101 said:PATB your cattle look very good, but that looks like a challenge??? What kind of tires do you use, or do you use tracks on your feeding equipment?? Your country looks good,very interesting tho! Good luck 101
Big Muddy rancher said:Looks to me that you could use a "Sky Hook" for placing bales. :wink:
It is nice to see cattle being used as an environmentally friendly way to reclaim the land.
Will that land go back to trees eventually or will the cows be able to suppress the growth and keep it grassy?
Faster horses said:Nice looking cattle!
I haven't seen very many places where you couldn't ride a horse, but I
think that ground you are reclaming is certainly one of those places. YIKES!!
Good luck with your project.
MO_cows said:Thanks for sharing! You could use a stump grinder.
PATB said:MO_cows said:Thanks for sharing! You could use a stump grinder.
I will pass on the stump grinder. 3 tons of deep pit chicken manure per acre will help rot out the stumps plus grow some excellent forage. Large areas have old logging trails thru them so it is easy to get a small slide slinger manure spreader thru it. Some areas will require several winters of feeding to make it friendly to equipment.
C Thompson said:Awsome pictures Pat. You are doing a perfect job and it is costing you very little. Me and Gcreeckrch have trotted horses across country like that in his back yard. Keep taking those pictures. We have been doing this for 5 years now with no machinery inputs other than the cost of placing the bales with amazing results. Low input pasture improvement using animals and very little iron and oil is not the only way but is the only sustainable way to do it.
Big Muddy rancher said:C Thompson said:Awsome pictures Pat. You are doing a perfect job and it is costing you very little. Me and Gcreeckrch have trotted horses across country like that in his back yard. Keep taking those pictures. We have been doing this for 5 years now with no machinery inputs other than the cost of placing the bales with amazing results. Low input pasture improvement using animals and very little iron and oil is not the only way but is the only sustainable way to do it.
Your post reminds of a range tour i was on probably 25 years ago. We were visiting a place that had installed water lines and lots of electric fence following the Savory System. The rancher was explaining the practice of "Hoof action" to the soil and how it should improve. Most on the tour were "farmers" and they were wondering if you could do the same to a pasture with spikes on the cultivator. :roll:
PATB said:Then there is the problem what to due with all the stumps untill the decompose.
C Thompson said:I remember being shown slides at the Ranching For Profit school we went to a few years ago where someone did use hay and cattle to green up a slope of mine tailings that was causing severe dust problems in the nearby town. This solved the problem when it couldn't be done with any or all of the machinery that the mine had at it's disposal. It was an extremely low cost win win for all concerned and done on a very steep slope with nothing but mineral soil. The guy contained the cattle in very high density paddocks with portable electric fence and gravity water. The tailings pile had horizontal roads along it every so often that the cattle could rest on and he could travel along as he fed and hauled what water they needed. He threw mediocre hay down slope and whatever didn't get eaten got lots of urine and manure blended with it to become soil and grass. Seeing the photos of the green grass coming behind the cattle as they were moved along the slope makes doing it on flat ground a no brainer. We have done a bit of this very much like Pat is doing so I know he will have success. This makes very good pasture and we don't need to worry about rocks or stumps because the stumps will eventually disappear on their own and who cares about a few rocks in a pasture that produces grass now where there was none before.