new pasture

day #1

old pasture @5weeks

(So did you figure out the feed? I don't feed a set amount as it varies depending on the "freshness" of pasture, but will feed until there is some left over between one feeding and the next and then cut back.)
Looks like the wire held. Remember that most worm lifecycles are 28 days so you want to try and rotate onto fresh before then to break the lifecycle.

Rose Konold wrote:(So did you figure out the feed? I don't feed a set amount as it varies depending on the "freshness" of pasture, but will feed until there is some left over between one feeding and the next and then cut back.)
Looks like the wire held. Remember that most worm lifecycles are 28 days so you want to try and rotate onto fresh before then to break the lifecycle.

Agreed, 3-4 weeks instead of 5 weeks is usually the max due to pathogens. But overall Neil seems to be doing pretty good. A pretty good % of the perennials are still alive, and enough disturbance for new species to enter the pasture, increasing biodiversity.

You'll know in a bit another way to tell. Too much disturbance causes weeds to germinate. Just right and mostly perennial pasture grasses and forbs will germinate. Too little disturbance lets brambles and scrub to take hold. So watch the land and how it recovers to help determine your local conditions.

this is the first time pigs are in this pasture. so i am leaving them in a bit longer help disrupt more of the grass. then seeding behind them. clover, vetch, beans, kale, brocoli, winter squash, radishes, potatoes, and whatever else has bolted/seeded from the garden. the water table (perched) is 2-4" below the surface in this lower pasture, so it does not take them long to make the mudhole

Rose, i think i figured out the feed. they have been getting a wheel barrow of garden waste in the AM and another in the PM. the only grain they get is when i make beer (20-25kilos every other week). i have been feeding them whey and yeast sludge from the fermentor. at the surprise of the workers, they eat grass. they seem to be growing well on this diet, although if you ask them (the pigs) they are always starving. the inputs for this project are very low, because they are eating only byproducts.

i might have taken this paddock too far. they were on it 3.5 weeks. it was looking great (in terms of disturbance) at three weeks, and then we got 2" of rain in three days, and it turned into mud soup. we will see how it recovers. but in other areas that the mud became super saturated, regrowth has been slow.

It looks like you might need to move them more frequently for best recovery, or do some reseeding once moved on to new pasture.

Since the water table is so close to the surface, you might need to only leave them on this paddock for a week or two at the most.
reseeding is always good, we do that as soon as we move our hogs to the next paddock or sometimes we just fence off the area needing new seed so the hogs can't get to it while it sprouts and becomes established.
Our paddocks are pretty large so taking away up to 1/8 acre is not a problem.

same paddock 6 weeks later.....it will get another 8 weeks of growth before being reoccupied.

new and old

That's looking really good Neil, thanks for the photos.
We are getting ready to fence in another paddock for the Guinea Hogs.
Once it is ready I am going to be planting my 7 crop pasture mix so it can get nicely established.
I plan to have enough paddocks (both wood land with pasture patches and full pasture) to be able to move them every three weeks.
Our Hogs don't root so much but they do love their grass and broad leaf veggies.

Bryant Redhawk, what are you seeding your pasture with? What is in your mix?

Andrew Mateskon wrote:Bryant Redhawk, what are you seeding your pasture with? What is in your mix?

My base mix (I just pour this into the spreader and go) Tall fescue, winter rye (cereal type), rape, seven top turnip, daikon, sweet winter peas.

I try to get at least three seeding passes of this mix for the base of the pasture, when these are well established, the hogs are put on a portion for one week then they are moved to an other portion.
I am still in the process of building new pasture areas that in our woods but winter is closing in and other things have jumped to the front of my to do list (isn't that always the case, LOL).

I intend to get some barley, oats, pumpkin and other squashes along with the above mix planted and well established in the new wooded area pasture paddocks.
I use cattle panels to block the area I am pasturing the hogs in, that way I can just move these panels and change the area the hogs are grazing.
I have plans to get electric tape to use for keeping the hogs where I want them in the future, but for now I am using what I have.