Nate Davis

I had a flock of Katahdin and St Croix that would thrive on either grass-legume pasture, forb-rich meadows or thick brush. Upon letting them into a diverse creekside thicket, the first plants they would go for was always goldenrod, blackberry and multi-flora rose. I suppose the selection criteria of their breed makes them behave more like goats than the woolly breeds of sheep.

This depends on many factors. I assume you want to grow forage for ruminants like cows or sheep.

You want plants that will grow a good yield of nice leafy biomass that stays leafy long enough for your animals to enjoy. You also want species and cultivars that will grow well in your climate and soil conditions.

A very important question to ask is do you want seeds that will:
A) grow perennial plants that are the final succession in your pasture, or
B) seeds that will help progress succession to what you want, and grow lots of tasty forage in the mean time.

I find people tend to pick A, but they do not take intake account the state their pasture is in and whether the perennials would do well. If the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio is very low aka very bacterial dominated soil, or low organic matter, compaction, low or high PH, any of these will cause typical perennial forages to struggle.

The best way to tell is by what's already growing there. If there are lots of weeds especially annuals like thistle, ragweed, pigweed, then it is likely an indication of soil conditions that are more optimal for weed-like annual forages than perennials. And these weeds are not necessarily bad! Cattle and sheep especially can gain a taste for them with enough exposure, and they can be nutritious in the right stage of growth. But it is important to see what is already growing as these will be an indicator of the soil conditions. A soil test will help to confirm.

If there are less than optimal conditions for perennial forages, I recommend growing robust annual forages that will produce a good yield of palatable biomass while moving soil conditions to what you want. You can even throw in some less palatable species that have benefits for the soil, just don't add much to avoid them taking over the pasture. To choose which seeds I highly recommend the SmartMix tool that can be found here: https://smartmix.greencoverseed.com/. It allows you to choose both your goals and growing conditions to choose a suitable seed mix.

Whether you grow weeds or introduce annuals simply letting them grow will do a lot to improve soil conditions and advance plant succession. After just a couple years of doing this you may even see conditions change enough that seeds in the latent soil seed bank will emerge and you may be very surprised by what comes up. Once you see this then it is a good time to consider which perennials you may want to seed.

Here's a splendid old cow I hand milk. She just calved a couple weeks ago. She has been known to be stubborn in letting her milk down when her calf is around, but I tried a procedure as Adam Klaus does - massaging the udder, cleaning and softly brushing her leg and udder, bumping up on her like her calf does, humming to her ( okay some of that might be just me) and alas she has started to release her milk even before her calf comes in. Even so I'm sure to leave some for him, then he stays with her until evening. Until he's ready to be weaned, he needs the milk to grow big and strong to breed many ladies.

I made maple syrup for the first time. Collected about 10 gallons from a single tree, spent a day boiling it down and ended up with two pints of syrupy goodness.

Vickey McDonald wrote:This sounds very interesting. I wonder if they are cold hardy or not? Would be nice if they could handle my Alaska winters.

Interestingly Miscanthus is among the most cold hardy of the C4 photosynthesis plants. However it is still a C4 aka warm season plant so it thrives in high temperatures, I'm not sure it would do better than a productive C3 plant anywhere in Alaska.

I think whole grains are the best since any milled grains will have long since oxidized and lost much of their nutrients. They may be a bit less digestible but when taking into account the added cost (energy) of milled grains it is negligible. If you buy bulk organic grains and mix your own tmr vs the few organic chicken feeds around, it's no contest.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:

Nate Davis wrote:I suppose it's possible for there to still be some herbicides but they didn't quite kill the legumes. However if there are a lot of legumes and they look relatively healthy surely this is a sign of no herbicides, even more so if there's other "weeds" in the hay. Does this sound right? I want to use a bunch of leftover hay for mulch/hugelkultur this year so I want to be sure.

It's always "thin ice" when discussing this, but it's a practical fact that we have to deal with potential contaminants.

Personally, I think you're doing the same visual checks I would do. If the mixed grasses and broadleaf plants look like they were pretty green before baling, I can't think of a reason to believe they've been sprayed with herbicide.

I don't have access to hay, only wheat straw and that might have traces of The Unspeakable Molecule. Before using it for garden mulch, I ferment the bale in a tub that has water, living dirt and compost tea. Haven't had any problems. This also seems to kill of latent mold spores.

Interesting how you ferment your straw. I know glyphosate breaks down much quicker than other herbicides, especially in healthy soils. It honestly seems the lesser evil in comparison to atrazine. That stuff is nightmare fuel to me.

Another thing people will do is a germination test. They mix the hay/straw with good soil and sprout some seeds in it. If the seedlings struggle then that's a sign of contamination. If they look green and vibrant as can be then it should be okay.

I'm no chicken breeder, but I have a friend who is breeding a dual-purpose chicken by crossing Rhode Island Reds with Bresse (a great meat breed from France). So far they seem to be nice meaty birds that still lay well. The idea being that one gets a good carcass from them after they stop laying eggs so much, plus from the roosters.

And yes Rhode Island Reds were originally described as dual-purpose, but the modern lines have largely been bred for egg-laying. Perhaps there are still more traditional ilnes out there.

Hopefully you are aware of the need to investigate any hay you may buy for the presence of persistent herbicides. These herbicides, namely atrazine which is by far the most prevalent, seem to affect broad-leaf plants (i.e. not grass). So, if you spread it on your garden to grow anything that isn't a grass, it might kill or at least stunt your growies. I suspect I've unknowingly used such hay for mulch in my early days of gardening.

However lots of hay I see is a mix of grass and clover or alfalfa. Shouldn't this indicate that broad-leaf herbicides weren't used? I also assume that even glyphosate shouldn't be present because I don't recall there being roundup-ready pasture grass or clover available. There is roundup ready alfalfa now but that's only possible if you buy pure alfalfa hay.

I suppose it's possible for there to still be some herbicides but they didn't quite kill the legumes. However if there are a lot of legumes and they look relatively healthy surely this is a sign of no herbicides, even more so if there's other "weeds" in the hay. Does this sound right? I want to use a bunch of leftover hay for mulch/hugelkultur this year so I want to be sure.

Yes, I often feel like giving up when I get overwhelmed or things keep going wrong. I find myself asking "why did I ever bother doing this in the first place? Why did I leave the easy life I had to do this insanity? Maybe I should go back to the easy life?" Surely this is common among people trying to make the transition from urban decadence to rural self-reliance.

This is what always snaps me out of it - I take a break from what I'm doing to catch my breath and think things through. I ask if the problems I'm having are really so bad, and if there isn't a better approach to solving them. I try to just observe for a while, to take things in so I might see them in a different light.

In doing so, I realize how amazing my life really is, and that I'd never want to go back to the way I used to live. Yes, there's still so much hard work ahead of me, but dammit that's the whole point! All life is meant to struggle, so partaking in that struggle is how we know we're alive. We should be thankful for being alive and well enough to work hard. Think to the times you were laying in bed with a bad flu, would you rather be doing that?

It's only important that we take time to have a break every now and then to recover, and to appreciate what we may be taking for granted. And accept when we don't get everything done that we want to, but being will to come back and try again.