchard, clover and rye on the whole pasture. I planted some seed a year ago in that area with no much luck, not sure why. I'm hoping that spreading the waste hay will help with some nutrients and seeding as well. Before we bought the property it was corn/soy rotation and when we bought it the local farmer tried planting it with festulolium and orchard with no much luck either. It grew very spotty.

Good morning everyone. New to the forums here and we are finally getting a chance to put our first pasture up at the new house. We are fencing in a approximate 2.9 acre area in front of our house. It is going to be a 5 strand intellibraid that I want to break into rotational pastures. Our plan is to have 2 beef cattle at a time on the pastures with a chicken tractor coming behind to help the insect cycle. My issue that I am having is trying to get this broken down into the best layout I possibly can. I have attached an image showing the area. Area 1 is very sandy, not much forage production. I have been spreading waste hay on it over the winter to help fill in the bare area's but being sandy it doesn't hold much nutrients. Area 2 is semi-productive and area 3 is the most productive but also the wettest area when rainfall happens. You can see the small drainage ditch I made to help with run off. My idea was to try and dedicate a portion of area 1 to a sacrifice pasture for winter or time's of heavy rain. I would like to also try and rotate every fourth day if possible but I can also work around that too. I also am putting a 16' gate in for the tractor so I would like to be able to get the tractor with an implement into the pastures for aeration/seeding/breaking up manure as necessary. The dimensions of the perimeter fence is. L-200', Top-500', R-170', Bottom-500'. Any help or ideas are appreciate, thank you!