A few ideas that might help you:
1) I believe its the tamarack pig that is a good grazer. I see them in the
Grass Farmer classified's.
2) Geese are good, but I believe turkeys should also be included as they also
will eliminate the inevitable hopper problem this year will present. Geese will
eat the weeds more than the grass. They love dandelions and other broad leaf types.
As for processing: I'm in Mesa CO and have a mobile plant. Karla Tschoepe is in
Hotchkiss and has a processing system. I believe there are some others in the
area, but know them by name. You would need to direct market those birds in
order to sell them. There is an excellent market for pastured poultry in the
area. At any rate, pasturing poultry would be an excellent method to utilize the
excess.
3) You don't mention lamas or other members of that family.
4) As for cattle wrecking the ditches, etc., I use a hotwire to keep them off
areas subject to damage by hoofs.
Feel free to call me 970-487-3515 or email nerpa@earthlink.net to continue this
discussion. Megan Phillips
Quoting Oogie McGuire <oogiem@desertweyr.com>:
> Hello,
>
> I'm new to this forum and am hoping to brainstorm some ideas.
>
> I am in Colorado, with mixed grass legume pastures all irrigated. We
> have had a severe drought, but this year we have enough water that my
> pasture is getting way ahead of my sheep. I graze about 70 ewes under
> an old apple orchard on about 7.5 acres. My last paddock was 150 ft
> square and 65 sheep were on it for a week and still didn't eat
> everything. I have 7 sheep plus lambs on about 3/4 of an acre and
> the grass is so high the sheep can't be seen. I really need to move
> them every 3-4 days to keep my forages in good shape. My next paddock
> will be 150 ft by 60 ft to see if I can get it small enough so they
> eat things down appropriately in the time I need them too.
>
> Most MIG info suggests adding more animals to deal with excess
> forage, but we are in a federal scrapie program , in year 4 with a
> closed flock, so adding sheep or goats is not possible. Cattle are
> right out, they destroy the irrigation ditches, we tried that and it
> was a complete and utter disaster. Geese might be an option, but we
> have no way to get them processed into meat locally once their
> grazing time is done. I'm working on that but for now I could pasture
> the geese but then have a bunch of geese with no way to get them
> butchered easily. Since I'd need 80-100 geese to harvest the excess
> grass in a year like this one, that's way more than I can reasonably
> do by hand. However, I am ordering 16 geese to see of they would work
> and trying to locate a processor for them so that might be a long
> term solution.
>
> Pastured pigs are also a possibility, but finding pig genetics that
> adapt to outside pasture situations is difficult and never having had
> pigs I am really unsure of my ability to use them in this situation.
> Stories I hear from people doing it are very mixed.
>
> I can't easily make hay in my extra paddocks in a year like this one
> where I have more grass than I can use. The reason is my "paddocks"
> are less than an acre so I need to be able to do nearly hand
> processing of hay. That's where a small set of equipment would be
> great, needs to be able to get in and say cut and bale a 150 ft x 150
> ft patch. Sure it won't make much hay, but the goal is to get some
> hay (I'd also consider haylage) and keep the pastures in a good
> vegetative state for best animal performance. We have to buy in all
> our hay, so even a small amount of production , if it stays here, is
> a good thing.
>
> It's too early in the season to consider stockpiling forages to
> extend my grazing.
>
> Info avail here from the extension service says that just plain
> mowing and leaving the clippings on as mulch will hurt pasture
> performance so I haven't considered that but maybe I should.
>
> I'm trying to brainstorm possible solutions and getting stymied. What
> do other people do or is the small size of my area a unique problem?
>
> BTW after the last few years it's nice to have the problem of too
> much grass, last year I got a whole 2 months grazing out of 10 acres
> and we had to start winter hay feeding in June!
> --
> Oogie McGuire - oogiem@desertweyr.com
> Weyr Associates - Multimedia and Web Authoring Services & Consulting
> Desert Weyr - CMK Arabian horses and Black Welsh Mountain Sheep
> http://www.desertweyr.com/
> Paonia, CO USA
>
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