You Won't Believe How Raising Cattle Like This Has Saved Our Farm!

we are looking at Blades of grass this is one gigantic solar panel that helps feed the Energy System of the root system of this plant so what you see outside on the top of the ground is indicative of what's going on under the ground folks today on the Stoney Ridge Farm Channel we're going to take you out in the cow pasture and we're going to talk to you about regenerative farming and what I've learned and what you need to know about mob grazing your cows everything you need to know ask questions post comments and let me know what you think about this I don't believe in the food system in this country cow should not be confined to tight spaces and have to wait belly deep and manure for human consumption you shouldn't have to feed these animals antibiotics in order for them to thrive they should thrive in a healthy environment just like this good morning folks and welcome back to the Stoney Ridge Farm it's an absolutely gorgeous day here we are going to show you and talk to you a little bit about regenerative farming about moving your cattle about grazing about overgrazing and everything you want to know about starting your own regenerative farming operation whether you've been farming for the last 50 years doing at Grandpa's way or Great Grandpa's way if you want to inspire change if you want to build the soil build the land and save on your fertilizer bill today is your day to enjoy the Stoney Ridge Farm so let's get busy we're going to feed the baby chicks and we're going to head over to the cow pasture cheers grab your coffee let's go have some fun foreign [Music] folks welcome back to the Stony Ridge Farm Channel if this is your first time here your 50th time please hit that like button subscribe the channel we're providing you great information what I've learned here on our first generation regenerative Farm here in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina and you can see it's absolutely gorgeous out here it's about 55 degrees we're the second day of May of 2023 and we're going inside the garage building here to check on the baby chicks so inside the brooder right here we have our baby chicks these are 100 white leghorn laying hens and 35 Cornish cross meat birds and you'll see us processing the meat birds in a very soon future video so we've got the light turned off these chicks are old enough and I'm doing what's called hardening them off we'll go ahead and plug in this light real quick so we have a little fluorescent light in here we don't have heat we're not providing the chicks with supplemental heat right now they're Feathering out and pretty soon these birds will be ready to move outside to our eggmobiles which will be traveling throughout the farm right here so these are chicks that's their water that's their feed and we just basically start our baby chicks off on Kickstarter uh it was down to 40 something degrees last night all the chicks are doing well and what we're doing is called hardening them off which means acclimating them to cooler weather so that they can come outside and start foraging out on this grass sooner rather than later now our baby birds our chickens all move throughout the farm just like the cows and you don't need a large piece of land to do chickens okay guys so this is the front yard here on the Stoney Ridge Farm and you can see the grass is absolutely awesome super luscious grass everything looks fantastic this has not been fertilized this is only the result of our baby chicks now we can't move our meat birds with our chicken tractor and we'll show you a little clip of that chicken tractor it's a PVC chicken tractor design that I came up with we don't move it out on the Tall Grass pasture we move it in the short grass right here and with those baby chickens consume is this okay just grass so they'll pick their way through here they'll eat grass they'll eat clover they'll eat bugs they'll eat worms they'll eat all kinds of stuff and they'll get their roughage that makes for a better tasting meat bird now let's go over and we're going to show you guys where we've been unrolling hay bales out here to our cattle and we're going to do a cattle move this morning it literally takes three minutes to move the cows to a different Paddock and we're moving them twice a day twice a day is the key you say you can't do this because I've got a regular job get up in the morning go move your cows it takes 10 minutes when you get home from work go move your cows it takes 10 minutes it doesn't take long so let's ride over and check them out oh the grass is looking good out here today we graze this we have it grazed this we grazed that this was a week ago that hasn't been grazed in three months and you can't tell the difference what I'm telling you here guys is what we're doing is working removing the cows more frequently than we've ever moved them and it's absolutely working fantastically they're already ready to move right now as we pull up here morning ladies thank you so like I said man it only takes 10 minutes to move the cows we're going to take a little bit longer today because we're going to teach you as we move the cows so the cattle have been out and these are Black Angus Cattle we do have a new bull over here he is a grass genetic bull he is a South Pole Bull and we're going to be breeding those grass genetics into the cows now what does that mean does it mean that these cows don't eat grass no it means that the grass genetics in the South Pole breed of cattle is more disease tolerant in other words they do better on grass they're more disease tolerant they're more tolerant of what it takes to graze on grass so they don't get the worminess they don't get the parasite load that Black Angus typically get now we have not wormed these cattle in three years it's been three years since we wormed it's been six years since we spread fertilizer and we only spread fertilizer on this land when we first cleared it all of this was overgrown grown in Briars and brush so if you're looking at a piece of property and you're thinking man I'll never get anywhere with that you can get somewhere you can take garbage and turn it into an awesome working farm guys and that's what we're doing here so let's take a look at the Cow so again these are the cattle this is a sign of a little bit of a parasite load in this cow you see how woolly it is compared to the rest of them so there's a sign of a little bit of a parasite loading that cow what we do for dewormer is we give our cattle charcoal so we have little burn piles in each one of our paddocks or pastures and we let the cows go in and eat that charcoal and that helps to deworm the cattle we also can deworm them with food with forage so we can deworm them with specific types of forage and I'll post some down there so you guys can understand what's the best for worming your cows without putting dewormer on them so we don't need chemicals these cows again have not had vaccinations they have not had dewormer they have not had anything and they're still awesome and super healthy this is our watering system and we want to take you and show you that this is a mirror Fountain 3390 waterer it's open right here because we have young cows and that one has a little bit of poo on its head so we have young cattle they were born in the last few days they drink out of that one the adult cows like this guy press this ball down and drink out of there that it's a mirror Fountain 3390 frost-free water tank this is a line This is a line that is a line these are all fence lines that is a fence line that is a fence line and that is a fence line we're separating these out into acre to acre and a half paddocks isn't that right butt hit there you go I spend time with my cows guys spend time with your cows and when they go to calf you won't have an aggressive cow coming after you now you see a few flies right here it is the warm time of year and the Flies are coming out why are the Flies not a problem why why aren't they a problem because the cows are constantly moving so they're never ever grazing next to their own manure it makes sense that's why they're disease free because they're never grazing next to their own manure there is a directly proportional situation when cattle are grazing and or eating or in a confined space next to their own manure it is absolutely proportional to how much parasite loads so if you eat and sleep and live in feces you're gonna need to be medicated and it's gross and it's not right and it's not the way our food should be raised and it's not the way these animals deserve to be raised so out here on this land we'll show you where we've unrolled hay I have unrolled hay out here for the last three years and this land has absolutely turned around we have not put down any lime to correct the pH what comes out of those cows butts corrects the pH so the manure and the urine that comes out of those cows help correct our pH from four and we're pushing it up towards six is what we want it to be here in tobacco Land USA all of our land has been over farmed and all of our topsoil is either in the Chesapeake Bay or in the Cape Fear River Basin so we've got to build topsoil and that's the entire goal of this regenerative Farm let's go out here and take a look so there are a few things that work here this is a high traffic area okay we want to keep down the high traffic areas and we want to keep the cows off these high traffic areas as best as we possibly can so they will not have access to this spot after today for another couple weeks we're coming over in here look at the milk just pouring out of this cow this calf's just drinking I just seen milk pouring out good Mama good mama that's a testimony look at the milk just running out of that cow's udders that's awesome so they've been out here grazing for approximately 12 hours when I put the cows out here for 12 hours they knocked the tops out of everything so they graze one third they leave one third and they trample one-third and they leave behind manure and they leave behind the urine which helps to fertilize the land now we're going to move them real quick over to this next Paddock and you can see the difference we'll get right here on the fence line they love grazing the fence line by the way this has been grazed this hasn't been grazed they've been here since about 7 30 last night it's about 8 A.M this morning so about 11 hours when I move they want to move bad when I move the cows hey girls it's all right man it's okay hey you're you you don't need to do that sweetie okay this is sweetie by the way um so what you need to know is when we move the cows like this they only have time to nip the top nip the tops out of the palatable food hey dude and they leave the rest so we'll be circling back through here in about 12 days and re-grazing this and it won't be harmed whatsoever let's move the cows real quick so they'll be quiet and we can walk around I'll show you where I've been unrolling hay on the land to help heal the soil simply take this hook loose this is a bungee an electrified bungee open it up come on girls and through the gate comes the cows come on Fresh grass come on girls there you go so folks you can see the cows aren't starving they're just coming out here moseying on to a new Paddock moseying onto a New Pasture what I needed to tell you is they're only going to be here for about nine nine to ten hours they're super excited [Music] I don't know why they're doing that they like to show off for the camera pickle daddy's coming to tickle you [Music] all right Bros sometimes we get in behind the cows do a little walk and they'll go right on through the gate go on Bully this is low stress animal handling I don't know if you guys noticed this but these cows will go anywhere I want them to go pretty cool huh go ahead go ahead little guys little guys can go up under the fence it won't hurt him a bit go ahead okay as I was saying before I was so moodly interrupted um this Paddock is a little bit smaller so this is about an acre this is about an acre and a half they were on this for just a little bit longer in the daytime they get a little bit smaller Paddock okay so they'll be out here for approximately eight and a half to ten hours and the next Paddock they'll move to is going to be a larger Paddock for overnight so during the day I put them on a smaller paddock at night I put them on a larger Paddock just like that you see Tammy the donkey she is a guard donkey that helps to keep the coyotes away from the babies if we walk right over here Tammy always brings up the rear she kind of pushes the cows for me sometimes but today she didn't push the cow so we'll walk in behind Tammy real quick there you go girl there you go girl get on through there and again now you can see where this has been grazed again trample one-third leave one third and eat one-third and that's what they're doing over here so let's talk about howology Cal science these cows are going to cruise through here cruise through this entire Paddock roam around and consume all the food that's the easiest the sweetest and the best first then they're going to come back through and cruise this padding and eat all the food that is a little bit less palatable just like people Okay so it's almost like eating dessert first you see this pile of gravel these cows are spreading this gravel out for me around this water tank okay now looking down here let's talk about the pasture the paddocks and what we're feeding these cows we are not feeding our cows on a mono culture so we have fescue we have Clover we have chickweed we have Orchard Grass right here this is the salad bar for the cows to consume and you've got to think about it this way guys if you have animals even yourself and let's just say you love macaroni and cheese who love lasagna whatever so if you eat 100 lasagna all day every day you're gonna be a very unhealthy person the same thing goes with cows honeybees chickens any type of animal they need a variety of forage that variety of forage provides those animals the nutrition that they need if you put them on a mono crop and it's the same thing every single day you'll get sick animals and you'll get sick land so what do we have here Josh what is this spot why is there a big dead spot and what's going on right here this is where we did some Bale grazing we set a hay bale right here and let the cows graze it then we came back with the drag Harrow and drug that debris out and you can see that debris is all out in here there's one Bell graze there if we go over here there's another great big bear spot right over here where we bail graze this section the rest of this pasture has had hay bales rolled out on it and I want to show you what's left over from the hay bales that were rolled out on the land okay this is what's left it's litter it's litter that holds moisture it's litter that holds microbes it's litter that helps make our land drought tolerant if you look down in there you'll see all sorts of Awesomeness going on there's bacteria at work here there's a symbiotic relationship between the bacteria and the fungi that is in the soil and if you till it you destroy it you roast it this land was tilled for hundreds of years for tobacco production and the soil has been destroyed what we're doing is keeping litter on the soil all the time let's talk about the power of the energy of the Sun and let's also talk about where I've unrolled hay bales first of all you see that dark green swath going up through there it's super dark green starting there and all the way up through here this whole ridge had no grass on it whatsoever three years ago this is where I've seriously doubled down on an unrolling hay right here if you look right in here you'll see the litter that's on the ground it's just like planting your lawn all this litter right here is promoting growth the litter rots holds moisture the growth of the grass comes back up and this is where we unrolled hay am I getting to you here do you see what I mean if you feed in a hay ring you get the circles that I just showed you of dead matter if you feed in a hayring let's say that was just one bale okay so that was one day of grazing in the winter time if you feed in a hay ring you're gonna have a mud hole and you're gonna have dead spots on your farm if we put a hayring out here and fed these cows right here on this Paddock for 10 days this entire Paddock will be a manure Fest mud hole and would contain all sorts of parasites so cows would be sick you can't raise quality animals in a mud hole you can't do it you just can't do it and you can argue it all day long the conventional way of raising beef in this country is to raise them up take them and put them on a feedlot it's a factory farm situation I don't agree with it I don't think the cow should be in confined spaces and fed antibiotics I don't believe cow should be in confined spaces and have to be medicated in order to be healthy they need to be out here doing this and there's enough land in this country to feed this country this way now here's something that nobody ever told me and something that I've really been thinking about let's talk about photosynthesis the energy that's provided to us from the Sun from the Sun and the microbes in the soil and moisture photosynthesis let's look at some plants real quick and talk about the photosynthesis that's going on and why it's so important to harnessing energy of the Sun and not over Grace when you over Grace you cheat yourself let's show you just looking at the grass here okay what grass is doing really well and what grass isn't this is new grass this is new grass that has just started sprouting up right here do we want the cows to put much pressure on that what they'll do is they'll eat it all the way down they'll skip over this stuff and they'll eat all this down what are we looking at right here we are looking at Blades of grass this is one gigantic solar panel that helps feed the Energy System of the root system of this plant so what you see outside on the top of the ground is indicative of what's going on under the ground if you over graze your land down to the nub you can't get photosynthesis in these big wide leaves and therefore your plants are not as successful so you stunt the growth it only takes one season of stunted growth on your property to absolutely set you up for disaster all winter long the goal here is to continue moving the cows continue grazing the cows and not let them take it all the way down to the nub so that we can get as much of the energy from the Sun back into that plant so it will grow and recover faster okay that is the goal that's photosynthesis that's what's going on now we're about to implement a new system here on the farm it's called a free choice cafeteria style mineral feeder this land is covered with soil it's covered with microbes it's covered with grass and it needs minerals the cows need minerals it's their Gatorade okay so if the cows don't get the proper minerals they'll be out here moving and carrying on and acting crazy all right so if we bring the cafeteria style mineral feeder and you'll have to subscribe to the channel and come on back and see us when we Implement that the cows will choose the mineral that they are deficient in the mineral that the cow is deficient in is the same mineral that the land is deficient in that mineral passes through the cow and goes into the soil and promotes better grass growth there's a lot going on here guys let's go over and show you a perfect example of where I didn't unroll hay and where I did unroll hay and the results that came from it bet you didn't know there was this much information going on right here in the cow pasture pretty amazing guys now here is a spot that didn't get hay rolled out on it last year and this is what the entire Farm looked like in years past do you see how sparse the vegetation is how there are bare spots there's bare soil here here wherever there's bad soil that soil is being roasted by the UV light from the sun now the UV light will help these plants to grow and the UV light will roast the microbes in the soil so what we're doing by unrolling hay is simply coating the ground with enough manure and enough litter to allow the microbes to catch up hold the moisture and get the grass growing let's go over here and I'll show you a spot that I really targeted this last year with hay unrolling hay this is bare land this is exactly what this used to look like this is the absolute 100 percent result of unrolling hay on the land 100 percent look at this look at how green this grass is luscious green fantastic grass look out over here all of this area around this tree was Barren it looked just like this around this tree until I unrolled hay right here do you see this this is the absolute 100 result of unrolling hay and not feeding our cows in a hay bale ring in a confined area that is the absolute result you can see it right here it's like a green carpet has been rolled out right on top of the land this was an area that we targeted and you can see some broom sedge back in there over the years it takes years to do this but over the years our forage is going to multiply 10 times over simply from unrolling hay and feeding the soil versus hitting it with a commercial fertilizer so if we go out and we buy a commercial fertilizer and we spread it out on the lamb and we hit this with more nitrogen than it can handle the grass is going to explode with growth it's going to be awesome right in three months the grass will detonate and it will not grow anymore that's it you can put a long-acting fertilizer short acting fertilizer whatever you want to put out there but it does not make the grass and the soil drought tolerant rolling out these hay bales makes the soil drought tolerant so when the weather gets bad when it's hot hot in the middle of the summer the cows are still eating the highest quality forage that they can possibly get their mouths on so guys that's a pasture walk that's regenerative farming that's what we're doing here on the Stoney Ridge Farm if you want to buy high quality beef seek out local farmers that are raising their animals just like this we don't need to medicate the well we need to treat and care for the sick and provide a good healthy and healing environment for our animals and for ourselves to live and survive guys if you have to feed your food antibiotics in order for it to grow and be healthy then what does that say about the health of this nation what does that say about your health I don't like that grass-fed beef don't taste as good is it about taste or is about nutrient content is it about saving our environment is it about building soil is it about sequestering carbon is it about taking advantage of the Sun or is it about cheap food do you want cheap food post it down there if you want cheap food and you don't want nutritious food and you don't want to heal the Earth that's keeping us alive let me know post it down there if you think it's okay to eat cattle that have been given antibiotics post it down there let me know if you're a farmer if you live out on a ranch and or you have a feedlot operation tell me what you think about grass-fed would you rather eat grass-fed beef raised holistically on a regenerative farm would you rather eat feedlot beef that's been fed antibiotics and its food been given steroids and has to have medications in order to stay healthy versus just greened grass the Bison didn't need any kind of medication to survive out on the Great Plains did they why should our cows need it why should we need it take care of yourself guys thanks a lot for joining me here on the Stoney Ridge Farm hit that like button watch another video And subscribe the channel I'd love to have you back all right [Music] really don't Shock Me do you want to be my friend again huh come here girl come here girl huh they're following me they want to go foreign [Music] what happened to your head there shade that guy was trying to regenerate grass on its head no more butt fertilizer on the head right 205 poor fella

Channel: Stoney Ridge Farmer

Views: 47,199

Keywords: chickens, homesteading, farming, tractor, trucks, stoney ridge farm, stoney ridge farmer, ranching, farming channels, homesteading channels, farming youtube channels, cattle, diy, how to, lumber, crafts, outdoors, farmhouse, modern homesteading, professional homeowner, cattle farming, top homesteading youtube channels, homesteading lifestyle, foodie, vegan, joel salatin, greg judy, polyface farm, pastured poultry, pastured chicken farming, mob grazing, how farms work, feedlot

Id: edm0kFHArSo

Length: 27min 8sec (1628 seconds)

Published: Thu May 18 2023