Multii- Species grazing plans

 

So on a farm one could have five similar lots of pasture. Monoculture farmers would put 4 cows in the first lot; 20 goats in the second lot, 6 donkeys in the third lot; 48 geese in the fourth lot; and 200 free range chickens in the fifth lot.  They could all eat down the lots in a given amount of time and need moved to five more lots.

It is my objective opinion that when pasturing 12 geese they eat roughly the same amount of grass as a cow. Most websites report 4-6 goats eat the same amount of grass as a cow. A Donkey's appetite is generally considered to be about 2/3 that of a cow. Approximately 50 chickens can consume a similar amount of vegetation in a day as the amount consumed by one cow.

So on a farm one could have five similar lots of pasture. Monoculture farmers would put 4 cows in the first lot;20 goats in the second lot, 6 donkeys in the third lot; 48 geese in the fourth lot; and 200 free range chickens in the fifth lot.  They could all eat down the lots in a given amount of time and need moved to five more lots.

The multispecies farming methods I subscribe to would handle the situation differently.

Still having five lots I would put the geese and goats in the first lot with 4 donkeys ,  cattle in the second lot with two more donkeys, and chickens in the third lot. Then after half as much time I would put the cattle where the goats and geese were, the goats and geese in a new lot, and the chickens where the cattle were. I would continue this rotation around all 10 total lots.

Why? Because goats eat brush, limited amounts of grass, and briers, donkeys eat weeds, broom-sage, and a small percent of grass, and geese eat weeds, amphibians, reptiles, and grass. They would go through and clear out the less desirable forage the cows would not consume. The donkeys would also keep predators away from the geese and goat kids. Any supplemental grain supplied to the donkeys and goats would be cleaned up entirely by the geese. When they moved on to the second lot the cattle would come in and mow down the remaining grass and trod the accumulated manure from themselves and the preceding group into the pasture.

    This second group would leave the pasture mowed very low and spread profusely with parasite and undigested grain laden manure. Upon the arrival of the chickens this nutrient rich waste would be picked over scratched out and any morsel of insect, worm, grub, or sprout would be snatched up and the pasture sanitized.

In my method of farming each species holds a niche.

Twice as often rotations followed by an additional 55% of recovery time for each pasture plus the elimination of parasites in every pasture without pesticides, antibiotics , or medicine, plus the eradication of brush and weeds in all pastures without application of herbicides or defoliants.

 

Workshop getting started

Why do we farm?

Farming is a gamble.

One drops a seed, breeds livestock, or installs some equipment with the anticipation of growth of product and eventual profit.

During the time between the initial investment of the time and effort to plant the seed and the sale of the product millions of things can go wrong.

With seeds, the seed cannot be good , the ground can not be good , too much rain , too little rain, an early frost, a late frost, insects, weeds, deer, rabbits, slugs, fungus, mold, harvesting equipment break down, market price drops, no human resources for harvest, ruins in storage ofater harvest.

One can buy the best seeds, pesticides, herbicides, new equipment, and top of the line employees. One can find a niche market and master production metods to eliminate spoilage and waste. One can do all of this and still not make a profit.

Livestock are also a gamble.

When you buy breeding stock so much can happen. You can have infertile male , infertile female, parasites, inadequate feed, inadequate water, problems birthing, birth defects, problems nursing, problems with disease in young,  wrong kind of feed, to much feed, too little feed, parasites, market price low,   problems getting to market, market fees high.

Forestry is a gamble, logs can be diseased, windshaken, and bowed. They can split while cutting , get hung up in moving loading on a mill, miscut , misdried, or not marketable. They can be rotten, stained, defective, or contain metal. your chainsaw can break, your moving equipment break, your trailering equipment , your sawmill, your human resources...


One has to ask, why put yourelf through all the stress and hard work to try run this obsticle course of potential downfalls?

Because we love to see new life come into the world, a childlike amazement at being part of something so glorious as a row of freshly sprouted plants peeking out of the dark damp soil or a lamb instinctively knowing how to struggle to its feet, only minutes old, searching around under the ewe for its first breakfast. We love to smell the sawdust and see the figuring of the grain of a newly opened log as the sawmill blade frees one, and then another, then another board.

Successful business depends on knowing which corners to cut to produce sizable quantities of a premium product with with limited risk and a good deal of luck.

Procrastination

If you choose to crastinate always do it like a pro. Thereis no room in life for mediocrecratination, sophmocrastination, or  even amautucrastination.