A quick forestry lesson...

Last week I took a quick walk on the North Farm to open up a PermaNet electrified netting fence to let the sheep travel between pastures. As I was walking the fence line I saw the following: 

A closer view would show you this:

What you're looking at is a "hedge ball" from an Osage Orange tree. The Osage Orange is also known as Hedge, Bodark or Horse apple. The trees were commonly used for fence posts or as an actual "hedge".  The hedges acted as fences and the thorns on the trees deterred cattle from passing through. Barbed wire would eventually come onto the scene to replace hedge as the thorny deterrent. The orange/yellow wood makes excellent bows and is immensely strong. 

The fruit has been used to deter spiders, cockroaches, boxelder bugs and other insects. As I write this there is a hedge ball sitting on my desk—I have yet to have any insect issues!

Up and at'em

This week we moved a flock of ewe lambs between pastures at the North Farm. Premier photographer, Tharren, was able to shoot a few photos while the ewes walked through the dew covered grass during the early morning. A few of the ewes are marked with Red Super Sprayline. These ewes were with the wethers acquiring a few more groceries before we put them onto pasture.

The flock in the above photo is walking along an ElectroNet electrified netting fence. We used it to divide a clover field from a grass based pasture. In a few months we will put the rams in with these ewes for spring lambing. 

Duck and Goose X-ing

The ducks and geese that live on the Home Farm have decided that they would like to live closer to the Premier offices. They switched ponds a few weeks ago and now occasionally block the driveway to the employee parking lot.

The waterfowl spend a fair amount of time on the driveway above. We will remedy this by putting up a roll of electrified netting to keep them on the pond and off of the driveway. 

To keep the distance the birds travel from feeder to pond, we put out a large Emperor Feeder by their new home. The feeder holds 110 lbs of feed and does not need to be protected from the elements like other feeders.

Preparing for a Better Breeding Season

Photo: A Suffolk ram that was new to our flock last year. He produced some very nice lambs for us.

We've been gearing up for our upcoming breeding season which starts late October/early November. This means we're tracking down marking harnesses and crayons as well as dusting off containers of raddle marker. We're also picking out the rams to use for breeding purposes.

We kept a few rams intact from this years lamb crop. In the May Farm Diary post "On the Job Training" we noticed a Katahdin ewe raising triplets on pasture after a cold/wet spell. Impressed with her ability to raise 3 lambs on pasture and with her lambs' survival ability we left one of her ram lambs intact when we processed lambs (castrating, vaccinating and ear tagging). We will be trying him out this year to determine how well he passes on his mother's maternal instincts and his tenacity for survival.

Photo: A Hampshire ram lamb we're going to experiment with this year. He's a handsome boy and we expect some nice sized lambs from him. 

Here are a few tips we'd like to pass on to help your breeding season, whether it's already started or starting later:

• Put on the marking harness a few days before the ram goes out with the ewes. This allows time for the rams to adapt to wearing the harness and allows you time to adjust it for a proper fit. 
• Switch crayon colors throughout the breeding season. This allows us to narrow down if/when a ewe was bred. This comes in handy during lambing season if you need to put ewes into jugs or the barn. 
• Keep track of the weather. If you're using a harness and crayons they need to be the appropriate crayon for the outside temperature. If you experience high temperature fluctuations, cool mornings and hot days, pick the crayon range for when you notice your ram actively breeding. 
• An alternative to harnesses is raddle marker. Last year we brought a ewe flock in every ten days to see which ones were marked. We then documented their ear tag number and brought them into the lambing barn a few days before they were due to lamb. This worked out very well for us this year. 
• Apply raddle marker with OB Gloves or latex gloves. Reapply every 2-5 days. 

Marking Harnesses vs. Raddle Marker

Both are excellent management tools for streamlining your breeding and lambing seasons. 

Marking harnesses allow you to switch colors throughout the season unlike raddle marker which limits you to one color per season. Marking harnesses also involve less mess. Raddle also needs multiple reapplications throughout the season. Crayon marks though not considered scourable in the U.S., wear off much quicker than raddle marks. 

Raddle marker is not temperature dependent, it works just as well at 90ºF as it does at 20ºF. Raddle marker does not have to be attached to a ram like a marking harness thus there is less stress on the ram. 

We hope you have a successful breeding season so you can have an excellent lambing season!

Rain! And we don't even have hay down.

It has been raining nicely this afternoon so I kindly asked Tharren to go out and document the rainfall and he was kind enough to oblige. We've recorded just over half an inch.

Photo: Tharren went out along one of the barn's to take this shot. Normally our poultry flock spends their time in this area but today it was a little too wet for them.

It's been a little over a month since we've had a significant rain. The pasture's were turning brown, the creeks were getting a little too low for comfort and we were able to make a lot of hay. Folks have been leaving their windows open and farmers were cutting hay constantly just to coax a few drops out of the sky.

Photo: Tharren remarked that this gutter could stand being cleaned since there are a few leaves in it clogging the drain. I'm sure he won't mind being volunteered for the job.

Last hay of the year!

We baled what are likely the last small square bales of the year for us. The lack of rain has made this our final cutting but we have enough hay in the barn and stored as baleage to get us through the next year. The bales are a clover/grass mix and should offer excellent nutrition to our eweflock and some of our feeder lambs.

I helped Stan, Dennis and Tracy unload the racks while Tharren, Mike and Carl baled. A few times I found myself at the top of the hay mound waiting for one of the fellas to toss a bale up to me to stack. Most of the time I didn't need to stack, the guys are more than proficient at stacking hay by throwing the bales exactly where they wanted them.

Last week we unloaded a few racks and during this time Stan discussed competing in a bale tossing contest during his college days, based on the last few days of stacking hay I have no doubt he did well.

Photo: The final rack. Once the hay was baled Tharren was able to snap a photo of us stacking the final bales. From left to right: Dennis, Joe (me), Mike, Stan and Tracy. The rack used was one Stan used growing up on the Home farm.

Mob grazing and a walk in the pasture.

On August 9th-11th the Practical Farmers of Iowa hosted several pasture walks focusing on Mob Grazing. Mike, Tharren and I attended the walks in Richmond and Bonaparte, IA.

Photo: The group takes a walk out to a cattle pasture at the beginning of the tour.

Photo: NRCS Grazing Specialist Jess Jackson analyzes the contents of one of the pastures. He discussed that with mob grazing there should be a manure patty in every square yard of the pasture.

Mob grazing, otherwise known as ultra high density grazing, is the practice of stocking 100,000 to 1 million lbs of livestock per 1 acre of land. Animals are moved at least once per day, this depends on the stocking density. Increased density encourages livestock to eat all available forage, including weeds. Pastures are then rested for 60-90 days allowing the plants sufficient time to recover.

What the animals don't eat, they trample. The trampled biomass is returned to the soil as a beneficial litter. The high density concentrates the manure from the livestock in the paddocks. Manure is spread by the livestock throughout the paddock for a beneficial distribution of nutrients.

Photo: A mob of dairy cattle. The cattle are held in with Step-In FiberRod Posts, a MiniReel and IntelliTwine polywire.

The first farm we visited was in Richmond, IA. The farms owner, Phil Forbes, runs a flock of St. Croix Hair sheep and raises dairy replacement heifers. NRCS Grazing Specialist Jess Jackson and Iowa State University Animal Science Professor Dr. Dan Morrical took the group on a walk through the pastures. They discussed which plant species were dominant and what could be done to improve the forage and utilization of the pastures. Mike talked to Mr. Jackson about several pasture revitalization projects Premier is thinking about doing, including eradicating the endophyte infected fescue on our farms.

Photo: The St. Croix hair sheep are a fairly small animal. The ewes weigh about 100 lbs each and a fat lamb has a hanging weight of about 40 lbs. They do well on pasture, have high resistance to parasites and work well for their owners management system.

Photo: Dr. Morrical (center) discusses the sheep operation and the pro's and con's of hair sheep breeds.

The second farm was an organic dairy located north of Bonaparte, IA and is run by the Smith family. The Smith family milks 70 cows and mob grazes their herd on 1/3 acre pastures. Discussions focused on how the farm decided to become organically certified after years of decreasing their herbicide/pesticide use, going organic seemed natural. Other topics included rations for the cattle, raising replacement heifers and the management of the pastures.

Photo: Organic dairyman Dan Smith (facing photographer) describes his operation and pasture management. He mob stocks his dairy herd on his farm which has been organically certified for about 20 years.

For more information on Practical Farmers of Iowa visit: http://www.practicalfarmers.org/.

On a side note, during the walk I met the Erem family from eastern Iowa. They have a recent planting of hardwoods on 7 acres and decided it would be wise to keep the deer out. They spoke with one of our consultants, Gordon Shelangoski, and decided to install a 3-D Anti-Deer Fence. The fence is working and we're thinking about sending Tharren out to take a few photos of the fence in action.

Photo: Suzan Erem and myself discussing the fence her family installed to protect their hardwood plantings.