Joel Salatin / Cows + Lambs = No Loss of Grazing Material for Cattle.

Hey Permies,

So, I read recently in Joel Salatin's book: "You Can Farm", that a stockman can run one lamb/sheep per unit of cattle in a paddock system without affecting the grazing available to the cattle, and at the same time improve the quality of the field flora.

I was looking for a little specificity here, though: a) how does this practice influence the rotation of animals through the paddock system, and b) can you still run chickens or other poultry behind them in the normal fashion?

It doesn't change the rotation schedule.

you can run chickens just the same.

It is a 2+2=5 thing.

Cool deal, R Scott.

Do you know anything about how free ranged rabbits would be incorporated?

Could another fowl be substituted for chickens, such as muscovy ducks?

How about Cows and Goats??

Welcome to permies David
Goats prefer to browse on vegetation, whereas cattle graze pasture. They require quite different conditions to thrive.

All the animals listed prefer different veg.

The ducks will not scratch through the dung piles like chickens--they are a stacking function to 1) eat the fly larvae and 2) scatter the dung pile to not kill the grass in that spot and spread the fertilizer.

The goats prefer to browse on leaves and brush, but will eat grass and weeds if they have to. Not the same grass as the sheep or the cattle--so there is a way to stack all three, but the numbers in the mix are really dependent on your specific vegetation.

We did have some free-range rabbits for a while and we seemed to be able to harvest as many as with the tractors with almost no inputs. But you have to be willing and able to harvest them like a wild rabbit (trap or shoot). We had to depricate the population so they didn't strip the bark off the new orchard trees (that probably died in the drought, anyway)