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It is certainly not an ideal grass. I’m sure the ph is out of balance on this plot. Makes me wonder what was farmed on it in the past.

I’m not exactly sure. Depends on the situation and who was looking after them. For me 18 miles is enough right now because I have to see several other farms to see in one day. If I could put all my cattle together and have someone close in case of emergency I could travel a ways. Custom grazing or putting my cattle under someone else’s care who I trusted could be a good distance. I’d still like to have regular check ins and be close enough to pop in occasionally and check on things. What about you?

We need all the moisture we can get to stay on the fields.

Thanks for the comment. Everyone has different opinions but we all have to figure out what works for us.

Appreciate it. Let me know if you have any questions.

Happy Thanksgiving! I’m thankful for the views.

I have heard about it but am not on it. Is it still available to the public?

@JangusGenetics you need to be invited. We did a quick calculation today on the number of countries represented in his chat group. Amazingly well over 40.

That’s awesome

The book was well worth the read. My experience this summer about 15-20% of the available forage was heading out every time we entered this paddock. Good for the cows and the bees both. The main thing for me is keeping the forage palatable and abundant. Good luck.

It had a shorter graze August 16 with the custom grazed heifers working their way back to the load out facilities.

It depends. I usually fix the pre existing fence on rented property and add an inside Hotwire if needed. For cows if I start from scratch hi tensile Hotwire with an ac charger for long term use. If crops or other cattle are running on other side of fence I may beef that up and include a dead space so cattle cannot get nose to nose and if Hotwire fails cows have a second barrier between them and crops. For cows I don’t mind barbed wire with sheep on my home farm I’m planning to go 6 wires hi tensile with timeless posts or woven wire barb on top and hi tensile hot on the inside to keep them from rubbing.

Thanks for the comment. Have you thought about trying some sheep on your 14 acres? I wouldn’t turn you away from cows or feeders but you can get a lot more pounds produced per acre with sheep. Would also be a good amount for finishing a few beeves if you can direct market them. Lots of opportunity. Let me know if you have any specific questions I can answer. I have not purchased feeders to background but we retain almost all of our calves and turn them into breeding stock, grass finished beef, or finished beeves. It’s hard to take a few calves to the sale barn and make a good profit but it can be done. Also can pair up with others and put together a trailer load. Check out the books “thoughts and advice from an old cattle man” by Gordon Hazard, and also “pasture profits with stocker cattle” by Allan Nation. I have videos about them also. Good luck!

I’ll check them out. It’s always interesting to see what other environments and breeds can accomplish. Good reason for cross breeding.

We have some Angus that will do that but are working to make a lot more. I prefer my cows to wait until 24 months seems like they have a harder time getting bred back the 3rd time odly enough.

She is a funny one.

I have heard they are a good breed.

My plan is to eventually AI some of my proven cows. Then keep the heifers out of those cows and when they are proven keep some bulls out of them. I think the reasons to bring in an outside bull are 1. You are too small to keep up your genetic diversity within your own herd, 2. You feed like you need an outside influence to do something you don’t feel your herd can do alone. The hard part is finding bulls to AI to that are from a program that is as challenging as your own. At this point I still see some programs out there that have cows I think could have a potential positive impact on my program. I’m not saying it’s necessary but it could get me where I want to go faster.

☝️

Thank you for the comment. I’m glad my experiences are helping. Let me know if you have any questions or specific video ideas you would like to see.

Thank you.

Always interesting to hear tales from across the pond. I am surprised artificial insemination is not more popular in Missouri among our smaller producers. My experience with it was a poor conception rate on heifers and the next year I spent the AI amount on a better bull. Most of the customers my family works with have herds of 10-30 and so a bull is easier to leave with the herd than the labor of getting all the cows up a few times to AI. I had not thought about dust kicking as a challenge but I’m sure you are correct. A lot of people are not as aware of the animals attitude as they could be but it’s mostly that we don’t have as much time to learn about them as generations past. Thanks for your input. Glad you have an interest in Livestock. Animals make life better in my opinion.

Yes and dangerous if you lose your footing. It makes them easy to get into a lot or work them though. Have fun and stay upright! Thanks for the comment.

I appreciate the feedback. Gentle cattle make life more fun.

@@JangusGenetics yes sure does.

👍

Missouri, USA

Thank you

It’s a balance. I feel we have to take the whole picture into consideration and our environment has natural limits before supplements are required. Good luck k in your search. There are good cattle around.

Thank you.

Thanks for the feedback. I’ll get some videos of the young bulls up soon.

A lot of folks used to frost seed in red clover about that time. Sounds like it should help grow some good protein. Grandpa loves his Korean Lespedeza.

Thanks!

Happy to help encourage some thinking on the subject. Good luck in your operation.

The fall calving cows should be bred. The big bull is just “cleaning up” anything that comes open for some reason. It’s not ideal to breed father daughter. I am comfortable breeding up to 50%relations so half brother to half sister. I think most operations that line breed closely say 30% or less related is ideal. My plan for the next few years is to keep a bull for one year and then sell them. That will keep me from becoming too closely related to anything. Once I get the consistency I’m looking for I will bring in some outcross genetics through artificial insemination on my proven cows. I want to make sure that anything I bring in can perform on fescue and meets or exceeds the standards I’m setting for my herd. Side note the old standard for proving a bull was genetic defect free was to breed him to 30 of his daughters. If the calves turned out ok the bull was “proven” genetic defect free. I have not intentionally bred father to daughter but the few that we have had on clean up have been fine.

Glad to hear the review helped. Thank you for the comment and the support.

I really enjoyed this book. The few videos I’ve found of him on RUclips are great too. His son Mark, who wrote a chapter in the book about how the bank sees cattle loans, has a VERY insightful video on RUclips as well. He was funny too.

I’m glad the book went back in production. I enjoyed the videos before it went back into print. They are a wealth of knowledge.

Thanks for the tip and the comment. I’ll work on it for my next book review.

I’m interested in his stuff. Haven’t taken any of his courses.

If you grass has headed out, reverse your rotation to take advantage of the higher energy forage that has regrown where you have already grazed.

I agree it’s a good way to do it. We fight fescue here and right now the stuff I grazed last week is heading out. I have been over every paddock already during the growing season and so it is all really good quality right now. If we had not hit it by the time the seed head gets hard I have heard leaving it until the regrowth has come up in the fall is the best way to handle it. I’m still learning and experimenting. Most people in my area are firing up the brush hogs but I like to do things with 4 legs not diesel when it is practical.

Hope the video was helpful. Thanks for the comment.

We work hard to provide a high quality life for our animals. To keep it up some of the herd feeds us in return. It is a beautiful thing to be in relationship with livestock and to understand we all have a bigger purpose. Thanks for the comment.

It certainly can be depending on your environment and livestock.

I’ve paid a lot more attention this spring than I have before. It’s interesting. I’m sure if we had the rain the farm we only hit once last year would have grown back pretty quickly. The fields we hit hard in the winter greened up quickly but then stalled.

@@JangusGenetics sounds like northern macon county here. 1.10 in March an 1.45 so far this month. That early spring just seem like it's hit a wall with growth here. Good luck this spring with everything.

Good luck to you as well.

Here in Missouri most people rotary mow it but our county stocking rate is 2 cows per acre so take that for what it’s worth. Greg Judy says leave it until the fall regrowth starts (tall fescue is a cool season grass and is our dominant forage here). My experience says that fescue heads stick around for about 2 weeks then wind or rain knock them out and if there is good green underneath I don’t stress about it too much just keep the cows moving. I’m not sure what your situation is but the main things I worry about are making sure the cows aren’t starving on standing straw. Other than that with cows you might consider moving faster, trying to increase trampling, bringing in more head for a short period of time until you are back to vegetative grass even if you do it cheap or for a short time. I’ve heard of roller crimping, mowing, even tedding the seed heads out. Let me know how it works and what you learn from it. That’s the main thing once you get it dealt with is learn and share so we can all have tools and plans for next year. Good luck to you!

Thank you for the comment. They are not fun to talk about but how else do we learn.

Thanks for the comment. I get tired to looking at myself also 😂. I’ll try and post some more cattle footage.

@@JangusGenetics I hope I didn't offend you at all I just love hearing about cattle and seeing the cattle....

No worries. I thought it was an honest perspective and I appreciate the feedback.

They are happy. It’s greening up quick. Looks like rain on Easter and hopefully that means the 7 Sundays after!

It really helped me make some decisions on mine. Thanks for the comment. Good luck.

Well said.

Thanks for the comment. Glad you enjoyed it.

Glad you enjoyed it.

I learned from Ian Mitchell Innes to graze the grass up through the growing season. Here in Missouri I try to graze my fescue 2-3 times before it would normally head (to keep it vegetative and prevent heading out) because that is when the endophyte is the worst and seed heads irritate cattle’s eyes and can lead to pink eye. Then I’ll usually try and pull off or slow down in August and let the grass grow up to create a thicker stockpile. I do not have any experience with ryegrass. The idea of grazing the grass up is to leave it a little taller each time you graze it and that way you naturally build your stockpile. Good luck on it. I’m about to read Alan nations pasture profits with stocker cattle. Hoping he has some good insights. I usually try and finish my grass finished cattle about December 1. That’s when the lockers open back up after deer season here and have had my best fall finishing grass getting ready to go dormant for the winter.

@@JangusGenetics that makes sense, I’ve got some south poll yearlings at home now and they seem like they finish different. They were from a bull I rented, this years going to be interesting because I bought a wagyu bull that I threw on my angus cows. So how far down do you graze it down? I’m in Kentucky so it’ll get bush hogged and such. I’m just kind of worried because I’ll be rodeoing when it’s growin 🤣

The mower is a tool but I’ve never made any money with it. If you can keep it rotated and keep the brush out it’s a lot cheaper to graze it than mow it. I don’t like to see anything grazed down below 4-6 inches in the growing season. Just remember grass is a giant solar panel. It has to have leaf to utilize photosynthesis. If you leave it too long it goes to head but too short and you stunt it and it steals energy from the roots to regenerate new leaf. Then you are less drought tolerant. There is no perfect answer but I wish you luck in the learning process. Rotational grazing is the only way I have found to optimize rest and regrowth. If you are not rotating best you can do is mow it and pray for rain. Try and not mow it too short if possible remember the solar panel.

@@JangusGenetics thank you sir for the help!

Good luck!

😂 Thank you for the comment and well wishes.

Fall vs Spring Calving? I have one of each. You have to figure out what works for you but I prefer September calves if I can get them. Gives the cow enough time to milk and stock up on our fall forage increase then milk production peaks before winter hopefully and calves are ready to crush the spring green up right along with momma. Spring calving herds generally have an easier time getting fat and bred back but I have more health problems mainly pink eye with my herd calving in the spring. Benefits to both and risks just have to try and optimize for your operation. Thanks for the comment hope this helps. Wish I had a yes or no answer for you but that’s farming. The fun is in the journey.

It’s tough as nails to kill and stockpiles pretty well. The other 6 months out of the year you are correct. I’m running about 3.5 acres per cow right now and think I can get it closer to 2 as my management improves. Only advantage we have here vs out west.

Can only share my experiences. Hope it helps whether you are interested in my cattle or not. Thanks for the comment.