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watering system design and paddock design

Thank you. Some very sound advise delivered with good intentions. I hope I can return the favors sometime. Thanks again. :D :) :D
 
Glad to have your input Soap and you bring up some valuable points,

Lack of Gain...usually from misreading available forage, also poorly adapted grasser cattle, can be made up by more total pounds of gain per acre, dont lighter generally bring more per pound :P


Lightining....come on now your borrowning worry, you can only fit so many in a given area, my insurance rates have not gone up any due to grazing tighter.

What's them balers and tractors worth in a couple of years, mine cost$12 an hour (tractor) in lost value alone, baler about $2 a bale

Pasture damage....Soap I get more rain in a week here than you get probably the year....dont know for sure, not being a smarty pants.
Had a buddy real concerned about trompling damage, until he seen what my mess in the wet season looked like come spring... the best it ever has.

Permanent damage is more of a function of time if that makes sense to you......leaving 30 animals in for 10 days versus 300 for one day.

I use to think we were pretty good grass farmers, by comparison in the area,,how ignorant I truly was and am. Been terrible dry this summer, folks around sold off cows in june, I still have not grazed about 1\3 of the pastures yet, need more cows now.

Yeah, I got weeds, also more grass than ever

Ya'll have fun
Bootheel
 
If a person wanted to see what the effects of a good planned grazing system compared to a traditional grazing might be, the first place he or she might look is the water sights. In a traditional grazing system most of the water sights have bare ground around them year round. With a well planned grazing sytem you will heal those water sights as well as a lot of the other areas of bare ground. Lots of people are miss lead to believe that in order to rotational graze you have to move your cattle often. The key is not how often you move them but how much stock density their is. When you match your lifestyle and personal goals to the rest of your management practices you can decide how to plan the system. I prefer to use 120 day rest period and like to have between 20 and 30 pastures. If I have 20 pastures and 120 rest I will move my cattle approximately once a week. For no longer than it takes to move a set of cows, I think it is worth the time to get a good look at my cattle. I have not ever seen stockers gain poorly on a well managed rotation. The sad part of the whole discussion is most people will focus on those that have tried and failed istead of listening to those that have been successful and trying to learn from them. If you want to develope a system do not half ars it, make sure you have the tools to make it work and use them.
 
If you were in a situation where u were hauling water you could do away with all the fence and manipulate where they graze by where you place the water source. Probably could do it with a mainline and some feeder lines too. The last thing I want to do is fence in the winter to divvy up our bale grazing so we pretty much build permanent fence now. I built a safety lane around the outside of every quarter-the horses go in there-this way if a tree falls on the fence I might have a few horses in somebodies crop instead of a few hundred cattle.
 
kind of lucky here other then ditches in a couple hay fields I got live water , river , creeks or springs in every pasture. On the forest allotment there are developed springs and creeks with a few dug out at one end of one unit.
 
Went back and read through this and had to laugh, at myself and human nature, behavior patterns of people and animals just fascinate the dicken's out of me.

Observations
1. The won't work here idealogy......I have had guys look and listen and be fascinated, then say, well my grounds flater than yours, it wont work.....the next day I had a guy tell me that his was hillier, wouldnt work there......apparently God put me in a geogaphic anomoly.....by the way the flatlander is now trying it out.

2) The sky might fall.

Dont get offended Soap but the lightning thing just makes me chuckle, my dad worries from time to time too. The thing is when they use to have half the run of the farm, they were just as liable if not more so, to be under the same blasted tree. Then the all those animals on 160 acres made me really have to giggle.... just due to differences in stocking rates across the country... were getting 180 plus grazing days per acre(talking pairs here) my paddock size would probably be classified in square feet rather than acres for 200 pairs.

I could could get really long winded, but I will try and spare ya'll's eyes. You guys are just great, have a blessed day.

Bootheel
 
Bootheel said:
Went back and read through this and had to laugh, at myself and human nature, behavior patterns of people and animals just fascinate the dicken's out of me.

Observations
1. The won't work here idealogy......I have had guys look and listen and be fascinated, then say, well my grounds flater than yours, it wont work.....the next day I had a guy tell me that his was hillier, wouldnt work there......apparently God put me in a geogaphic anomoly.....by the way the flatlander is now trying it out.

2) The sky might fall.

Dont get offended Soap but the lightning thing just makes me chuckle, my dad worries from time to time too. The thing is when they use to have half the run of the farm, they were just as liable if not more so, to be under the same blasted tree. Then the all those animals on 160 acres made me really have to giggle.... just due to differences in stocking rates across the country... were getting 180 plus grazing days per acre(talking pairs here) my paddock size would probably be classified in square feet rather than acres for 200 pairs.

I could could get really long winded, but I will try and spare ya'll's eyes. You guys are just great, have a blessed day.

Bootheel
Click to expand...

The folks that lost the ninety-plus head of steers are my wife's cousins. I had mentioned the lightning possibilities to them, beforehand, and they just chuckled also. I was kind enough to not say, "I told you so" after the fact, but did wonder if they remembered my words. :wink: :-)

I am not saying, "It won't work," because it probably would. My laziness overwhelms my need to try it out though. Dairy cows would probably make more money than beef cattle, but I don't want to be tied down to milking cows, either. :wink:
 
My only lightning deal was I brought in some hot cows to A'I-then rode about a 1/4 mile to get the truck that had my supplies in it. When I got back lightning had killed three head about 100 feet from the A'I chute!!
 
Soap, I have seen enough pictures of folks working at yourplace to know you aint lazy, like that ride of yours you might be a little ornery and stubborn :twisted: , like I said before human nature fascinates me, I just enjoy harassing ya little. Most of us got way more in common than we think, gotta try real hard to quarrel.

NR that lightening is some scary stuff, took an indirect hit in water, and had it within feet of me two other times....like a dog I get pretty nervous when a storm rolls in, start looking for cover. Trying to outguess it is a losing battle though.
 
This had just hit the ground amongst a bunch of them-it looked like when you drive the round bale fork on the FEL into the ground-don't ask how I'd know what that looks like.
 
Flying S, you mentioned you are a big fan of grazing pulses. Which pulses have you grazed and what is the biggest advantage they give your operation? Thank you.
 

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