> What other weeds/junk forages etc. are options for gazing in high snow
areas and hard winters that are permanent, i.e. do not require plowing and
re-
> seeding except once every 15-20 years or so?
--
Will warm season grass grow where you are?
With smaller sheep, how they going to get around in 3' of snow?
This stuff gets pretty tall and stands up under snow, although 3' might be a
bit much. I would imagine the protein would be rather low, 6-8% range. One
of the speakers at the grazing conference a month ago was suggesting
deferring the august graze to allow the warm season grass to accumulate DM
and then graze in winter in deeper snow. This was for dry beef cows, not
sheep, nor dairy. Would this be "cheaper" than $200/ton hay? The warm
seasons are slow to establish, seed cost is high, you wouldn't get a full
seasons grazing out of it if you deferred august, and you'd still need to
supplement protein.
> This past winter we had weeks that never got above freezing with snow of 3
ft or more on the ground and fairly high winds. Nothing can easily graze
> through that so stored forages are a necessity. But more moderate winters
could allow us to graze much longer in the fall. We probably can't start
much > sooner than we already do in spring, our mud and pasture pugging,
even with small sheep, is a potential problem.
Sheep do not pug anywhere near as much as cattle do. A little bit of pugging
seems to be a good thing on sod species. Your fescue stockpiled under the
snow, might be just the ticket for early spring grazing. I plan to find
out, we're finally getting some heat a few degrees above normal and possible
melt some of the snow pack. Last I saw my fescue paddocks was early
december, it was about 10" tall.
I contacted a Madison weather person a couple years ago to find out when the
average 12" snow depth occurred, what I felt was a depth that limited
practical grazing, maybe that could be deeper. Here that doesn't happen
till mid january.
Gene Schriefer
Shepherd
Dodgeville, Wisconsin USA
Commercial Texel-x and Charollais-x Sheep
Red Poll Cattle
