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At the end of the rainbow…
…there are cows in there somewhere! The wet weather this past year forced a late start on grazing. We’re now finally allocating a half acre every day to 35 cow/calf pars. And with this perfect growing weather they’ll be back in four weeks.
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The good, the bad and…
…alright, the ugly. We’ve certainly answered the question: can you overseed fescue. Grandson Church did just that last January, using a small spreader between light late-season snowfalls. As you can see there was considerable success. You’ll also note some wayward red clover…perhaps in the bulk seed bag but also possibly from earlier years. This much clover will provide all the nitrogen our pastures could possibly need. Now for the bad…a confession: this will certainly serve our goal, which was to provide warm season grazing; an antidote to the endophyte fescue. But as you can tell by the seed heads, we’ve let the orchard grass get ahead of us The best…
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A modern Tom Sawyer….
….grandson Luis came out to the farm after school Friday and managed to fish before the storms and dark rolled in. The final total was 11…including what looks to be a nice two-pound large mouth bass. Perfect pan size but Luis practices catch and release and so the bass and crappies and blue gill went back into the pond. As we said, storms were closing in and they can be dangerous here…dangerous but beautiful! David
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A lovely young maiden at Cathy Cochran’s Oak Hill Farm.
She’s just two days old but seems older. Her sire is Thistle Hill’s King David. He spent the last breeding season at Oak Hill and contributed new genetics to Cathy’s award winning herd. Meanwhile King David is back home awaiting his next assignment. David
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Watching grass grow….
The definition of “boring” may be watching grass grow but whoever said that was certainly never a cattleman. We’ve finally started strip grazing and here’s an after-action picture of the first paddock. The untouched grass is behind the electric wire in the background. This was the result on a half acre with 30 cow/calf pairs in the first day. Church has decided to add eight more two year olds to increase the trampling and manure distribution. We’d also like the main herd to clean up some of the weeds. Maybe on the next pass. This paddock will rest for about a month…depending on grass regrowth. It’s trial and error while…
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Here they come…
The main Devon herd stretched out across Thistle Hill at sunset. No fuss or bother as they follow grandson Church for close to a half a mile. Do they understand that luscious green grass awaits? They do certainly trust Church’s leadership and sense of purpose. Outriders, sticks and herding dogs not necessary. Once they’ve regrouped they’ll begin a daily rotation of fresh grass, roughly an acre at a time. They have to be this well trained after all because Church has college to attend and can’t be late. After a few days they’ll be waiting for him at the entrance to the next paddock. He won’t even have to whistle!…
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That didn’t take long…
What a difference five days makes. Grass is now 8 to 10 inches. We’ll have to move fast or risk falling impossibly behind. Grandson Church is erecting the stakes for one-acre paddocks and the main herd of 30 cows and their new calves will have an acre a day. Look carefully and you’ll see a healthy stand of clover. Out of curiosity Church turned over a shovel of dirt. Look carefully near the top and left of the picture and you’ll see earthworms. I count five in less than a square foot. Again note the clover…and the organic matter. Enlarge all our blog pictures by simply tapping on them. Healthy…
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A spring morn update….
….and the grass is a long time coming. We’re keeping the main herd in this sacrifice pasture and continuing to feed hay. Just because we miscalculated we can’t ask the cows to pay for our mistake! Not only isn’t there enough yet, but this early the grass is “washy”…not as nutrient rich. On the other hand, you can’t see it but there is a beautiful stand of clover coming along. We estimate in a few weeks we’ll be able to move the herd to begin our serious rotational grazing. The steer calf in the picture is half English…the full English cow sharing the hay was calved at Thistle Hill and…
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Lest we forget…
…another pure English heifer…half sister to the two below…Ashott-Barton Tulip is the mother…and a line that stretches back as far as there have been Devon record books. The origination was in the famed Champson herd. The sire is Cutcombe Jaunty. Our current plan for Tulip is to let her calve at 3 and then decide whether to flush her. David
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Bribery update…
A few years ago, on an introductory trip to meet our partners in England, Church was given a wonderful gift by his grandmother: the right to select any heifer he wanted from the Ashott-Barton herd. The young cow he selected—-without any prompting from me—was from the Bribery line which I had long coveted. Because of import restrictions against live animals, we bred the heifer in England and shipped the frozen embryos to Thistle Hill. Five months later, here’s the result: