Multi-Species Rotational Grazing for the Small Homestead | Pantry Chat

hey you guys this is Josh and Carolyn with homesteading family and welcome to this week's episode of The Pantry chat Food For Thought this week we are talking about now you're laughing at me you made me laugh smiling at you well this week we are talking about it's multi-shape sorry it's a mouthful I can't say it this week we are talking this week we are talking about multi-species rotational grazing for the small Homestead there we go that is a mouthful but it's easier than it sounds yeah yeah the topic is a lot easier to understand than it is to say well and this is something that we've done for a long time and studied a lot matter of fact um you know besides gardening and a few chickens we got our start scaling up homesteading raising beef cows yeah on on actually a little larger acreage in studying Joel Solitude and Greg Judy and a lot of the um you know well-known holistic grazers right but it's something we haven't talked a lot about here at homesteading family well and one of the challenges with studying them just as an introduction then we'll get to the chit chat chat is that they're working on really large scale yeah they are and and jeweled does a great job of breaking it down in his systems you can use from an acre to A Thousand Acres but a lot of times the way the information presented it's it's it's hard to distill it down for the small Homestead what if you're on an acre what if you're on three acres you know or ten how can you raise a lot of meat a lot of animals and do it you know resiliently sustainably you know while improving your pastures um that's I think that's been a challenge to distill and talk about and so we want to enter into that a little bit and talk about what that is and and I don't know how far we'll get today but maybe this will be an ongoing conversation yeah and we'll see if it's it's something that interests you guys all right sounds good but before we get into that we need some chit chat if you are new to The Pantry chat um know that everything should be time stamped for you so you can skip ahead if you are busy or you don't want to listen to chit chat or you want to just jump into the main topic you can skip ahead to the main topic but we like to do the chicken yeah just scroll down on the time stamp in the in the description feed there you go what have you been up to what have I've been up to well on topic uh we're doing a lot outside it's been a little slow to get started this year but we're working on getting animals out we've actually got the pigs the kunikuni's out on grass they've been out on grass for a week or two now oh good we've got some of our laying hens out on Grouse and we're just ready to start in with our rotational grazing we've got sheep sheep shears coming actually today after their shorn we can get them out and them and the the chickens into rotation and so actually just getting our fences set up and getting a plan going for this year's grazing and we're well we're on 40 acres right now we're rotationally grazing a little over three it's probably probably about four acres and and then we have some other ground that's just being lightly used by the beef cows so it's it really is that small Homestead and it's amazing what you can accomplish our whole like productive area like super productive area of the homestead is what only 5 it's under it's under five acres it's under five acres and that and that includes two houses a couple ponds pasture and Gardens and Orchards and other infrastructure barn and whatnot but that's on five acres and we produce you know 90 percent you know 80 90 of what we do on that five acres for you know 15 to 20 people yeah so you can do a lot in a small space and I think this is a major part of it is the rotational grazing but we're not talking about that yet we're talking about what you're doing so got it well that is what I'm doing um you know so we're getting that set up we actually have some other land that we're going to get ready to clear that's in really degraded for us it's been logged unkept and it needs to go to pasture so uh we're starting some work on that I'm actually just feeding cows beef cows up there right now there's some roads some very compact stuff so instead of turning that up I'm rolling out grass and and feeding them on that to build up organic matter and fertilizer via uh you know waste from the cows yeah this is exciting because we're letting the cows do the work right without bringing in machinery and ripping up the land we're letting the cows actually come in and do that in a much more Gentle Way right where we can and we're gonna have to bring in and some light Machinery to remove trees but even that we're going to do that without turning the ground over and leaving the structure in place and so man working on that we've got Gardens going outside we got an orchard in we plant we already had fruit trees I don't know we had a dozen fruit trees or so but they were kind of random around the property and so we we picked an area between the house and the main crop garden and put in 19 trees recently so that's exciting a lot happening this year yeah yeah yeah and today tomorrow in the next couple of days we have the first round of meat chicks coming in oh that's right yeah and turkeys yeah so that's exciting yeah they're actually doing two rounds this year because as some of you guys know we have a son who has started raising and selling pastured chickens and turkeys and that's really exciting so really is it's fun to see him picking up the vision it's not really been our goal to farm ourselves but to set it up for the next generation and and he's stepping into that this is his third year he's been working his way up slowly but he's doing 200 200 um meet well 200 broilers chicken broilers and I don't know how many turkeys or so I think it's more than that I think it's more like 25. oh wow yeah so we've got a lot of a lot of them coming so if you live in the area and you're interested in really well-raised pastured turkeys and chickens send us an email but we can't ship so don't send us an email asking if we can ship no not doing that and we're not anywhere close to to doing that yeah right but uh what about you what are you up to in this busy May season May for us as the kicker of the year though we have a lot more hands this year so it's it's really nice every year as the kids get older they're much more helpful it's wonderful and then they get really helpful and then they leave or get a full-time job and they can't be as helpful they do we're also bringing interns in we actually have two interns here right yeah and yeah and we'll just put that out there one it's a huge help to us we need it and but next year we'll be looking for more interns so those of you that are interested just keep your eye out for that yeah absolutely so that's been a big help having the extra sets of hands but um you know right now we are getting everything in today we're actually putting in tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers those are all going in the hoop house and then the uh the storage crops of of carrots and beets are going in today okay and so trying to get it all in we have a break in the weather right now we're having a couple of cool mellow cloudy days so it's good for the people who have to work in the garden but it's also really good for the plants especially when we're transplant too much heat right away yeah so we're getting all of those things in right now out in the Cottage Garden The Cottage Garden looks amazing and we have had so much success in the Terrace Garden so far which is kind of an extension of The Cottage Garden right out of the kitchen um because we got things planted so early we really utilize cold frames and hoop little low tunnels um and so now we're just trying to keep that going so all doing this are just moving along the Terrace Gardens are expanding yeah and we've had earlier greens this year than most years I just won my first major battle in the war against Grass in my Cottage Garden Beds which I'm very excited about because this is a yearly battle trying to keep the grass out of the beds in The Cottage Garden and so we actually put in eight inch steel edging this is a wall trying to protect a little bit we have some of the creeping grasses I don't even know what they're called what the specifications are it's a yeah it's a native I don't know what it is yeah but that's in an area that we had cleared and and layer mulched and everything and so the problems mostly and we had a few spots where it came through but mostly from the edges that you know it's coming if you've got one of those grasses the roots are going to come through unless you put up a barrier so everything we do we try to create systems that make it easier to continue doing what we're doing the next year and I just really felt like we weren't holding true to our values out in the Cottage Garden with that grass and so you you know this is the first step to making that easier so I'm really excited about that I think that's a good step forward that boy if we got beautiful flowers up all over the place we've got all of our herbs coming up in the Cottage Garden it's uh perennial vegetables the sorrel the good King Henry and the Caucasian Mountain spinach are all looking really really good out there so I've been up to a lot of that yep you sure have yeah busy seasoned good stuff happening okay you want to get into a question of the day sure all right this is from Teresa Hansel on the home dairy products versus store-bought she asks what kind of cows do you have both for milking and beef and do you milk morning and night or just once and why'd you choose the milk cow you did wow well there's there's a lot there let's let's answer the first part which is what kind of cows for milk and beef and so for the beef cows we have herefords um love them they're they're older generation herefords so they're a little smaller than what you might mostly see for hereford's today but they flash better on grass that means they they meet out they they come to maturity better just on grass and they're also just very mellow so so we've loved them there are lots of good breeds out there um I don't know that we'll stick with pure herefords because they're hard to find the ones that we want actually and so we may go to a little more local but definitely going to work towards that that smaller size that Heritage frame yeah they've been great for us so that that's what we have for beef cows and then the dairy cow she is a Jersey with a little bit of Friesian in her and what I call a black Jersey and we've had two of these and we love them yeah they have been great milk cows they give a ton of cream they're very easy to work with they have a better tendency to take with AI if you don't have ours have yeah I don't have any that's only anecdotal but yeah right because jerseys are kind of known to be really hard to AI It won't always take and so we've had a lot of success with these and they give us a lot of cream so we like that and they've been good keepers they're a little larger so for some Holdings they're a little bit big they're they're on the larger side for a jersey they're not like a Swiss uh cow Swiss dairy cow but they are a little bit bigger so if you have a small holding you know that might be a little bit large for you but they've been very good very good animals she gets a lot of milk both of them have they've given about eight gallons a day at Max yeah at Max on the grass yeah um and so and it's it's like Carolyn said though it's it is creamy a gallon so for our household that's really really good yeah and as far as milking morning or night we're we're kind of all over the place we kind of work it season that seasonally and so we start out milking twice a day um part of that's because this particular cow hasn't shared her calf very well and you know we might ease into it with a calf very well uh well or with us when she has the calf exactly she's like a great cow if the calf's not around but I think she's also such a great Mama that she holds back her milk she's real Restless in the stanchion if she knows that caps around the calf goes bye-bye she's wonderful so so anyway so we usually are removing the calf quickly milking twice a day for what the first five months or so five to six months depending on the season and then and as it gets towards fall we go down to once a day milking lighting it up a little bit and then we dry her off right about three months before she's due again there is a place in the season where all the sudden butter does not uh turn in the cream doesn't turn into butter not as well it's not as well it takes a very long time there's actually all sorts of science behind that that I have just found I couldn't recite it to you yet but um but there's this place where it just stops turning and so um so at that point we kind of figure oh we've had enough in storage usually the cheese cave is full by then and we're just getting kind of drinking milk for the family and we just don't need that many gallons every day to do twice a day milking yeah yep yeah so okay that is yeah that's that's our dairy cow yeah yeah she's nice her name's tilly all right so we're doing a species rotational grazing for the small Homestead that's a mouthful can I just call it rotational grazing yes what do you want to know okay why like what's it all about because I know this is something that people are hearing about and they see reference places but like how is this different than just throwing your animals out in a pasture right okay so let's unpack that a little bit rotational grazing we'll go we'll go to there first right that is just moving the animals around so in nature when there were no fences wooded grazing animals ruminant type animals do they moved around the landscape finding the highest quality feed so they moved a lot they had room to move and they didn't stay in one area and you know eat all the grass or the forage down low and then move on forage the the best quality in in most the season is at the top top few inches it's where the best nutrition is that's where the best taste is those things go together so animals would move across the landscape to find the best feed and that had a lot of other benefits to it and had benefits to the environment and not in not destroying a certain area and moving the parasites around they didn't build up in an area also protect them from predators a lot of different things there but but they kept that feed well and it managed the land well well then we started putting fences in and leaving animals in fixed areas and what starts to happen is that the animals know I mean they know what they like but what they like is what's best for them and so they're going to take that first and then they're going to come back to the next best thing and what eventually starts to happen is they keep coming back to the next best things over and over and they eat those down and they ignore some of the other species that maybe are valuable but they're not as value available they're not as tasty and they start to degrade the land and they take it down to the point that they will destroy the best quality pasture and forage in that pasture and you'll end up with a degraded pasture of mostly annuals and lower quality and eventually you've got water runoff issues and all kinds of different degradation so rotational grazing is seeking to mimic that pattern within our fixed boundaries we've got a piece of land whether you've got an acre or 100 acres or a thousand acres we're trying to control move those animals since they don't have free range they can't just pick whatever they want on the Open Range so we have to help them out by keeping them in a smaller area and giving them the right amount of feed allowing them to manure it and fertilize it and then moving them on through that space and so we're rotating them through the land in a way that feeds them well and actually builds the land instead of degrading it okay so that makes a lot of sense just thinking about how animals behavior is public like in nature right um how small can this apply to like can can does this apply to somebody in a backyard with a couple of chickens for just the rotational grazing heart just the rotational grazing part without the multi-species yes absolutely and chickens a few square feet and move them around well sure instead of having them because chickens do the same thing and we were just watching this we're getting our layers out early we're getting them on pasture and they had a fairly big area in the chickshaw where they're moving but what would they do they leaving them in there for a couple days they had their spots they wanted to go back and right away they were tearing holes into the grass and creating dust baths and they've got this giant area they're not harming the forage at all but for the chickens they're creating this impact that's not good and it takes them a couple days to do that one day two days they don't do too much but you leave them sitting there they do so even in a backyard you can contain your chickens either in a netting or or a chicken tractor those of you they're familiar with that and you can move them from spot to spot yes you have to move them every day but you're giving them new feed they're fertilizing and they're moving around and there's no reason you can't do that in a in a backyard absolutely and my next thought is well you know depending on the size of your backyard do you want to run rabbits in there and this is Theory I you know I haven't done this or even seen this on small holding but I think you could even get to the multi-species part but there's no reason you couldn't do chickens you couldn't do ducks you couldn't do geese you couldn't do rabbits those are the ones that come to mind in a pretty small yard okay so so as far as rotational grazing goes this is something that you can do kind of whether it's really small or really big land so this is can apply and have benefits for people at all different levels right and let's talk about it just for a second on the other side on larger land could you do it with single species like we're talking about here just chickens or just Ducks could you do it yes you definitely can the same principles you're moving them around through nature getting them the best feeds fertilizing and letting that land rest is the term that we have and let it regrow and often manage will you can come back depending on your environment and a lot of other things you can come back and re-grace at a time maybe two people like salatin they can come back over there on six times in a season but he's developed that over years and his climate plays into that but it becomes very powerful even with a single species okay so now let's talk about adding that layer in of the multi species right and what is that why would you do that well again we're looking to Nature we're looking at creation for the answers right there are no monocultures in nature God didn't create monocultures there are always inner working species and systems and that aligns with what we're trying to do as homesteaders and stewards of the land one we want to take good care of the land two we need to produce for ourselves and create our own resiliency in our food systems as much as we can on the land that we have right well nature allows that and you can start combining species to create benefits and run multiple types of animals and a real common one that people talk a lot about is the ruminant like the cow and the chickens right that's ruminant and a bird and in nature you would see say in American context Buffalo and birds following the Buffalo and the birds help with parasites the manure created certain bugs that the birds would eat and there's a whole semiotic relationship there and so we're mimicking that we're not necessarily accomplishing everything that was happening in that broad natural system but we can take a cow lead the cow ahead in the feed say dairy cow is a great combination for a small Homestead and put a dairy cow in she's in front and behind a couple days the chickens are coming your meat chickens or your egg layers and what's happening well the chickens are coming behind often that manure has gotten fly larva or something in it you're feeding the chickens they're spreading the fertilizer right the Cow Patties out they're spreading it out so it's not clumped because when it clumps you get high nutrient density and the cows actually won't come back to that for sometimes a year or more when you bring them back in and so the chickens are spreading that out and evening the fertilizer in your system and now you're raising two sets of animals and products on the same ground done correctly so it's beneficial to both because you're spreading that out so the grass is getting better for the cows for the next time they come through your the chickens are eating off and they're fertilizing the chicken manure that sounds better sorry okay manure instead of poop oh got it manure okay manure it is um I like fertilizer let's call it fertilizer because that's what it is and that's one of the huge benefits when you realize that it's fertilizer we all you know we're in our industrial mindset we've got to fertilize our Gardens we've got to fertilize our Lawns we've got to fertilize our pastures nature was made to do all of that it's the animals we're actually controlling the distribution of fertilizer which is increasing the quality of the feed which allows us to better feed our animals and have a better quality feed for ourselves so so you start to get the system going that's really working together and guys like Joel salatin will run the chickens even though he's running a large business he'll run the chickens just to fertilize the grass to feed the cows let alone that he then gets to sell the eggs or or the meat but there's a lot of economic proof that just that fertilization and doing that labor provides enough benefit to make it worthwhile so I think this is such an important principle here on this because you know when we look at a pasture we kind of naturally think what can it do for us right like we can feed some animals on there and get some meat out of it or maybe some eggs out of the chickens but we always want to be in this situation where we're thinking about how we can improve what's around us how can we improve the land how can we improve our soil how can we improve the grass we want to be a net benefit when we show up somewhere right on a drain like humanity is so often a drain on the internet that's our tendency right and so we want to show up and this is one of the things that you can really do to benefit the land in a lot of ways because you are making that pasture better not only for the animals you're running but for every species that accesses those pastures so you get a better return on it your animals are healthier they're happier they're living a more natural life they're more naturally resistant to disease and things that comes through because they're constantly moving on to Fresh pasture they're not having the same type of um of parasite issues and so that just puts them in altogether healthier State between the nutrition and not being weak from parasites right and so you're just improving the entire state of the land around you and its productivity and the health of everything when you start increasing your pasture and you can do this directly with the animals if you're doing it correctly which is so exciting right and it's important to note that doing it correctly so the common thing is to take animals and just put them out on a piece of land and that land degrades and Humanity's been doing this it's not just us in American homesteaders that might have that tendency Humanity has been doing this for years and desertification is a real thing civilizations have desertified an area by just putting the animals on it over using it people are doing that on a small scale as well and it doesn't have to be that way it just has to be managed correctly and it does take some work it does take some involvement right but when you get systems up like you were talking about earlier and you have systems to do this and you pay attention it's not that much work especially for the reward for the fruit of your labor not just in this year but you're building resiliency having done it right into the landscape and you're creating Surplus and you know you just made me think of the the core principles that I I Look to guide our systems and what we do and that's core permaculture principles which are caring for people caring for the Earth the land and creating a surplus and and nature is made in such a way that we can do all of those at the same time we can feed ourselves we can improve the quality of the land while we're doing that and have enough Surplus to say you know improve the land with the fertilizer that we're creating and enough food food to share or sell with others and and so there's that abundance and that can grow as we get better and better at this wow that's exciting it really is it's not you know modern economics I guess I want to say kind of says either you have or I have right you you take something away and so therefore the other person doesn't have right you take something out of the pasture so the pastor is degrading right well it is and then we look at it kind of modern conventional Agriculture and then you look at this and you're like no I can add I mean this is like God's economy isn't it totally you know the more I give the more I get back sort of a thing and that's what happens here the more you put into it the more energy the more Focus the more animals and movement and things like that the more you end up getting back if done correctly I think it's a beautiful imagery of God's gracefulness to us expressed in nature that even though there's all these challenges in nature and it's easy to grade if we'll work with the principles and the way things work that's what we talk about looking at nature we're not trying to do exactly what Nature's doing we're trying to look at how does nature work how can we put this into then a controlled situation and and apply those principles in a way that does everything you're talking talking about and that that's just to me it's exciting and it's it's God's grace to us through through nature now I think all of these things are so neat but what I really think of is me is seeing it play out in our own pasture because we've been kind of on a journey when we got to this property um it was very degraded the pastor was degraded sprayed trampled on fertilized chemical eyes it was everything it was not in good shape it was pitted all over with holes it was rough and here we are and we've got sheep going out pigs going out chickens going out cows going out you know all coming through this space and it is amazing to see it just get more and more Lush um as we do that which is really kind of neat well an example of that real quick is that when first year we got here we put out four sheep uncontrolled because it looked like it had we were busy we're getting settled we're doing all kinds of things oh that that that several Acres can handle four sheep for a couple months you know I didn't have time to rotate I knew better and before she tore up the land you know and but and so the land couldn't support him come now we're in our fifth season and that same ground is supporting like you said a dairy cow probably I don't know eight sheep this year um 70 Lane hens it's we're gonna run over 400 chickens through it and some pigs as well and and that's just in a few years the increase of that same plot of ground from applying these principles and that's only after a few years of applying the principle so it's like we're seeing it get almost exponentially better yeah year after year which is really exciting because it's like gosh 10 years from now so it's to me it's really exciting to say we inherited we bought this piece of land that couldn't even keep a couple sheep alive for a few months um and what we're going to pass on to our children or you know the next buyers of the property or whatever it is our children something our children is something that is robust and resilient and can support a lot of life and that to me is just speaks well of you know good uh taking care of what we have which is important to do absolutely so you guys this is something that if you are grazing any sort of animal or you're interested in grazing any sort of animal if you have some land it's something that we really want to encourage you to look at to consider and to dive into how you might start rotational grazing and adding extra species in to help each other be kind of the symbiotic relationship there to speed up healing the land but also keeping it really fertile yeah and we're going to bring more of this to the table I think this summer and let us know if this is a subject you're excited about we can talk about it here more and we can also get out into the pasture and do a few things as well as some some other educational material coming this way definitely let us know leave a comment below and if there's other things you want to hear about in the pantry chats please let us know that always helps us to know what you're thinking about and what we can help with that's why we're here all right you guys it's been great hanging out with you see you soon

Channel: Homesteading Family

Views: 19,321

Keywords: Homesteading, Homesteading Family, rotational grazing, grass fed, rotational grazing sheep, multispecies grazing, management intensive grazing, multi species grazing, multi-species grazing, rotational grazing cattle, rotational grazing goats, rotational grazing multiple species, rotational grazing cattle on small acreage, rotational grazing pigs, rotational grazing dairy cows, rotational grazing fence system, rotational grazing small acreage, rotational grazing pigs and chickens

Id: xbIx2S2O3cc

Length: 29min 58sec (1798 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 10 2023