Grass genetic starter herd, 5 15 month old South Poll heifers + South Poll bull. 

They have a good life, the only justification for eating meat.

Add everything east of the Cascades to that list. The west side is getting rain finally so we are only dry, but east of us until you hit the Ozarks is solidly dry.

You will be much further ahead doing this, your profit will skyrocket from grazing your entire farm.

Yes, and no petrochemicals are in the soil, too !

I have been thinking about doing this but the main issues with my hay field and many others is shade and also water development and electric. I can get around the water and electric issues but it will cost some serious money. The shade deal will be a lot more difficult. I dont care if they are red, black or white hided animals performance will drop if you bake them out in the hot sun all day everyday. I dont own any hay equipment. I have my field done on shares and i unroll the hay on my pasture land. So I import nutrients from my hay field to my pasture. I still pay for fertilizer but i would have to buy hay anyways. Its not the perfect setup but better then having a bunch of equipment. I am still looking to graze my hayfields in the future but its not as simply for everyone to just convert them over like flipping a light switch.

Can’t buy hay if no one is making it

@@jakeschuster9991 there are enough hay making fools out there believe me! I hardly have any neighboring farm land where I live but there are still scads of hay fools making hay on the weekends all summer long. And I don't even buy my hay local, I get it from 7 hours trucking distance away and it's still cheaper than what I can make it even after I pay the trucker, after you factor in my time making hay, moving equipment around, time fixing equipment, time maintaining equipment, the odd mechanic job when it's too complicated for me to fix; then the cost of buying grease, oil, filters, twine, parts, tires; then the obscene cost of equipment turn over (even old used these days) which has worked out to an average of $3-5000 a year over the last 20 years for our medium sized hay operation. Now if I consider the cost that hay harvesting imposes on my pastures... Everytime I harvest a hay crop you leave a 1" stubble, in the middle of summer my pasture bake to oblivion killing off vast amounts of microbes and fungi and sending the earth worms packing for Sheol! After the over baking and over compacting of the soil, due to equipment, following hay harvest, we now need an enormous amount of water before regrowth can recover; better hope I get a 2" rain or have unlimited irrigation at hand (and if I do, there's another expense). The even if you feed that hay back on that harvested land, you still won't get back the damage that was caused from nutrient removal and soil exposure. The other thing that is most anoyeing with making hay, is when you don't get a harvest window untill 70 days after the crop was ready, that means the crop stoped growing and no collection of energy for 70 days while you were waiting to cut the crop. If I had planned to graze it I could have harvested it when it was at optimal age and grow a new crop of forage while leaving ample residual likey 3 times over! Now consider the lost opportunity of selling that hay I made, and yes, I can sell it for far more locally than I can buy it for from afar so feeding it myself doesn't really make sense. And one more thing to add...the $30-$40 discount on each big bale of hay you buy from another farm just for the nutrients it carries. Now, I know you said: "if no one makes hay" due to excessive drought I presume, but that is why I buy in hay enough for 2 years or so when it's cheap and plentiful. Pick up some decent tarps and place your stacks on a dry hill or logs like GJ. All in all I don't know your situation and perhaps it is better for you to make your own hay, but I have held out from buying hay for most of my life, and it is very liberating to realize that I don't need to make it my myself as long as I can manage the cycles of market and nature. Happy grazing my friend!

Kimberly, thanks for your kind comments on my new book, glad you liked it. Hope to meet you next year at our spring grazing school.

She is due to calve this fall

Yes we are dry here, hard to believe 2 weeks ago we were swamped with rain. 90 degree windy days takes the moisture out pretty quick.

@@gregjudyregenerativerancher Yes it does! I'm happy to have some drier weather as long as the spigot doesn't get shut off completely. I have about a dozen ponds to build this summer for stock water and about 2 miles of stock water line to put in. I'd like to get a nice rain on my newly planted beans though.

I am sure they were, in NZ the settlers even introduced gorse which has gone mad there.

We about went broke trying to use commodity long legged cattle with no gut. Today there are grass genetic cattle and grain genetic cattle. Make a living with grass, lose money with grain. Just our experience.

There’s already a few here, just check his videos.

Mrs. Garcia is correct, there are several fencing videos here. I had missed a couple of them. ATV setup and Pigtails are covered, as well as most of the rest of the aspects of his fences of both types. Today, in one of his 2019 videos, I found his measurements for strand heights on a 4-strand high-tensile wire fence: 7, 13, 19, and 30 inches. Also, pigtails 32" not 36" because the 36'ers are too bendy (and don't need the height).

Our cows use the sheep as soccer balls. It takes several days of constant presence with each other before the cows finally leave them alone. Our bull mob last year ignored the sheep. Mature cows with calves are much more protective.

@@gregjudyregenerativerancher thanks greg. they seemed to get long all winter but in grazing this spring they just dont stop charging till they run them out.

We are stocked appropriately with 90 degree hot summer days hitting us now. It's hard to get a step-in post in the ground!!

Absolutely for 3 months, then what, once you hit the summer slump grass slows down. Too much grass is a good thing.

@@davidhickenbottom6574 Farming is being good to nature and making a living. If you can manage your grazing platform well you can increase stocking rate. It just seems that this farm is under stocked but I don’t know what Greg’s stocking rate is. In Ireland ours is 1 cow per acre or 2.5 per hectare. Stocking rate at 0.8 cow per acre and you can farm very sustainability.

If you are already in a drought, you should have implemented your drought plan. Sell off some livestock, combine herds, slow down your rotations. Not sure what his pasture management is.

We have a corral with a head catch to hold the animal safely.

Trampling and grazing grass is much more economical than mowing it for hay.

Trampling also helps the litter bank for carbon...you got to feed those earthworms.

Genetic selection is why they are shiny. The hair coat of those cattle deter flies. It's not an accident, it's a major factor in Greg's success. Flies can be a huge economic factor and by selecting for the right hair coat he has eliminated the fly factor.

@@BJSmith-ll3uw I understand that. I'm asking about wax or oil as something natural you could put on the cattle instead of all the chemicals commercial farmers use to deter flies.

Same with bulls, fine bones is what you want.

Good healthy population of ticks, chiggers don't like me much.

@@gregjudyregenerativerancher I don't get chiggers either, but the ticks seem to be aware of this and try to make up for it. Clothing treatments was the most effecting thing when I was surveying.

We are sending out emails this week to all livestock buyers. The dates, time, and addresses to pick them up.,

On vacation

no

Good advice. Grade up with good bulls, they are half the herd. Also start small with health accredited stock, don’t buy in problems even if they do look like a cheap bargain.

"Expensive" is all in perspective. Buying cheap "salebarn" stock will cost tons in other expenses. I would not recommend starting out with heifers to raise calves either. Buy stockers n grow them out a couple seasons before trying to raise your own calves. Heifers typically bring more problems than experienced older cows but I'm sure Greg's will be much less likely to have mothering issues.