A Little More on Efficiency...

What is wrong with this picture?  It's a nice pasture with clover and a source of water but...

...the nearby source of water is not passive (with a little work it could be - but until then it requires effort, note the hose) and it's only accessible at one place in this ~15 acre paddock (and that makes rotational grazing harder to do).  In addition, the trough is low, cattle stand in it to cool down and it appears that some of them won't drink from it after it's too dirty.  Another significant issue is little to no shade.  The perimeter of this paddock is outside of the wood line so there is no way for the animals to escape from the sun by walking into the woods (in June it's already burning hot at 9am).  Perimeter fencing should be inside the wood line to allow animals access to shade (and other forages).

Another efficiency killer is the effort required to keep growth off of electrified high-tensile paddock perimeter (look closely and you'll see three wires, the bottom one is buried in grass).  An electric fence energizer positively charges the wire and negatively charges the ground the fence is on.  Animals are shocked when they close the connection between the fence and ground by allow the electicity to pass thru them from simply touching the wire.  When tall grass and weeds touch the wire it dissipates some of the charge and with enough growth the shock is not strong enough to convince the animals to stay in.  Weed whacking is time intensive, so in this pic the problem is solved by upping the voltage so that is reads 10,000 volts + (we've been getting 3 to 6kv under the conditions above and hope to upgrade the energizer).  10kv or more will slowly kill the grass and weeds that touch the wire.

And if your wire isn't "hot" enough, as soon as the livestock want to get to new pasture they'll move themselves and sometimes tangle your $90 reel of poly wire (we use poly woven with metal wire to sub-divide paddocks and high tensile for the perimeter).  Only a grandma that makes quilts will have the patience to untangle this mess.

And one more very important consideration.  Make sure you place your fencing outside of flood plains.  This pic shows what happens to high tensile when it's overcome by flash flooding.  It can also catch enough debris so that it eventually breaks.  This portion was perpendicular to the flow and was stretched, parallel portions faired better.  Definitely don't use woven wire...

...this is the "velociraptor rated" paddock shown in the last pic of the previous post that had lambs inside.  Note that the chicken coop floated and stopped when it hit this paddock.  If you must use a floodplain to pasture animals use high tensile in the preceding pic.  Woven wire captures small debris and allows resistance to build against the water flow, eventually causing the fence to topple.  At least with the high tensile posts usually won't get ripped out of the ground and in general it faired better.  So far all of the woven wire I've seen within a flood plane has completely failed (even with 4" steel "H" braced corner posts that were 3' into the ground).

What is wrong with this picture?  The first and obvious issue is that Sammy doesn't wear lipstick (look closely at the cup's brim).  Second, don't accept drinks from little kids (Calvin: "Whaaat?  You mean Sammy is just handing us random drinks he takes from strangers?")

Another important but overlooked aspect of farming is fashion, or more specifically color coordination. In this pic I'm wearing a T shirt appropriate for cutting a 55 gallon poly barrel for use as a water trough to...
 

...help solve the problem with the cows standing in the troughs (I haven't seen them stand in the narrow one that's on its side either).  Also note the 2" diameter hose.  The next best thing to a passive watering system (like something that gravity feeds water and is float activated) is a large diameter hose...

...but this is preferred.  Ponds at an elevation that is higher than the rest of the farm (this one is about 100' higher).  With plastic tubing, troughs with floats or nipples this pond can passively provide water for a number of animals.

A good reminder that life is harsh.  Imagine living before the industrial revolution and relying on your property for a large portion of your food.  We were looking forward to a lot of peaches this year until a storm came a few days ago.  Notice that it is still partially attached to the trunk.  I asked the boys to prop it up with a folding ladder to see if we can get some of the peaches to ripen.

Keena: "Hopefully this will work."

Efficiency Is Key

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before that "efficiency is key."  This post will illustrate why.  TJ and I discussed a cattle rotation plan and I thought we'd use an unused pasture to help maintain a winter reserve and possibly forego hay this year.  Problem is that particular pasture does not have a well nor a passive watering system but is in proximity to a river.  Since I thought I had a pretty smart idea the family created some partitions with electric wire and moved the cows in.

This part is to be expected, unrolling electric wire to create a temporary paddock.  One strand is sufficient for cows.

 

First mistake.  Since water infrastructure does not exist, how about putting troughs on a skid and moving them as the pasture is consumed?  Great idea, but now I'm dependent on something really big to tow with and...

 

something to fill the water troughs with, like a gas powered water pump.

Trinity is at the ingress end about to drop the hose into the river.

But... (or should I say "butt") the fence is still hot so TJ bent over and got shocked in the butt.  And then for some reason he used the fence meter to see how many volts bit him (which I think is the funny part, for me knowing it's hot is enough, I guess he's getting to the point where he can discern between a 6 or 4.5 kv shock).

Finally, got the pump working.  It is usually reliable but if you have a loose connection air will get in, or if you run out of gas - just more things to protract morning chores.  Not to mention this process takes time if all goes well, and when you add up the time required over months and years, you never want to implement something like this on a permanent basis.

Relying on equipment is never a good idea, avoid it whenever possible, the truck was on the way to pull the water trough to new pasture but... the water crossing was too high and I had to pull it out.

 

Or, there are those soft spots you've got to watch out for (I love our Toyota, all it needed was for something to drag it out so it could just keep going).

Besides getting stuck, parts break, like this intermediate drive shaft (new part is on the bottom).

 

Sure does feel good when it's finally installed and you're back in "bidness!"

Ultimately, paddock nirvana is the goal.  Look for how to incorporate natural sources of water (this stream is rocky and doesn't have banks that cattle will destroy) or a passive year round water system.  This pasture also has plenty of grass, a variety of forage and shade.  TJ made the decision to put them here after my great idea.

Now on to bonus material. We've also begun broilers for this year, except we're starting with smaller numbers.  Sammy can't wait to eat them (we actually recommend they be about seven weeks old and have spent a couple hours in the oven at 350 degrees).

We've also been given an opportunity to work with sheep.  In this pic we've finished corralling them in order to separate lambs from ewes.

Girl power shutting the recently separated lambs into a new paddock.  Tonya says she sleeps better knowing that this fencing is rated for Velociraptors.  Ain't nothing gettin in or outa that paddock!