Experiments in Medieval Livestock Management:

[CAD]

I am attempting to do abit of research for a project and thought the wide array of experience and knowledge available in this forum might be VERY helpful if I could tap into it. While I have been able to find a wealth of information on medieval agriculture (crops, production, yields, rotations and management systems, etc..), I have not been able to find much if any data on medieval livestock keeping or animal husbandry. And even when trying to track down information on modern day husbandry and livestock management; I was surprised by the amount of vague, incomplete, and contradictory information.


Abstract: A quick brief of the situation I am trying to describe and get information on. A small medieval hamlet that houses mostly subsistence farmers and a few basic trades people; is given the opportunity to clear 40 acres of neighboring woodland for their use. Rather than planting more crops, the idea is presented to use the newly cleared land to keep and tend livestock. Their goals and concerns are:

1) To give the community access to larger and better sources of meat, cheese, and animal products at equal or lower prices than could be done other wise, or by having to import them.
2) They would like to find small but stable populations of various livestock that can live almost exclusively on pasture forage without the need for expensive feed or maintenance.
3) Incorporate the existing pair of bulls and dozen horses in with these livestock, and come up with a plan to provide the best quality and yields with the least amount of expense (and labor where possible).

They proposed the following system; to fence in 36 acres, divided into six 6 acre pastures. The pastures would contain the following:

A) Cattle-6: 2 Bulls (for labor and stud) and 4 1,000 lb cows (for milk, meat, breeding, and hide)
B) Sheep-36: 2 Rams (for stud) and 34 Ewes (for milk, meat, wool, breeding, and hide)
C&D) Horse-6: 2 Pastures to house the community's 12 existing horses
E) Swine-36: 3 12 member herds of pigs, 2 herds (24) raised for meat and 1 herd (12) of lard hogs (unless a breed good for both could be found)
F) Left fallow or used to raise pasture for summer / winter storage.

The six adjacent 6 acre fields would be surrounded by a 50' wide raceway used to exercise the animals and as a second layer of fencing to keep things in and out should a section of pasture fence break [see diagram] Small portable shelters could be erected to house the animal herds and protect them in winter, but large barns and permanent builds would like to be avoided if possible. They would also like to have (if possible)
X) Goats: A herd of 12-24 (for meat, milk, wool, and skins).
Y) Fowl: 18-24 or so geese, and 24+ of each chickens and ducks.

Items of note:
1) The goats would be pastured with the pigs if possible.
2) The fowl would be pastured with the sheep and other animals or in the fallow/surplus field as appropriate.
3) The pigs will be fitted with nose rings to prevent excess rooting
4) The pigs and goats would be set free to forage the adjacent woods once or twice a week.
5) The animals would have some access to whey from cheese-making, spent grain from ale-making, and run-off from milling grain into flour.
6) A small semi-wild heard of goats and/or pigs would be allowed / encouraged to live in the adjacent woods. They would serve as "sacrificial" animals to discourage predators from entering the pasture areas, and could be hunted if breeding to excess.

My questions are the following:
1) Would the 6 acres of pasture be sufficient to provide for the forage and land needs of the animals in each of the proposed areas? How many more or less animals of that type could be housed in a 6 acre pasture?
2) Would the number of animals described above be sufficient for a stable breeding population and large enough to absorb losses from disease, accident, occasional harsh winters, and/or predation?
3) What yield could be expected from each of the animal types/numbers above as far as newly breed animals available for the fall/winter slaughter? How much outside feed would be needed for winter feeding?
4) Would any of the animal types above have a problem being pastured with any of the others? Or would any of the animal types above benefit from being pastured with (or after) any of the others because they eat different types of foliage or the like?
5) Would this system benefit from a small amount of rotational grazing or similar pasture management system? (possibly including the addition of a second 6 acre field or other additions if needed)
6) How many manhours (or people) would be needed to maintain this number of animals and system? I know there would be a certain amount of permanent daily work to be done, as well as temporary seasonal or activity based additional needs.

I know I'm asking a lot of somewhat general questions, hopefully I havent been too vague or confusing in the information I provided, or made too much of a mess of what I'm asking or trying to get out of it. I'm starting out with a rough broad stroke and will hopefully add detail and refinement as I can. If you have any questions, need any additional information, or have any possible suggestions to my system or ideas; let me know. Thank you VERY much in advance for any help you may provide.

P.S. In trying to find out how many of an animal type can be feed on a certain acreage of pasture 90% of the answers I found simply said "it depends on the pasture". I understand that if I have lush pasture and you have sparse, then I may be able to feed twice as many animals on the same size plot of land, or the same number of animals on half the land. I know the pasture yield is going to vary by geographic location, climate, and seasons. Ideally I am looking for numbers resulting from a "good" pasture in the UK (London) area, but I am also interested in the ratios of animal need to pasture yield so "good" pasture numbers should suffice at least until I start attempting to refine things from rough ideas.

P.P.S This is my very first posting here, and as it covers a wide range of possible topics I posted it here, please feel free to move it if you feel it would be more appropriate someplace else. Thanks again.

 

[herfrds]

Yes it was very broad. How about cutting it down a bit?

Now from what I have tried to read you are asking about setting up a 36 acre area to put different livestock to see how they would do. Is this correct?

Now you stated towards the bottom that if you have a lush pasture and I have sparse then you can put more animals on yours. Not really.
Over grazing of a pasture is a big no no.
You need to figure out how many head your acrage pasture holds.

A) If you have 6 cows you only need 1 bull.

 

[patandchickens]

Yeah, that is a pretty giant-huge can o' worms there, and there are better means of researching it. Information DOES exist about livestock husbandry and farming practices during the middle ages.

But, let me just raise a couple of points:

1) I do not *think* that you can easily keep large livestock just 'at pasture' in the London area all year; thus, if they are going to be havin' more livestock they are ALSO going to be needing more area (and manpower) to grow and harvest and store fodder crops for the wintertime. Minimally, that would be hay; realistically, also grains and probably some amount of straw for bedding.

2) That is way way massively massively more animals than I can envision any medieval hamlet acquiring, should 40 acres suddenly become available. (And it's not like clearing 40 acres is a trivial job, or one likely to be accomplished in just a year or so...). First, how the heck they gonna GET all them animals; and secondly, wow, that is a lot of animals on not much land, in a whole variety of ways.

3) My impression is that in medieval times, way before electric or wire fencing were invented, crossfencing was not often done. A large field might be fenced, but not subdivided into a bunch of little paddocks like you are suggesting and not given a second perimeter fence.

Your scenario is assuming a number of MODERN practices that AFAIK would not have applied much during medieval times -- keeping different species of animals only in separate pastures, an 'exercise area', portable shelters, a double-fenced perimeter, keeping animals in 'hobby' groups/amounts/ways rather than in the method that makes management easiest, etc etc. Honestly I think you may need to rethink this from first principles, doing a lot more library research first into the time period.

Sorry not to be more direct help, but I really think you do need to redirect your plans, good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

i'm wondering if this is an actual project or a theoretical problem? for instance.. are you writing a paper on livestock management or are you fixin' to set up this as a real farm community? or is this for part of an online sim game??

there are also some assumptions that seem to be missing...or might just be incorrect.. for instance, where are you getting the feed? modern feed? or corn/whole grains??

 

[dragonlaurel]

Look into the heritage breeds. Many modern breeds were bred to do well with modern farming methods, but might not adapt easily. Try to get breeds that are adapted to your type of climate. They will be healthier and need less help to survive. Sickly animals aren't any fun to raise and you can lose money on them. Wetter areas should use breeds that have resistance to hoof rot and similar problems.

For example- My area (Arkansas, USA) has hot, sticky summers and mild, humid winters. We're in the mountains so overgrazing the hills will cause erosion. Goats work well here and the more heat resistant breeds of sheep. Small herds of cattle can work.

Consider letting the pigs root in areas you will want to plant. They help till the soil, and fertilize it well.

To get an answer about stocking rates, I would ask local organic farmers to walk the property with you. They use more similar methods with their animals, so they can give you a good idea of what the property will support well.

Have you contacted SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism)? While they aren't an agricultural group, some members farm and may have studied up on this for themselves. I'm in the group and have some SCA friends that farm locally. The group is international, so you might find members that could help you.

I agree that cross fencing to the degree you were talking about would have been very unlikely.
Those bulls could have more than four cows each. When the girls arrive, the bulls wouldn't be likely to stay friends. You might sell a bull or consider more cows.

 

[walkswithdog]

I'll leave the technical stuff to the experienced people.

But there's some simple stuff I can sort of point at.

Bulls are not easily trained to do work. Steers can be trained to do work. One bull and one or two steers, if they're necessary for draft work.

Double fencing is monstrously expensive for that amount of acreage, add in subdivision fences and ow ow ow painful amounts of money go away.

What do you think needs exercising? Blinking.

Subdivision is a very modern concept and is primarily for pasture rotation so stuffing some form of animal in every subdivision defeats the purpose. Over grazed land dies.

All that livestock also costs a great and painful amount of money.

Anything that eats must be supplemented at some point in time, some more, some less, both weather and species, even breed, dependent. Feeding that many animals mid-winter can get rough.

There are more costs to livestock than food. Vet care for that amount of stock, even minimal vet care, can surprise you. If not vet care - then try just figuring the costs to worm that many animals.

Ducks don't grow on trees and must be fed chick/game starter as ducklings and be kept safe/sheltered and warm until they're old enough to get out there - that stuff costs some. Buying adult ducks that then raise ducklings is the same as chickens - you'll lose some to predators, weather, accidents. Some ducks suck at parenting and may never successfully raise a clutch.

We have added stock to our little place one or two animals at a time to learn their needs, their costs - in purchase costs, in time, medication/vaccines, feed, training, equipment, stock loss, predation, fencing, shelter, maintenance.

But if you priced just double fencing your proposed site - you'd probably pass out.

Feeders, waterers, mineral holders/ back up water systems.... feed storage building/s. Holding pens/calving/lambing/kidding pens. Shelters. Power pole and electricity to the area, refridgerator for meds. Training, separation pens, chutes, a ramp for loading.

Medieval is all well and good as a theory.

But those people worked 16 hour days, putting food on the table and sheltering their families. Every time the weather got truly nasty they lost stock, droughts, freezes and ice storms devasting them at times, often having to chose between feeding themselves or the livestock.

Sacrificial stock in the woods - creates MORE predators, since the hunting is easy. The predators have more babies. Every year that we have bonus numbers of local hares and cotton tails the number of foxes here skyrockets, when they run out of bunnies there are too many to just feed on wild animals and for a couple of years I'm fighting near constantly to keep my free range chickens and turkeys. Once they're hunted back down to normal numbers and the bunny cycle goes back to normal things are easy for awhile.

Livestock guardians is something that needs exploration, whether dog, donkey/mule or llama. And the dogs have to be fed.

So I agree it's a neat ideal. Just doesn't look practical from a capital standpoint.

 

[CAD]

Ducks dont grow on trees!!! lol, that almost knocked me off my chair.

First off I would like to say thank you for the very pointed and helpful responses. Let me see if I can provide a bit more background and address some of the issues. Firstly this is strictly a theoretical exercise not a practical experiment, so while I am striving to get a decently accurate representation of the time period and circumstance, some loosening of the rules must be allowed for (although I was definitely trying to keep it to a minimum). Second, I knew going into this that any knowledge I was bringing into this experiment was limited to begin with, and was going to be biased towards modern husbandry techniques and practices; which is one reasons I was seeking out the opinions of those knowledgeable and experienced in these matters. I really do appreciate any suggestions as to problems in portions of my idea or methodology, ways which they might be mended or modified or parts that might seem out of place or just folly.

Ok, a little bit of background. The reason why a village might suddenly find itself in this circumstance. The governor of the area was given permission to erect a small fort to watch over the area and chose a large hill in a forested area not far from this village. An area of the forest was going to be cleared around the fort to allow for defensive sightlines and a protected area, which would be ringed (and partially subdivided) with a fence. Surplus laborers were going to be brought in during the construction process. This hopefully explains the sudden appearance of a sizeable chunk of cleared land; the money, manpower, and materials necessary to construct an amount of fencing that would otherwise bankrupt the project from the beginning. It was suggested that while this newly created area might not be useful for agriculture, it would already be used to pasture the horses for the fort and might be able to pasture other livestock to provide for the fort and village if it could be sustainable. This explains the initial outlay of money necessary for the purchase of the livestock, small shelters, and miscellaneous other provisions to being this venture. Once setup however all the upkeep, manpower, and expense would be done almost completely by the village so it would need to be as cost efficient and low maintenance as possible.

So the goal was to see how many animals of various types could be kept and maintained on a piece of property divided as described. The herds for each type would need to be large enough to survive predation, disease, and harsh winters, and to provide maximum yields of meat and animal products to make it sustainable and financially self-sufficient if possible. Each fall large portions of the herd would be culled to provide winter supplies to the village and to reduce the winter feed needs of the herd itself. Research I did suggested that while not true of todays animals and practices, at the time most of the animals I described could be left outside throughout the winter with only minimal need for shelter and addition feed resources (please let me know if you disagree). There is an ample source of water at hand, and labor would be relatively cheap and plentiful. The village already had some small communal livestock of its own and the necessary skilled people to deal with them, although the manpower needed for the new additions would need to be increased.

Hopefully that addresses some of the larger overlapping general concerns and fleshes the idea out abit more. Let me answer a few of the pointed questions before this post gets even larger that the first one.

1) A pair of oxen were the initial choice as necessary heavy labor animals, bulls were an alternative since they could be used for labor (hopefully), as well as servicing the adjacent cows and possibly generating money from stud services to neighboring communities.

2) The rotational grazing idea while mostly a modern device, I thought might help better provide for the stock and would be easy to implement given the way the land was already divided. Right now I'm only showing one of the six total fields empty, but I was hoping that different types of animals might have different grazing needs and preferences and could be better served by rotating them to different areas one after another. Your ideas on this?

3) I figured that a semi-wild herd of pigs and goats outside the area would be inevitable if the goats and hogs were taken into the forest to forage on occasion. I thought if those semi-wild herds were encouraged they could be kept and hunted, but this might provide more problems than benefits.
4) Guard animals would be dogs (guard, flock tending and hunting), some of which would be kept at night in the pastures and/or in the ring between the two encircling fences. This would hopefully provide warning and alert of approaching people as well as scaring off potential predators.

While this obviously doesnt answer all the questions that arose, I hope it touches on a lot of them. I can address the rest and anything else that arises in future. Hopefully this helps abit; let me know what you think, and again thank you VERY much for your replies and ongoing help.

 

[DanceswithCows]

I can only echo what others have said = medieval peasant life was small and tough, that amount of livestock couldn't have been sustained by commoners. Rotation wasn't really thought about as far as we know. Horses were a rich man's thing. Oxen are steers, but in medieval times working cows would probably have been more realistic. Pigs nose rung in medievel times? Not sure. Stys and woodland foraging more likely. The stock were often taken into the human dwelling houses for winter!

Can I suggest that you research 'Wharram Percy'? It's an abandoned medievel village near me (in the UK) and has been very extensively studied yielding lots of interesting info about the lifestyle; there's bound to be some resources on the net.

 

[Bossroo]

Your ideas might sound good in theory, but the real world of yore are two different things. All of the above posts, plus... Fences were made out of stacked tree sapling logs or stone, so labor intensive. Wooden log fences are porous , so they will not hold sheep, goats, pigs, cattle- especially bulls, horses- especially stallions, poultry in for very long... so constant animal roundup and fence repair. Also, pigs will eat any other small or baby animal or foul that they can easily catch, and they do so regularly. Pigs will root up and destroy a pasture and fences in short order.The pigs will also hurt or even kill a human child as well as any adult that they suddenly see as dinner. Peasants definately didn't have bow and arrows or spears, much less had any skills to use them to be able to hunt pigs with them. They only had a knife and axe, so immagine them hunting semi wild pig in the forest. Who will kill whomb ? Therefore any self respecing farmer will keep his pigs confined in a stone pig pen. Where are the vegetable gardens, orchards and human housing on your ideal 40 acres ? Clue... Check out what the Roman army legeons had to contend with and what and how long it took to build when they invaded England.

 

[patandchickens]

Y'all realize this thread is gettin' towards a year old and the O.P. has not been back on this site for a loooong time...

Pat