Commercial fertilizer on pasture land? What are the cows for then? #cows #regenerative #regenerativefarming #regenerativeranching #pasturedpork #pasturedpoultry #grazing #keepthemontheland #cattle #cattlefarm #cattles
Love you guys! Appreciate regenerative farming so much as you're providing the solution to a large, unhealthy and unsustainable issue in today's world. God bless you ❤
Manure is great fertilizer and it’s cheap, but it is not everything. When you have your soil tested, it tells you what it needs to thrive. Growing up, we fertilized pasture and hay ground annually. Needed a boost to grow quantity.
I agree with keeping the livestock out on pasture as much as possible. Your land appears to be rather well drained. Not all pasture ground is. I run my sheep out all winter grazing stockpile and then unrolling round bales evenly over a couple of paddocks when the grass runs out or the snow get too deep. However, I dry lot my sheep and a well drained stone pad from about April 1st til May 10th. As the pastures start to green up, sheep will nip off new shoots of grass as quick as they pop up setting back the grass significantly. The sheep will turn up their nose at hay as they seek out the new tender green grass sprouts while dropping body condition. This happens during the last trimester of gestation when the ewes nutritional needs are increasing dramatically. Context is important. Otherwise your point about keeping livestock on pasture and benefiting from the animals spreading manure, urine, and hay residue is something that more people should consider.
I unroll hay on my pasture until approximately mid November. Once the winter rain/snow starts, I move to the winter feeding station. If I left my cows on pasture all winter , it adversely sets back the pasture for next summer. I also apply P,K,N, S every year based on soil samples. The ground I pasture hadn’t been taken care of before I purchased it in 1996. It’s taken years to get the PH up from 5.0 to 6.5-7.0. You have to own a lot of land to do what you and Greg Judy do. Yours is a great idea, just doesn’t fit for every location. I do unroll hay in the pasture until it turns muddy.
In addition to confining the ewes in the early spring to a drylot to give the pastures a head start, I also drylot the ewes in Sept for at least a couple weeks at weaning time. I feed them poorer quality hay which helps them to dry off. The lambs are left on grass so that their ration doesn't change at the same time as they are stressed by weaning. A big benefit of drylotting the ewes in the fall is that it gives the grass a longer rest between rotations allowing for some stockpiling to occur during the smaller fall flush.
Another benefit of removing sheep from pastures for the winter is to reduce the gastrointestinal parasite load, although there seem to be varying estimates about how long eggs can survive
@@drumhillerfarms6858 But you did “crap” on them. You literally called how they farm stupid. You make it sound like how you do it is the best and only way.
So, you feed hay on pasture (we call that outwintering here). Which replaces nutrients to soil, but where does the hay come from? Same pasture land? What replaces the nutrients that leave the farm in the form of blood, bone and meat? Thanks for the feedback
I purchase all our hay nowadays. I don’t want to loose all that nutrients. After getting out of the hay business we increased our cattle production about 30 thousand a year and we just buy about 12 thousand in hay with way less time too.
@@drumhillerfarms6858 It would be kind to acknowledge that others are making hay for you with that expensive equipment you deride and that they are left with the problem of replacing the nutrients that are now on your farm.
Every operation is different, what works for this pasture may not work for others. When you pasture calve is there any problems with birth or coyotes, etc. Our operation takes the cattle off the land threw the winter for rest of grass and cattle go to dry lot until wet weather then concrete until we turn out to keep calf scours down, the manure is put in areas where the soil is poorer and in spring nitrogen is applied. We also run a cow and calf to an acre + and depending on the rain when hay has to start being fed. We have tried all was and this is our best operation that makes us the best return on investment and the land looks great, don't forget about all the brush that has to be kept down and pastures mowed.
agreed, we have to do what fits our operation best. i went two years without fertilizing and clipping my fields, now i am battling all kinds of weeds and invasive grasses. this process does not work for everyone. i dont pen my cattle in the winter but i do feed bales on a concrete pad and stack manure for compost
I see many cattle farmers here who keep rotating the cows from 1/4 of his property to another 1/4 to another 1/4 to another so it’s regrows the rain is what he hopes for and he always has grass except for the cold winter
No - no fertilizer on Fields would imply not buying off farm hay from fertilized hayfield‘s and depositing it on your pastures - you are fertilizing your pastures but just calling it something else. Even Greg Judy occasionally uses granulated fertilizer on some pastures, particularly when he’s establishing and renovating.
I can see what you’re saying. But This video was never meant to hurt anyone’s feeling or bash anyone or their operation. It was not ever intended to be directed to anyone individually either. All it was supposed to do is show what I believe to be the best way to fertilize your pasture grounds without the use of commercial fertilizer or chemical inputs. The fact that someone gets so butt hurt that they start name calling over something that was never directed towards them, sounds like they are the ones being the baby. You bet I’m fertilizing my pastures that’s the whole point to this video but I’m trying to do it without lining the pockets of the inputters
@@drumhillerfarms6858 Really? How do you explain that? You are buying hay from farmers who need to make a profit on the NPK and other nutrients that they are exporting to you and they use the revenue you provide to replace the nutrients they sold to you. Nutrients gotta come from somewhere!
about 10 years ago kids and grandkids talked me into fertilizer on pasture so i did it as a lesson on what it did for my income and what happened will that year i was several thousand dollars less income numbers don't lie . and kids and grandkids learned the old shut up and listen lesson
I prefer your more thoughtful videos where you explain what you do on your farm and why you do it rather than ridiculing others for what they do. I realize you might be trying to be provocative to get more views but it really makes you seem less serious. Just because farmers have a different methods of wintering livestock and managing nutrients from you does not make them less intelligent. In case you really don't know, here are a few reasons perfectly smart farmers might do things differently: 1) the operation includes fruit/vegetable production and manure is needed to make compost 2) the farm is on clay loam that is "somewhat poorly drained" and has a high water table leading to saturated pastures 3) the farm does not have infrastructure to bring water to pastures in winter 4) the farm does not own the equipment necessary to make/handle large round bales and role them out I'm sure you can think of many more reasons. Additionally, well managed barns/dry lots do not become mucky messes and it is possible to spread composted manure with a rig no more expensive than what you use to roll out bales. I'd also like to point out than unless you are bringing in hay from someone else's farm, you are not adding fertilizer to your farm overall, just moving nutrients around.
What about all that fossil fuel you used to bale all that hay?? Someone could look at your video and say you should be planting cover crops that over winter and let them eat that instead of feeding all that hay. It looks like you're doing a good job! Just don't put other farmers down. That's not cool.
