Tag Archives: pasture
Utilizing my uncle’s manure pack until I have my own
Carbon bedding bonds to nutrients and ammonia in animal wastes preventing pollution of the air or ground. When animals overwinter on bedding, they pack their manure down tight removing air pockets leading to anaerobic decomposition which provides free heat contributing to the animals’ health and comfort. Letting the pack decompose for 6 months lets the microbes digest some of the material as well as begin to mineralize the nutrients making them bioavailable to plants.
The concept is old and the cornerstone of fertility and soil building on my farm. There is one small problem: I don’t have animals yet!
But my uncle has beef cattle and pigs and was willing to part with some manure so I could start applying it to my pasture.
I wanted to add a bit more carbon to the pack so I lined my truck bed with sawdust before heading to my uncles farm. Upon returning I added ancient hay to the top of the pile and it all mixed together as I unloaded it by hand.
Once I got back to my farm with a truck overloaded with manure, I tossed the first bit into the compost bin to bolster the nitrogen content to rev the compost pile up one last time before the fall temperatures cool it down. On top of the compost I added a bit more sawdust.
The rest went quicker than I had anticipated. I used it to fill in divots and cover rocks that have appeared on the vehicle track through the pasture. There are a few more places along that track I would like to build soil, most notably around exposed rocks. Any future loads will be spread on the pasture around rocks that are barely exposed. When it breaks down a bit more, I can pull back the hay mulch and plant some clover and buckwheats seeds before returning the mulch.
Can’t even be mad at the deer for this one
I’ve been flagging all the Ailanthus trees (tree of heaven) in the pasture so I can take them down this winter. There are a few that are a bit more pressing so I took them down by hand while I wait until I have access to a chainsaw.
This tree was located on the edge of my wildlife plot and blocked my bow lane from a treestand. With a hand saw the tree was felled. Leaves are left on the tree as they continue to transpire pulling water from the stem which aids in the drying/seasoning process.
I returned the next morning to find this:
The deer had stripped off every single leaf leaving only the winged samara fruit. Glad something enjoyed the tree at least. More importantly the deer, hopefully goats in the future as the two animals share much of the same browsing habits, will be allies by consuming tree of heaven seedlings that sprout in the future!
Turning an unfortunate situation around
We planted a wildlife plot in the back of the pasture last week. It involved disking the existing weeds under. All went well until the hydraulic hose shot out the rear of the tractor preventing us from raising the disk out of the ground.
So we had no choice but to lightly disk the main road through the pasture to return the equipment to the barn.
However the mechanical issues created an opportunity to spread some clover seed in the minorly disturbed ground. The soil gains nitrogen and the wild (eventually domesticated too) browsers gain protein and bees will gain nourishment. I’ll take any chance I get to make the farm more pollinator friendly!
Tips for working with Hardware Cloth (and the start of my DIY 40 bird mobile brooder)
Joel Salatin at Polyface Farm provides the inspiration for almost every piece of the farm model. However the goal is to keep all of the livestock infrastructure mobile in hopes of expanding to rented land in the future. Therefore everything must fit on a 12 foot trailer for transportation.
Clothing:
Unwelded edges of hardware cloth is very nasty so gloves and long sleeves/pants will prevent many many scratches.
Cutting:
Tin snips or shears rated for 20 gauge steel cut through 19 gauge hardware cloth like scissors through construction paper. This was made apparent after a few frustrating minutes attempting to cut the material with a fence tool then large cutting pliers.
Additionally, working solo required large rocks to weight down the hardware cloth whose memory of being in a tightly wound roll was apparent. Below you can see the large rock used to hold the loose end of the roll in front of the gate. Another rock was used as a chock to keep the rest of the wound material from rolling.
Predator proofing, not flooring:
Predation is the biggest concern through the entire lifespan of chicks here in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Specifically, rats are known to carry many live chicks to their nest at a time and repeat the process every night. As such, the role of hardware cloth in the brooder is not to supply flooring, but to prevent access to rats. As a matter of fact mesh, wire and hardware cloth can damage a chicks feet, permanently stunting its growth. When complete, the floor shown below will be buried under about 18 inches of bedding material.
Attaching to Wood
I am still experimenting with the staples so I can’t give much advice. Hardware cloth has some jagged edges that love to dig in to the wood and wedge itself in the wrong position. It is a very frustrating material to work with!
Letting the convex side of the mesh (in regards to the curve memory from being in a spool) sit into the wooden frame helped in a few ways: Will protect the excess material from dragging on the ground when brooder is complete and flipped over, let me stretch material with pliers if I needed a bit more to hold the staple, and it let me drive one side of staple partially in to allow a bit of play before the hardware cloth is permanently attached (Shown below).
Manually harvesting hay
Believe it or not, there are many places in the world where hay is still harvested by hand. Barring economic reasons, manual hay harvesting to provide winter fodder for animals is generally found in mountainous, rocky or uneven areas where machinery will break or simply cannot be run. As I will only be running 1-2 goats and 1-2 heads of cattle on the 10 acre pasture, there will be plenty of pasture that will grow into maturity and be wasted. Plus my hay requirements for 2-4 animals is very low. Remember from my early post on Grazing Sciences, that the most nutritious grasses are harvested before maturity and left with 3-4″ of photosynthetic material that creates the ebergy needed for grass to regenerate.
I learned the ropes from this article from a 1979 Mother Earth News article titled The Art of Cutting Hay By Hand written by a french author who at least at the time of publication, manually harvested all hay for her farm. Below is a simplified gist of the process
1. Swing the scythe that has been sharpened to a razor edge allowing the blade to do the work instead of force.
2. Re-sharpen scythe approximately every hour or every few rows of grass.
- While my uncle is a master, I am absolutely terrible at sharpening blades with a whetstone. I found this tool very useful in the kitchen on low end knives and honestly will try it as a scythe-sharpening shortcut (Amazon kitchen knife sharpener). For my nicer kitchen knives and hunting knives, I use this kit which is fantastic, but more work (Amazon Spider Co sharpening kit).
3. The scythe naturally rakes the hay into rows so the fodder needs to be fluffed and spread to dry
4. Rake into rows
5. Once dry, bail the hay using a homemade piece of canvas (or similar material…maybe a tarp?) and tie it up. This is entirely optional! Alternatively just load the unbailed hay into its transportation method.
6. Transport hay to covered storage place
7. Unbail if bailed or spread and fluff to ensure complete drying of hay and prevent spoilage. Salt can be applied to any grass clumps that are still wet to discourage fermentation. Obviously I would use a salt meant for animal nutritional supplementation!
Thats it! The stored hay can be fed in the winter as needed.
There is an antique scythe already in my barn and I absolutely love manual labor as long as the tasks are varied. Harvesting hay manually limits the economic pit of buying single purpose equipment that dooms most failed farm operations. To put it bluntly, in the first year of starting my farm operation, I will have way more time than cashflow so the task would fit well as something productive with no extra equipment-requirements. It is also an homage to a pre-industrial way of life, provides a fun outdoor task and prevents me from buying or renting expensive equipment that would likely end up broken due to the uneven and rocky pasture. Most importantly, I will get to learn what is entailed by cutting, raking, bailing and storing hay without burning a single bit of petroleum. Assuming cattle or goat operation are expanded in the future that requires acquiring haymaking equipment, I will definitely have a deep appreciation of said equipment!
Objectively Determining a Chicken Sale Price: Part 2
Here are the quotes on bulk retail prices from the local feed mill.
| Bulk, retail Quotes from Feed Mill | |||
| soybean | 519 | /ton | |
| cornmeal | 194 | /ton | |
| wheat mids | 184 | /ton | |
| ground limestone | 110 | /ton | |
| alfalfa meal | 484 | /ton | |
| trace vitamins | 60.35 | /50 lb | use at 5 lb/ton |
| salt | 6.15 | /50 lb | use at 5 lb/ton |
| locally roasted soybeans | 508 | /ton | 30% Protein and 20% Fat |
| probiotic | |||
| kelp from acadia | 59.75 | /50 lb | 10-20/ton |
By linking the percentage make up of desired ration (from Polyface Farms ration), I can get a estimate of the costs per 50 pound bag
| My desired Ration | ||||||
| Ration | Percentage | Price per mixed ton | Price per mixed 50 lb bag | Substitutions | Notes | |
| Corn | 52% | 100.88 | 2.522 | |||
| Roasted Soybean | 29% | 147.32 | 3.683 | Soybean meal, cottonseed meal | ||
| Crimped oats | 11% | 20.24 | 0.506 | Whole oats | using wheat midds for now | |
| Limestone | 1% | 1.1 | 0.0275 | |||
| Fishmeal | 3.50% | not mentioned by feedmill | Protein booster, not availible from rockingham | |||
| Kelp | 0.50% | 11.95 | 0.29875 | Probably Topdress, unless increases to replace nutrient | ||
| Probiotic | 0.10% | Probably Topdress (fast track) | ||||
| Nutrient booster | 3% | 72.42 | 1.8105 | Maybe salt + Kelp + trace vitamin? | See PDFs | |
| 100% | Total | 353.91 | 8.84775 |
Seeing it will cost me around $9 per 50 bag at retail prices, I can use the chart provided in my previous post to estimate the cost to feed an individual broiler chicken in its lifetime.
| Age | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Total # of Bags |
| One Bird | 4.2 oz. | 9.2 oz. | 3.7 oz. | 18.8 oz. | 26.1 oz. | 34.5 oz. | 38.5 oz. | 42.6 oz. | 46.5 oz. | 14.63 lbs. |
| 25 Birds | 6.56 lbs. | 14.38 lbs. | 21.41 lbs. | 29.28 lbs. | 40.78 lbs. | 53.91 lbs. | 60.16 lbs. | 66.56 lbs. | 72.66 lbs. | 7.32 bags |
| 50 Birds | 13.13 lbs. | 28.75 lbs. | 42.81 lbs. | 58.75 lbs. | 81.56 lbs. | 107.81 lbs. | 120.31 lbs. | 133.13 lbs. | 145.31 lbs. | 14.63 bags |
| 100 Birds | 26.25 lbs. | 57.5 lbs. | 85.63 lbs. | 117.5 lbs. | 163.13 lbs. | 215.63 lbs. | 240.63 lbs. | 266.25 lbs. | 290.63 lbs. | 29.26 bags |
The above chart from The Organic Feed Store shows that I will need a maximum of 14.63 pounds of feed per chicken in its lifetime.
Next in raising my broilers is moving a pen and refilling feed/water. A total of a half hour per day spread across the 75 birds per pen. Processing a 75 bird batch will take around 4 hours assuming my scalder/plucker builds are successful.
| Hours | Labor description |
| 0.5 | Labor for moving/feeding per day per 75 birds |
| 0.006666667 | ^ Per day single bird |
| 60 | Days birds are alive |
| 0.4 | Labor per bird over its lifetime |
| 4 | Processing labor for 75 birds |
| 0.053333333 | Processing labor for 1 bird |
| 0.453333333 | Total Labor per bird |
From brooding to processing, the birds will need to be feed a maximum of 60 days in their lifetime so each bird will take .45 hours of labor to raise.
Adding up the feed and sourcing costs, I can figure my bottom line.
| Bottom Line | |
| 2.23 | Cost of chick at 50 Per order |
| 0.5348 | Cost of shipping per chick |
| 5.35365165 | Total cost of Chick in lifetime |
| 90% | 10% Loss Factor Constant |
| 3.5 | Average Dressed Weight |
| 3.5 | Price charged per pound |
| 6.206713515 | Profit |
| 13.69127981 | Hourly Wage |
NOTE: I EDITED THIS CALCULATION TO CHANGE MORTALITY RATE TO 10% AFTER MORE RESEARCH
Manually inputting various pricing per pound, I found that $3.50 will provide an hourly wage of almost $15. Keep in mind that all estimated cost are done conservatively and the birds should source 20-30% of their feed directly from the pasture. Any increase in efficiency, decrease in feed costs, minimizing of losses etc. will give me a raise. As a centerpiece of my farm operation, seasonal pastured broiler production will support my desired lifestyle while I explore additional avenues for income.
Here is a link to Google docs for my spreadsheet if you wish to download it.
Objectively Determining a Chicken Sale Price: Part 1
Under the banner of full transparency, here are the efforts and analysis I have done to nail down a price point for selling dressed broilers. This chart from the Organic Feed Store aligns with almost all literature I have read on raising broilers. Specifically that one bird will consume ~11 pounds of feed in an eight-week lifetime or ~15 in a 9 week lifetime. After 8 weeks, the birds start to eat more than they put on weight-wise so that is the typical culling age. Simply, they cost more to feed than the meat they put on.
Feed Consumption Chart – Meat Birds – Cornish Rock Cross
| Age | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Total # of Bags |
| One Bird | 4.2 oz. | 9.2 oz. | 3.7 oz. | 18.8 oz. | 26.1 oz. | 34.5 oz. | 38.5 oz. | 42.6 oz. | 46.5 oz. | 14.63 lbs. |
| 25 Birds | 6.56 lbs. | 14.38 lbs. | 21.41 lbs. | 29.28 lbs. | 40.78 lbs. | 53.91 lbs. | 60.16 lbs. | 66.56 lbs. | 72.66 lbs. | 7.32 bags |
| 50 Birds | 13.13 lbs. | 28.75 lbs. | 42.81 lbs. | 58.75 lbs. | 81.56 lbs. | 107.81 lbs. | 120.31 lbs. | 133.13 lbs. | 145.31 lbs. | 14.63 bags |
| 100 Birds | 26.25 lbs. | 57.5 lbs. | 85.63 lbs. | 117.5 lbs. | 163.13 lbs. | 215.63 lbs. | 240.63 lbs. | 266.25 lbs. | 290.63 lbs. | 29.26 bags |
Even though I am going to cull at 8 weeks, I will use the feed requirements for a 9 week bird as it gives room for spillage, waste and just a general buffer. Now that I have the amount of feed required to raise a broiler, I contacted local feed mills.
One of the feed consultants, in his Appalachian drawl, inquired if I was going to be “One of these more natural operations.” I responded that it will be a more natural, pasture-based approach but I personally place more emphasis on local sourcing than shipping “natural products from the Midwest” or natural kelp from Iceland. To my surprise, he about jumped out of his shoes in excitement to help me by immediately explaining their local lightly roasted soybeans, corn, alfalfa meal. He spent quite a while explaining how their mill works and the various blades for crimping, rolling or pelleting feed. He also listed the retail prices for all his ingredients as well as feed rations they have formulated for other poultry customers. They are willing to mix small amounts for me as samplers and will happily scale up production along with my operation as it expands. Needless to say, I have found my feed source!
So based on the quoted prices, I can build a model to determine all of my costs that go into each bird in its lifetime. From there it is a simple step to formulate the price per pound at which selling the birds will support my lifestyle. Stay tuned as I will publish the calculations and spreadsheets in a following post.
Experiment: Growing Bamboo for fodder
Turns out just about every livestock animal enjoys bamboo at different stages of its growth. Chickens will eat new shoots, cows/horses will graze the foliage and goats will browse any part of it that isn’t overly mature/woody.
About Bamboo:
I’ll always remember a poem from one of my rather-hippie forest ecology professors:
“Sedges have edges, rushes are round, grasses have joints unless there are cops around.”
Therefore, bamboo is technically a grass!
Found on bamboofarmingusa,com, 2 laboratory analysis reports were shared that break down the nutrient content of bamboo.
From Dairy One Forage Testing Laboratory (PDF Link):
From the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Customer Services:
The crude protein figures above are high enough to be considered a “Premium” grass hay by USDA guidelines (retrieved from Oregon State University). Bamboo requires significant amounts of nitrogen so some sort of legume ground cover (likely peas or clover) would be a natural companion for the bamboo stands.
Letting animals graze bamboo also has the subjective benefit of breaking the monotonous boredom of extended hay feeding. As bamboo is an evergreen perennial, the stands could be opened to grazing in winter. I am not sure how nutrient composition changes with winter dormancy though.
Containing the potentially invasive bamboo:
Growing up in a metropolitan area that has spent countless resources battling the encroachment of bamboo, I want to take steps to ensure it remains contained. Originally meant for containing hops plants from taking over the garden, physical root barriers were actually invented with bamboo in mind.
Here are my two favorites on Amazon:
Time will tell how this experiment goes!
A friend brought up an interesting point in a comment on yesterday’s blog post. There is a species of bamboo native to Virginia and the Southeast US called Giant Cane. He provided a descriptive PDF from the USDA that explains the historical value and use of the plant. My favorite passage states:
According to environmental
historian Mart Stewart (2007), “Modern studies
have established that cane foliage was the highest
yielding native pasture in the South. It has up to
eighteen percent crude protein and is rich in
minerals essential for livestock health.” Livestock
eagerly eat the young plants, leaves, and seeds and
stands decline with overgrazing and rooting by hogs
(Hitchcock and Chase 1951).
Which demonstrates the plant is on par with bamboo as a nutrition source for livestock. Not to mention the renewable building material provided by mature stems. I could build chicken coops, green/hoop houses, storage sheds, etc. Interesting stuff to say the least!
Implementing the Farm in Phases, Cattle out, poultry in!
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you have probably determined that I want a wildly diverse farm. Since I am embarking on this solo, I need to constantly remind myself to SIMPLIFY!
Cattle prices are at an all-high. They require fencing, more equipment, incur more risk and have a larger learning curve. As such I am going to cut my grazer efforts down to a hobby level for the first year. A few goats or calves should allow me to learn the ropes and still use them to mow down the pasture ahead of the chickens. Grazing ahead of pastured poultry is required to open up the grasses to access bugs, cut down on cover for land based predation and helps put the grasses into active growth that will readily absorb the 300 pounds per acre of nitrogen that the pastured broilers will put out.
As such I am going to officially declare (to myself more than any other target) that I am going to focus all commercial livestock efforts on raising poultry. That means pastured egg production and pasture broiler production. This removes any immediate need for fencing and removes many of the complications that come with raising cattle. Pastured poultry requires next to no equipment and very little initial investment of capital and time.
A famed pastured poultry farmer warns me that the consumer meat market won’t support small (normal) chicken breeds. It requires the double breasted monsters that have been bred by the poultry industry.
I am at a crossroads. Do I raise birds that I can actually sell and focus on producing nutritious meat through pastured management? Or do I raise heritage breeds that mature much slower and probably won’t sell but hold true to my virtues.
I hope you don’t hold it against me to go with the former. Ideally I hope to re-breed some birds that are a compromise. Currently nothing exists between confinement bred, efficient high-yielding meat producers and forage friendly natural birds. I’d like to bridge that gap but must take these things one step at a time! My compromise is to raise one pen of heritage broilers (males from my laying hatches) and the rest will be market-friendly Cornish Crosses.
Expect this years practical posts to revolve around commercial gardening, beekeeping and chicken rearing from brooding to processing! Next year I may implement beef but the truth is that I was not confident about making a profit after crunching the numbers of local beef sales. Grazers play a pivotal role in my farm model, but every man and animal involved will benefit from me not diving into too much too soon!
Now if only turkeys were not the most skilled livestock animal at finding creative ways to die. They are an awesome pasture species as they can actually forage a large percentage of their caloric intake from grasses while the Cornish Cross broilers will get only 30%. I will raise a few generation of heritage chickens on pasture that can set an example for the turkeys first.
thegreenergrassfarm 