John Mercer

Sheri Menelli wrote:

John Mercer wrote:Do you have a skill, particularly a rare skill? I'm one of those people and I started a consulting business. Pretty easy to do, but pretty time consuming too. I do craft brewery wastewater design, using the skills I have and working from home. Now I have maybe more work than I want, spread around the US as well as Canada and Australia. One of the issues now is getting time to build & improve my farm when I have all of this work that pays really well. Funny dilemma.

John, that is the coolest thing I've heard in a while. We used to brew 14 years ago and now the micro and nano breweries are stalking us. We've had dozens pop up around our home and business. Please tell us more about this. I've always wanted to do something with wastewater. Your work alone would be a fascinating thread. Care to share more on what you do?

Sheri

Hi Sheri,
See my website, www.brewerywastewater.com to learn a bit more about it all. Most of my clients are small production brewers, at this size doing something cool with the wastewater (anaerobic) usually doesn't pencil out. I do get a lot of interest from breweries in remote areas looking for on site disposal options, generally they're thinking hops. But I advise for pasture or hay fields, not human food crops. Anyway, fun stuff. John

Another thing I highly recommend, unrelated to the brewery stuff is Holistic Management Whole Farm/Ranch Business Planning. This is a course any of us can take, it's excellent. It's a 5 day class and it gives a different perspective to the business side of what we all do and it's very complimentary to our train of thought.

Do you have a skill, particularly a rare skill? I'm one of those people and I started a consulting business. Pretty easy to do, but pretty time consuming too. I do craft brewery wastewater design, using the skills I have and working from home. Now I have maybe more work than I want, spread around the US as well as Canada and Australia. One of the issues now is getting time to build & improve my farm when I have all of this work that pays really well. Funny dilemma.

Worked for me no problem, using the same email address you already have. Thank you!

Adam Klaus wrote:

David Miller wrote:Might be the wrong forum but I'd love to hear about your pasture management and once daily milking. I'm reading up on these but its always best to hear it from someone practicing it, currently!

Hi David, I wrote a bit about once a day milking in this thread- https://permies.com/t/28215/cattle/Doin-Dairy-Cows

Pasture management is a big topic, if you have any specific questions I could try to give you some good answers. My favorite books on the topic are Management Intensive Grazing by Jim Gerish and Quality Pasture by Allan Nation.

Curious what books you are reading to learn about these topics yourself? I cant read enough myself.

I really like Greener Pastures On Your Side of the Fence by Bill Murphy. It's like an encyclopedia of grass and grazing.

I read this book a few months ago. Like other people have said, it's full of practical advice, but I found it a little difficult to read. It reads almost more like a textbook, and also sort of a 'prepper' angle to the writing. Also, the book focuses on the NE USA biome. What I would love is a similar book written with regards to the intermountain west, or the high desert. My favorite part of this book was the food crop chapter. There were some unique & interesting perspectives in there.

Hi Mark,
Here is a bit of info based on my experiences. However I am no expert, I'm livin' and learnin'.

I have 7 acres of irrigated grass pasture in SW Colorado. Right now I have five 14 month cattle; 2 jersey steers and 3 hereford cows. (off topic, I bought the jerseys at 2 weeks old for $100 each, bought the herefords at 12 months for $1150 each!) Anyway, I do MIG with daily moves, it's the best part of the day. I make hay on the pasture that was grazed last year, and I'm grazing the side I made hay on last year. I flip flop like that every year to keep the soil nutrients up. Anyway, I could probably get away with 2 more head and not overgraze. That's not scientific, it's just based on how things look out there.

Also, you'd have to have a winter feeding plan. Are you planning to buy hay in for the winter? So you can graze all 4 acres all season long? If that's the case, my guess would be 3-4 cattle on your 4 acres. Better to start with fewer and grow as you get more familiar with it all.
Enjoy!
John

Hi Julius,
How does pasture burning fit in to grazing management? Around here ranchers tend to burn their pastures in early spring. Seems dangerous and extra work, but I burned a small patch to run an experiment. My leftover grass from the prior year was about 6" tall. The areas that burned grew back very green but not very tall. The areas that didn't burn were taller and still nice and green. My thinking with not burning is that it is better for the soil and water holding capacity as a whole, since the dead leaves provide shade to the soil (it's high desert here with lots of sun and irrigated pasture). When I put the cattle in the test area, I was surprised at the results. They ate the burned areas down to 0.5" of stubble, and the areas that didn't burn had 6" of residue left. Just like a line was drawn. Pretty amazing. I'm curious to see how the test areas perform as summer progresses. I think ideally I wouldn't have as much leftover grass in the spring, that might solve all of my problems. Just wondering what your thoughts are on this. Fire is generally never mentioned in the MIG books that I've read.
Thanks,
John

Also, right now a good amount of my grass is tall- hip high or even higher. I am doing MIG even though I only have 5 cattle. The cattle love eating the seed heads, but they tend to leave behind most of the leafy and stemmy parts. I'm a little surprised that they leave the leafy parts behind. Anyway, since I'm doing daily moves and the leftover material is fairly tall, should I mow it down to 6" in order to promote new growth? I'd prefer not to, just wanted to hear your thoughts on that.
Thanks again,
John

Hello Julius,
I know people write books about questions like this, but what is your opinion about age of cattle and time of year for finishing on grass pasture. Is 18 months too young to be marbled? Is early summer the best time to harvest beef on perennial pasture? I am reading Allan Savory's 'Grassfed to Finish' now. I have 5 cattle, 3 for beef and 2 for breeding. All are 12-14 months old, grass fed (on my perennial pasture) and organic. A farm I used to work at didn't finish the bovines (yak & buffalo) at all. I am thinking to harvest 1 steer this fall at 18 months. I'm expecting it to be tough and lean, but I want to compare it to harvesting his brother next summer after spring lush. Any thoughts or opinions? I have a few more questions but I will post them separately for easier searching.
Thank you very much,
John