The Scoop View All →
On Pasture and the Yule Book Flood
Jolabokaflod – In Iceland that’s the word for this time of year. Translated directly, it means “Yule Book Flood.” It’s a celebration of both the Holiday season and the Icelandic passion for books. It begins with every family in the country getting the annual catalog of the year’s new books in the mail to help […]
Read More →How Babba Louie Taught Me To Think Creatively About Predators
In the late ’90s, as part of my research project on the logistics and effectiveness of using goats to graze firebreaks, I got a guard donkey. Babba Louie was a stallion from the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro program. We gelded him, gentled him, and then penned him with my 50 wethers […]
Read More →Stresses Affecting Graziers and How to Deal With Them – Kathy’s on a Podcast!
This week, I’m featured in the latest episode of Ag State of Mind. This podcast examines the stresses affecting farmers and ranchers and how to alleviate them and improve producers’ lives. In our wide-ranging discussion, host Jason Medows and I talk about everything from the ways On Pasture supports producers by providing information that can […]
Read More →Get the Fencing and Watering System That’s Right for You
I really appreciate anyone who takes the time to understand grazier’s problems and then provides solutions that make sense. That’s why I’m really pleased to introduce American Grazinglands Services as our newest sponsor. You may already be familiar with the educational arm of American Grazinglands, Jim Gerrish. Jim has spent decades helping farmers and ranchers […]
Read More →Winter is Coming – What to Do When You’re Stuck Inside
Looking at National Weather Service maps, I see that, for many of you, winter isn’t just coming. This week it arrives! Another shot of cold air arrives across the Northern Plains Sunday. After diving into the southern Plains Monday, it moves east Tuesday into Wednesday. Temperatures will average 15 to 25 degrees below normal over […]
Read More →Important November Deadlines for Graziers
Here’s a heads up on some important dates for agriculture-related internships, insuring your operation against forage losses due to lack of rainfall, or commenting on changes to Conservation Standards that could impact funding for your operation. OneUSDA Internships DEADLINE: November 15, 2019 The OneUSDA Internship Program is for students interested in careers in agriculture, natural […]
Read More →Transferring Skills and Experience to the Next Generation
Please join me in welcoming a new On Pasture sponsor! Wally Olson has been in ranching and the livestock business his whole life, doing everything from hauling hay and cleaning stalls to being the ranch manager and owner/operator. Since the mid-’80s, he’s been on the Kelley Ranch in Vinita, Oklahoma. He began as a manager, […]
Read More →Adjust Your Expectations For More Success – Lessons From a Cat
This is Molly. I’ve written about how she reminds me to leave my desk and take walks so I’ll be healthier, and how she taught me about how to ask for help so that I get what I want. She’s also taught me a lot about how expectations color what you get from the people […]
Read More →Grazing Management View All →
Use Your Phone to Check Livestock Water and Pastures
This idea comes to us from the Beef Cattle Research Council of Canada. They’re sharing ideas from producers about how they improve the efficiency of their operations. Travis Peardon of Outlook, Saskatchewan likes to keep an eye on summer and winter watering systems as well as farmyard activities even when he might be some distance […]
Read More →Some Dos and Don’ts of Setting Up a Grazing Operation
I want to discuss the steps that we focus on when designing a new grazing operation on a new farm, starting with this saying: “If you have a lot of money, act like you don’t.” (If you don’t have a bunch of money ignore this.) The point is, being successful in a previous career is […]
Read More →Can You Please Manage, Pretty Please?! A Grazing Advocate’s Plea
It finally happened; a scream so loud, it echoed throughout the over-grazed hills and valleys of Central New York. Poised on a grassy knoll in “Braveheart” fashion, the Grass Whisperer yells out M-A-N-A-G-E. . . Call it a grazier’s meltdown, or a public service life purge; the agency-sponsored grazing professional and farmer who vehemently tries […]
Read More →What in Tar(weed)nation?! Part 2 – The Nature of Your Enemy and the Nature of Nature
Last week, I wrote about how tarweed showed up on my ranch a few years back, and how the management that had worked so well in the past seemed to fail me. In the end, I realized I needed to know more about my opponent. So here’s what I learned. I hope you’ll use it […]
Read More →What in Tar(weed)nation?! An Example of Working With Nature to “Beat” Weeds
When it comes to weeds, I’m beginning to think that over the past few decades I’ve fallen into a bit of a rut – maybe even become a bit dogmatic. When someone asks me about weed issues, I typically respond with a short homily along the lines of, “Well, if you are seeing more weeds, […]
Read More →Don’t Burn Down the Barn or Make Your Stock Sick – What to Do With Wet/Moldy Hay
In many parts of the country, this year’s weather was not particularly friendly for putting up hay. With lots of rain throughout the summer, you may have hay that is wetter than usual and that means an increased risk of fires from spontaneous hay bale combustion. In this 5:19 video, Simon Whistler explains why wet […]
Read More →You Don’t Have to Practice Yoga to Be a Flexible Grazier!
In most livestock operations, the largest expense is winter feed. As a grazier, it has been my goal to plan a grazing rotation so there is high quality, high volume forage available in the fall and winter. This fall has tested my flexibility once again and has once again shown me the importance of having […]
Read More →Grazing Principles at Work, Part 1 – Management Intensive Grazing in an Arid Environment
Successful grazing management grows out of an understanding of some basic principles, like how plants grow, and how soil conditions, weather, and climate alter plants’ rate of growth and recovery after grazing. That means management intensive grazing/adaptive managed grazing/mob grazing is different for folks working in areas with 48 inches of precipitation vs those with […]
Read More →Pasture Health View All →
Soil Health Principles Part 5 – Diversity is Key
In the fifth part of our series on soil health principles, Buz Kloot focuses on the benefits of diversity for improving soil health. In his examples of a garden and two different row crop farmers, he demonstrates how growing a variety of cash crops, and a planting a diverse cover crop mix, can improve soil […]
Read More →Soil Health Principles Part 4 – Keep Live Roots in the Soil
In this, the fourth in our series on soil health principles, Buz Kloot talks about how, through photosynthesis, plants create carbon-based sugars, a sizeable portion of which is transferred into the soil via the plant’s roots. There, it feeds the 1-2 tons of soil microbes living in the soil. In return, as they process the […]
Read More →Soil Health Principles Part 3 – Keep the Soil Covered
This is the third in our series on soil health principles as presented by Buz Kloot, film maker and Research Associate Professor at the Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina in partnership with the Natural Resources Conservation Service. We’re interested in principles because they provide the foundation for the decisions we make […]
Read More →Soil Health Principles Part 2 – Minimize Disturbance
Since 2013, Buz Kloot, film maker and Research Associate Professor at the Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, has been working with the Natural Resources Conservation Service to explore and share the important role soil plays in our lives. The result is three seasons of short videos covering science and practical management […]
Read More →Soil Health Principles Part 1 – The Nature and Properties of Soils
In the fall of 2013, film maker Robin “Buz” Kloot, teamed up with the Natural Resources Conservation Service on a project to share the important role soil plays in all our lives. He began with a cross-country trek to interview some of the nation’s leading researchers and experts on soil health. Over the next three […]
Read More →Bale Grazing to Feed the Herds Above and Below Ground
Thanks to the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service staff in Montana for this helpful article! The last thing most people think about when they see a field full of grazing cattle is what is going on underneath those hooves. Producer Kalyn Bohle has given it some thought. Bohle has land six miles southwest of Plevna, […]
Read More →Can Cattle Help With Seeding?
Readers have asked if cattle can be used for seeding pastures, or if there are examples of others that have done this. This article from Canada’s Beef Cattle Research Council has some good answers. Cattle can be managed to produce calves, beef and milk, but can they also be put to work re-seeding pastures? As […]
Read More →New Discovery on the Mechanics of Keeping Carbon in the Soil and What It Means For Your Pastures
Imagine you’re a carbon molecule floating in the atmosphere and your mission is to get from there into the soil and stay there for decades. Your first step – slip into a plant through an open stoma. Inside the plant you go through your first transformation: photosynthesis. You’re combined with water (H20) and photons […]
Read More →Livestock View All →
Seaweed Can Reduce Methane From Cows, But….
By now, you’ve probably heard the news that supplementing cattle with seaweed could reduce methane belched by livestock. In fact, researchers in Australia and the U.S. have found that feeding as little as .5% “Asparagopsis taxiformis, a red seaweed that grows in the tropics, can decrease methane emissions by 80 percent or more. But there […]
Read More →Flashing Night Lights Can Protect Livestock from Predators
Back in March of 2015, On Pasture published an article about Richard Turere, a 11-year-old Masai boy from Kenya, who invented a way to keep lions from nearby Nairobi National Park from attacking his village’s cattle. Using an old battery, a broken flashlight, an signal light switch from a motorcycle and a solar panel, he […]
Read More →Production Systems for Pasture-Finished Beef – Part 1
As Greg Halich writes in his introduction to the Producer’s Guide to Pasture-Based Beef Finishing, “Bringing animals to a finishing weight on pasture in a reasonable time frame is no easy task, and requires a fundamental understanding of how beef cattle mature as well as understanding the capabilities and limitations of various forages.” In the […]
Read More →Why Grass Finished Beef Marbling Is Difficult
Thanks to Seth Christensen of Christensen Genetics for helping make this article possible. Brad Johnson, an expert on skeletal and muscle growth in cattle, and his colleague Stephen Smith, may have found one of the reasons that it’s more difficult to get marbling in grass finished beef. It’s a result of the kind of energy […]
Read More →Replacement Heifers – The Ins and Outs of Costs and Managing Them for Success
This article, from the Beef Cattle Research Council of Canada, summarizes a recent webinar on the economics of replacement heifers and how to manage replacement heifers to give them the best chance of succeeding in our herds. You can see the entire webinar here. If you don’t have an hour to spare, this article also […]
Read More →Are High Milk Producing Beef Cows a Good Investment?
This article comes to us from Travis Mulliniks, UNL Beef Cattle Nutritionist, Range Production Systems. Thanks, Travis! Listen to a discussion of the content in this article on this episode of the BeefWatch podcast. Subscribe to new episodes in iTunes or paste http://feeds.feedburner.com/unlbeefwatch into your podcast app. In an effort to increase beef production, […]
Read More →When Is a Pasture-Raised Beef Cow/Steer “Finished?”
A guide on pasture-based beef finishing published by the University of Kentucky covers the challenges producers might face, from growing suitable pasture to bringing animals to a finished weight, to working with a processor, and finally, most importantly, finding customers. In this excerpt, Greg Halich, Jeff Lehmkuhler, Ray Smith and Fred Martz show how to […]
Read More →What Happens to Pregnancy Rates and Calf Survival With Changes in Calving Season?
A four year study of ranchers in Western Canada indicates that shifting from winter calving to spring calving increases cow pregnancy rates and calf survival. Due to market pressures, Canada’s cow-calf sector has consolidated into fewer, larger herds and producers have begun calving later, and in pasture, to avoid increases in labor, equipment and facilities […]
Read More →Money Matters View All →
Some Dos and Don’ts of Setting Up a Grazing Operation
I want to discuss the steps that we focus on when designing a new grazing operation on a new farm, starting with this saying: “If you have a lot of money, act like you don’t.” (If you don’t have a bunch of money ignore this.) The point is, being successful in a previous career is […]
Read More →Mushroom Foraging – A Pasture Walk and Community Building Opportunity
I’ve hosted or participated in pasture walks that feature ice-cream churning, soil health measuring, grassland bird watching, winter grazing techniques, dung beetle counting, stockpiling strategies, land listening, cattle judging and predicting forage production. They’re all hooks to get folks to attend and focus on learning another aspect of pasturing. I would suggest adding another […]
Read More →Welcome to Wally Olson’s Pity Party
Wally Olson is an On Pasture sponsor who wants to help readers make more money marketing their livestock. Here he provides an example of how that works for him. A couple of years ago, I sold 95 bred, fall calving cows in Joplin, Missouri on August 1. That same morning I delivered the weaned calves […]
Read More →How Does the Next Generation of Farmers and Ranchers Get Started?
Don shares this piece as an opening to a conversation. It’s an important one to have. Please share your thoughts, experiences, ideas and suggestions in the comments below. What Do Y’all Think? Donnie, our son, comes by to visit and check on the old people on Tuesday evening and Saturday morning. Last week he was […]
Read More →Why Selling on Social Media No Longer Works (and What Does)
We introduced Charlotte Smith’s new podcast back in June. Today, we want to share one of her latest episodes because it answers many of the questions farmers have about how to find customers and get the word out about their products. Enjoy! The social landscape of Facebook and Instagram have drastically changed in the past […]
Read More →Tips for Evaluating Property for Raising Cattle
This article comes to us from the Noble Research Institute’s Robert Wells, PhD., Livestock Consultant, and Rob Cook, Planned Consultation Manager and Pasture and Range Consultant. When buying land for cattle production, there are some unique characteristics to consider before signing a contract. These characteristics include: stocking rate, forage quality and type, soil type and […]
Read More →Is There a Way to Maximize the Value of Your Cull Cows?
Cull cows – every operation has them. They’re the cows that are not pregnant at weaning time. The typical strategy for many spring-calving cow-calf operations is to cull and sell these cows immediately in the fall. The problem is that they’re generally in poor condition and are head to market at a time of year […]
Read More →Soil Health Isn’t Free – Incorporating Livestock Can Reduce Economic Risk
Keeping soils covered is one of the keys to soil health, and cover crops are often promoted as a good way to prevent erosion while also adding nutrients to the soil. But cover crop seeding isn’t free. What can we do to mitigate the economic risk involved? That’s what Doug Sieck talks about with Buz […]
Read More →The Classic by NatGLC View All →
Tips for Stockpile Grazing Timing, Fencing and Pasture Size
From December of 2016, here are tips on pasture size, fencing equipment and more, to help with successful stockpile grazing. When to Start If possible and practical, it is best to not start grazing stockpiled forage until it goes dormant. Until it goes dormant, every time that solar panel of leaves is removed, the plant […]
Read More →How Nutritious is Your Annual and Stockpiled Forage?
From December of 2016, here’s some input on what you can expect from your stockpiled forage. Grazing your herd through the winter on standing forages in pasture is one way to reduce costs and improve your bottom line. It avoids the expense of baling, moving feed and then feeding. But is the feed giving your […]
Read More →In Times of Change, Be One of the Learners Who Will Survive
This is the season when we tend to reflect on where we are and where we want to go. I hope these thoughts from Don Ashford and November of 2015 are helpful to you. This is a quote from Eric Hoffer who was known as the longshoreman philosopher. Mr. Hoffer has been dead since 1983 […]
Read More →How to Mob Graze With Chickens
Mob grazing is basically putting lots of animals on a small area and then moving them from place to place so that they get fed, and the trampled forage and manure and urine they leave behind feeds the soil. It’s easy to imagine with cows, and sheep, and maybe even goats? But chickens? This is […]
Read More →Answers to Reader Alfalfa-Related Questions – Fall Nutrition, Varieties, and Reseeding
From November of 2017, here’s an article answering alfalfa-related reader questions. The answers come to us from Genevieve Slocum and David Hunsberger of King’s Agriseeds. Question: My cows and calves have been on a pasture for about a week with approx. 50% grass 50% alfalfa it has dried down on the stem and we have […]
Read More →Help for Figuring Feed Costs, Cow-Calf Share Lease Rates And More
From November of 2018, here’s some info we can always use! One of the reasons some of us don’t track our costs well, or we find out too late that something we’re doing is more expensive than we anticipated, is that math is hard! The folks at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s West Central Research and […]
Read More →Shelter and Bedding for Cattle Grazing in Winter
If you’re thinking about leaving your cattle out to graze this winter, you might be wondering what kind of shelter they’ll need to protect them from the cold, wind and snow. You have a lot of options, as the ranchers in this 5:00 minute video from Alberta Agriculture and Forestry demonstrate. Some ranchers have found […]
Read More →Inbreeding and Line-breeding Definitions and Uses
This article has grown to be one of On Pasture’s most read since we first ran it in October of 2014. While inbreeding is a form of line-breeding and the two are related, no pun intended, they are different. According to Jim Lents, owner of the Anxiety 4th line of horned Hereford cattle in Oklahoma, […]
Read More →Consider This View All →
Making a Go of It – This is How We Do It
There seems to be a real interest of late in the opportunities for young people to get started in livestock agriculture. The question that I would ask anyone young, or not so young, who has a dream of being in the cow business, where are you trying to go and how do you plan to […]
Read More →Grasslands May Adjust More Quickly to Warmer Winters
From the University of New Hampshire College of Life Sciences and Agriculture, here’s some insight into what happens to carbon uptake by grasslands and forests as our climate continues to warm. As climate changes, Northeast winters are warming more rapidly than other times of the year. While this may mean favorable growing conditions start earlier […]
Read More →Quitting the Ranch – A Tragic Account of Failure in Succession
A young friend of mine died the other day. To be honest, “died” doesn’t seem like quite the right word, probably because it’s not. On a beautiful fall day, my friend Donny picked up a gun and killed himself. Rest in peace, Donny. When it comes to situations like this, it seems we like to […]
Read More →Flannel Shirts and Pumpkin Spice Dreams
Here’s an ode to the winter fabric of farm and ranch life as a sign of the change of seasons.
Read More →Death to Fire Ants
USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists latest discovery—a new virus found in fire ants from Argentina—has the potential for becoming a biological control agent against the red imported fire ants infesting the United States. The Red Imported Fire Ant (RIFA) arrived in the United States in the 1930s, likely in ballast in cargo ships docking […]
Read More →Your Pastures Would Make Great Solar Farms
A recent Oregon State University study found that the top three land covers with the greatest solar power producing potential are croplands, grasslands and wetlands. The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, says that if less than 1% of agricultural land was converted to solar panels, it would be sufficient to fulfill global electric […]
Read More →We Know Honey Bees Are Dying, But Where Are They Doing Well?
Noah Wilson-Rich starts his June 2018 Ted Talk with some startling statistics: in 2017 we lost 40% of our beehives in the United States, and in places with harsher climates that number was even higher. For example, in Massachusetts we lost 47% of our beehives. “Can you imagine if we lost half or our people […]
Read More →The Sex Life of the Screwworm Fly: How an Odd-Sounding Study Saved Ranchers Billions
The screwworm is a horrible livestock pest that most of us have never heard of thanks to the work of two scientists.
Read More →The Funnies View All →
What Do a Comic Book Villain, a Mountain Lion and a Toddler Have in Common?
They overlap a lot more than you may have thought! Thanks to TheDad.com for this! Head over to the website for more great Dad jokes.
Read More →Looking for A Big Turkey?
When you’re picking out your turkey, this is something you should keep in mind. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Read More →The Best Squirrel Feeder
Lots of folks try to keep squirrels out of their bird feeders. But here’s another approach. Give them their own feeder and laugh and laugh! ……. As we head into the Holiday season, you may be already thinking about folks on your gift list. Here’s a gift that will make them smile all year long, […]
Read More →Cowboy Lassos Bike Thief
A cowboy rode his horse to Walmart the other day. Here’s what happened next…
Read More →Which is which?
I know I’ve struggled to tell the difference! Finally an answer! Click here for a more scientific answer.
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Pumpkin Spice Taken Too Far
All of these things actually exist – even though they probably shouldn’t.
Read More →New Articles Every Tuesday!
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