Winter Grazing

Winter Grazing

Published in the Lancaster Farmer 1/18/09

There it was on the front cover of my local farm paper, a smiling farmer and her beef cows wearing the classic white beard foraging through the snow.  Being characterized as the crazy, grazin’ preacher for having animals do most of their own harvesting, I was feeling a certain vindication factor in seeing this simple picture.  I can tell you it’s been a rough year around here finding ways to mitigate the three F’s; fuel, feed and fertilizer.  For me, and some of my passionate friends, saving on these costs is directly correlated to implementing a planned, managed, winter grazing system and a mind-set of CAN.

Last year I made a serious run at grazing my beef herd far into the winter, but only got into January 15^th before Mother Nature & Old Man Winter had other ideas.  The great thing about this on-going trial is the all-important farm experience I gain.  There are obvious learning lessons and many very subtle ones.  Having the extra incentive of a bale saved is a baled earned, helps me focus management over the whole farm system.  I can also say without a doubt, that having mentors at your disposal is invaluable in a world of doubters.

I have learned that cows are smarter than me.  If I feed them, they will let me, with bells on.  If I house them, they will come in.  If they poop, I will clean it up.  It’s been ugly realizing for many years I have created a slave, ME.  So I’ve had an attitude adjustment, thanks in part to my lazy cow’s habits.  This epiphany came well over a month ago when I set up some strip grazing with some hay as backup.  My welfare cows walked all over the 20’ X 500’ piece grazing the cream then returned to the feeder to eat all the hay then go back to the strip to lay down and defecate.  Lesson: Good for cows, good for worms, good for grass, bad for my pocketbook.  New plan; set up 10’ X 500’ strips moved twice a day and feed no hay.  Lesson: Cows grazed much more efficiently, saved a bale of hay ($30) and still placed fertility where I needed it.  Cows are not happy about being weaned off the throne but my wallet is heavier, this feels good, being in control.

The now smarter cows and calves have really excelled at this foraging behavior through the snow like a team of mini snowplows.  It was a joy until the lake effect blew in and dumped 2 feet of the white stuff on my hard earned stockpiled grass.  Feeling helpless at the hands of old man winter, I opened the gates to allow them access to feed inside my cozy pole barn.  As I peered out in the morning during the first of many storms, there were no tracks, just an untouched blanket of white.  I panicked.  Where are the cows?  How did they survive the night?  Will the calves be separated?  I gotta do something!!

As I fired up the tractor, speared a round bale and headed up on the hill surfing the drifts while getting beaten with wind driven pellets, my heart lifted thru my stinging face at a beautiful site.

There they were tucked up next to my ten acres of woods chewing their cud, lying down on top of a round bale I had rolled out the day before.  Boy, I thought, that was good planning and kudos to the weather channel for the warning.  As I approached, the wind dissipated like an eye of a hurricane.  These cows are smart I thought, as they seemed to chuckle at my frozen mustache, heavy carharts and my attempts to roll out another bale over the deep snow.  In that moment of heavy breathing, rolling and the humorous look of a contented herd, I couldn’t help but think this type of farming was fun.  Fun, you say, to be out in a blizzard tending to cows and trying to graze.  Yep, that’s all I could think of.  And I beamed with pride that my cows and me were learning this out-wintering system together.  I was so excited that I had to try something else.

The something else was bringing our 460 International with an attached 8ft. back-blade  into the stockpiled forage and proceeding to plow a grazing strip.  It sure would have been neat to see this from an airplane, a jolly, red tractor unearthing a strip of green followed up with dancing and kicking black and red cows against a backdrop of white.

Priceless!  The funny thing was this “starter” strip allowed the herd to start grazing at ground level again and push the snow away, like digging into a snow bank.  These paths became main arteries for going to water and depositing needed nutrients in the form of hay and manure.

Which brings me to another happy place about this now, ever-changing winter system.  My happiness can be attributed to having happy, healthy smart cows, feeding directly on land that needs nutrients, saving on feed costs from a little daily green grain everyday, no barn maintenance costs and the enjoyment that I can indeed do this in upstate New York.

This joy has spread to some of my grazing friends.  In fact, there are 4 of us with beef herds that are communicating each week about our experiences and challenges.  We support each other and have seen similar results.  One farmer has horses leading the beef pupils in the art of finding grass below the snow, while another has noticed his cows learning from the resident deer herd about this foraging technique.  I think it’s just neat  to have the opportunity to notice Mother Nature in action.