This whole grass thing?

[cowman]

Last year we did the rotational grass thing on 60 acres and I guess it was a success. We had 6 paddocks seperated by electric fence and a water pipeline to each paddock. Smacked it with 150 lbs. of complete fertilizer early in the spring. An old hayfield of timothy, brome,creeping red and very depleted alphalfa.
Bottom line was about 1.2 acres/cow over a bout 4 months(a little longer).
Which we thought was pretty good. Usually it takes 2.8 acres on our tame pastures(which are mostly a fescue type of grass I guess, with a fair bit of willow brush?)
Now the boy thinks this is the real deal and wants to expand into more of this. I told him we don't have enough cows and yearlings to eat what we have now so why go to the expense and hassle of setting up a different system? Then he informed me that he figured under this type of system he could easily run 400 cows for 6 months at 2 acres per cow!
I told him if you think I'm going to play nurse maid to four hundred cows you'd better think again! Why would someone want to do that? Somedays I wonder why we even have 140 cows!I can just imagine myself running around getting my ass shocked off on those electric fences, moving those darned cows!

[rkaiser]

My 16 year old kid was out on his (paid for by a job at the Co-op) $1200.00 used mountain bike checking cows with me last week. popped the front wheel over the wire and stopped. Touched the front brake handle and got nailed. Somehow he stayed on his feet and tried to get himself out of the mess he was in. As he tried to put the back wheel over he touched the brake handle again; this time leaning forward with his mouth open. The drool from this electric jolt made for good entertainment for me and his sister.

Electric fences are great things. 150 calving cows and now our 46 yearling heifers in 20 acre "feeding paddock" with one strand. The grass is et up to the farthest reach but keeping them well fed probably helps.Or maybe they saw the kid drooling when he got nailed LOL. Three 1/4's out here at Ponoka with about 15 paddocks. We plan to dump about 50 cows and and 15 heifers on some grass out at Hardisty (which I hear got a nice rain) and pasture the remaining on the three 1/4's. I expect some carry over ---- without fertilizer!

[cowman]

Hey, I'll tell you these modern fencers give one hell of a jolt, and I was on the recieving end a couple of times last summer! Your whole darned arm aches afterwards!
I guess I could be called "electricity" adverse! LOL

[coppertop]

cowman, I am interested in how you supply water in the paddocks, you mentioned a pipeline, do you pipe it into troughs ?

[farmers_son]

Maybe I should start a new thread but the comments here made me think some of you have better electric fencers than I do. Could people recommend a fencer that works well for them as the ones I use are pretty questionable. The cows will push right through my electric fences.

[grassfarmer]

Farmers_son biggest problem is nearly always the earth not the fencer unit. However I like the PEL units myself, it's a 605 unit i've got (I think) and it does many miles of fence. Puts out 9000v max at the charger but usually my fence is around 5500v depending on shorts. Usual culprit is deer twisting an offset hotwire onto a barb fence while jumping over it which electrifies 1/4 mile of 4 strand. Cows don't challenge it unless it's down to 2500v calves about 3000v once they learn what a shock is.

Cowman, 1.2 acres for 4 months per cow is 100 AUD's /acre. Like Randy we can manage that on good pastures without the fertiliser. How much does 150lbs /acre of fertiliser cost? You could achieve the same result by further crossfencing the pastures with temporary wire. One back, one front and move them every day. It's the best paid job on the farm.

[cowman]

Well this was an experiment, if you will, and we thought we'd give it a good shot to start it off! I believe it was right around that $37 range, put on with the floater? Did not put any on this spring and will see how that works out. Harrowed it last fall with pasture harrows that really broke up the patties.
Still need to do some tweaking? On two of the paddocks the plastic waterline never got buried and the darned coyotes have chewed it all up!

[coppertop]

better the coyotes were chewing up the water line than your calves cowman !!

[grassfarmer]

Strange, you must have hungry or stupid coyotes - most of our pipeline is above ground and we have never had any chewed. I'm thinking you need more crossfences though six pastures is very limited for 120 days grazing. Hard to see how it won't result in overgrazing.

[cowman]

grassfarmer: The coyotes around here chew anything poly. They will chew up plastic rope holding a gate! I don't know what is their problem, but it is not from being hungry...not with the daily buffet the hog farmer down the road lays out!
You might be right on the size thing? Last year everything was pretty lush with all the moisture. Basically the guy west of Penhold had ten paddocks on 100 acres...so on 60 we went with six. I wonder though if that might be why he is getting fescue moving in so agressively? He eats the paddocks down fairly hard!
Hey we're just learning this stuff?