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Ahoy and thanks for the great time at the farm. I'll write more when I know this works. Kirk

Great school. I have been looking thru my notes and the handouts, does anyone remember how it goes with the litter amounts left? Does more litter produce more grasses or legumes? When bringing back old meadows, should I work toward legumes first and the grasses will come?? Nancy 9/24 school

Nancy when starting out with High Density Grazing, any litter (as much as possible)on the ground is good. This adds carbon to the soil improves Mineral, Water cycles, Energy flow and Community dynamics(improves soil life). As soil improves so will volume, diversity and energy capture of the grass.In the wild so will there be more animals(form follows function) and so the amount of green litter on the ground will become less(the green litter encourages the soil to stay more bacterial (microbial)The sequence is poor energy capture grass(bacterial)to clovers(bacterial and fungal)to high energy capture grasses(bacterial and more fungal)

Nancy, The more litter you put on the ground, the more legumes you will have. When starting with an old meadow that has not been grazed in the past, you must get the old thatch trampled down enough to let the sunlight touch the ground and get some microbes working. I would concentrate on this wiith your first grazing period. The mixture of cattle trampling, introducing microbes fromt the animals gut, urine and freshly applied litter will stimulate a whole host of new plants that are in your seed bank. If it looks like you are getting to much clover, remove more of the forage and do not trample as much the next grazing period. Greg Judy

greg we are located in southern colorado where we get 12 to 14 inches of rain a year. we irrigate several times a season with flood irrigation. Is mob grazing possible? we have 80 acres and are running 20 cows. thanks

Thanks for the feedback. After going to the school in Sept. and coming home to start putting it into practice, I am out of grass already. But we do have hay for the winter as we usually feed hay through the winter months. We have planned the grazing and stockpiling layout for 2010, much emphasis on HHSD and long recovery for the grass. My question for this winter is: Should I continue to rotate through pastures with little grass while feeding hay? Or ?? Old bales rolled out to help with additional carbon, along with quality hay ??Nancy in New York

You need to concentrate on building a full recovery period for your plants after they are grazed. By increasing your stocking density, not stocking rate, you will have much more animal impact on the land. This will increase the forage, break down plants for building your litter bank. Try and get as much carbon (organic material) trampled on the ground as possible with each grazing period. By placing the litter on the ground and stirring it with the hooves you will be improving the growing conditions for the seeds that are sitting in the soil bank waiting for an opportunity to express themselves.

This forum is excellent and I thank you for taking the time to advance this. I appreciate your wilingness to share your experiences as I closely monitor your sucesses and less than sucessful ideas.

I have purchased two of your books and have read them several times, learning something new each time. Keep up the good work. I have a question. How long do you keep the calves from their mothers when weaning before you put them back in the combined herd? Kennith

We use to wean the calves at 10 months by across the fence. It worked out will but we then made life hard by making a new herd. More mouths eating on different land. Another herd to move. This past year, we just left them in with the herd and let the cows wean them. Is this not how Mother nature does it? It has made life easier.

Would you describe how you would put in corners and ends on interior fences with two hi-tensile wires. From reading your two books, it appears that you drive fiberglass or powerflex posts instead of using wooden H brace assemblies.

When only pulling two hi-tensile wires, we drive a 2.5" solid fiberglass rod into the ground four feet deep. 36" is left sticking out of the ground to hook our two hi-tensile wires to. If we pull more than three wires for a perimeter fence, we do build H-Braces using our solid fiberglass rod. 4-7 perimeter wires requires a tremendous corner H-brace to keep your wires tight and prevent the corners from sagging. Our top wire on our perimeter fence is never over 48" tall. If you have an animal that jumps over a 48" fence, sell it. Greg