Management Grazing - Help with my design? (pic/detailed info included)

[Yamabushi]

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Hi folks! I'm just getting started with my pasture design and thinking hard about how to break up my pasture and rotate my animals. I would love any advice I could get about my current plans. Details below. Thanks a lot...

Red- Permanent Fence (high tens woven wire)
Gold- Polybraid with step in stakes
Purple - Open paddock (portable electric netting)

Permanent fence perimeter is 2400 feet
Slightly hilly but not bad. Located in NC Appalachia
To give some context of the various paddock sizes, paddock #7 is two Premier1 164' rolls of electric netting, about 3200 feet of square foot area.

Note that part of the paddocks are forest. Particularly in paddock 2 and 3.

Note that animals in the rotation will be rabbits, chickens, sheep, and a few goats in with the sheep.

I have 7 sheep right now but will have about 15 by Summer. My question is, how long should I graze the different types of flocks in each paddock? I know different forages last different periods in different seasons, and with different animals, but is there a safe threshold that will be safe regardless of season? I would prefer to move things as infrequently as possible (to save energy) while still maintaining maximum forage health.

Currently I have a shed built in paddock 7, which I am planning to use as the winter/sacrifice paddock. I am also designing some mobile shelters.

I currently have chickens in paddock 6, and don't intent to rotate other animals in there at the moment. I was planning on saving this area for a green house, bees, raised beds, and other random animal rotation in the future, but not to add to the primary rotation schematic. But if it makes sense to plan otherwise so be it.

Paddock 8 is a garden which I keep surrounded by electric netting. This is for vegetables or cover crops for the sheep to later eat down.

The grazing rotations for the sheep I was considering are...

Paddock 1) 3 Week Graze
Paddock 2) 1 Week Graze
Paddock 3) 3 Week Graze
Paddock 4) 2 Week Graze
Paddock 5) 1 Week Graze
**So by the time the sheep get back to Paddock 1 it has rested about 7 weeks

or

Paddock 1) 1 Week Graze
Paddock 2) 1 Week Graze
Paddock 3) 1 Week Graze
Paddock 4) 1 Week Graze
Paddock 5) 1 Week Graze
**Requiring more energy from me having to move them more frequently

I'm not sure if these rotations are ideal based on the proportions of my paddocks, or how to fit the chickens and rabbits into this. I usually raise around 60 meat chickens at a time, and a similar number of rabbits. I also plan to have a few goats with the sheep flock to help with weed control. I would love any advice from more experienced farmers!

Much thanks!!

 

[Latestarter]

Greetings and welcome to BYH. OK... what you've requested is quite a lot and difficult to answer without specific knowledge of the soil and vegetation already there as well as condition of both. The breed(s) of animals will also have a bearing. Goats are more browsers than grazers so prefer leaves/branches/bark/twigs/cherished ornamental plantings/your fruit trees/etc. Sheep are more grazers but some breeds browse equally. There could also be some issues placing goats and sheep together. Aside from differing mineral requirements, it could be a factor especially if you'll have rams (to breed the ewes) and bucks (for the does). Additionally, many keep male and female animals separate for a number of reasons. Neither sheep or goats should be eating chicken feed, so how will you feed the chickens in the same area without the ruminants getting into it? I believe with meat rabbits you'd be better off caging them in a rabbitry, just for ease of management.

You seem concerned about the amount of labor involved to move the animals (sheep/goats), but IMHO, you're looking at what, an hour max? once a week or so? That's not labor intensive to my way of thinking. A larger issue that appears to me is that there's no barn for bad weather or animal maintenance or hay storage area indicated and none of the pastures connects to a central "control" area for the animals... Are you intending to just leave them out in the pastures 24/7? Having all those "meals on wheels" out there, have you made any provision for predator prevention/protection? Will you rely strictly on the fencing? That's going to be a lot of work daily tending to all those various animals out in pastures for feed, water, hay, moving tractors for chickens and rabbits, maybe even twice daily... & all that fencing/cross fencing is going to be pretty danged expensive.

Having that many paddocks without a central control area, have you determined how you'll provide water and hay to each paddock?

Were it me, I'd place a barn/structure close to the house in the southern part of what you have as paddock 3. I'd then portion out an area around the barn as a "dry lot/holding area" for the animals for when you want them close to the barn or inside for protection/maintenance. I would also have their water there so I would only need to provide water in one central location. I would do 3 main paddocks combining 1&2, 3&7, and 4&5, all more or less equal in size. Each would be accessed by gate from the central area around the barn. You would only open the gate for the paddock you are presently using and keep the other two closed. The animals could be kept close to/in the barn at night and allowed out to graze daily. I would also fence in a pathway to area 6 from that central barn area, so if you wanted to put the animals over there for a day or two, you'd have the fenced in path to allow them to go there.

As for grazing times in each pasture, you just have to watch how it's going and when you think it's been grazed down enough, move them to the next one. You could keep the goats and sheep separate and have one group follow the other based on what they eat. You could dry lot them near the barn during winter making your job much easier and allowing all the pastures to recoup.

You also want to make sure you leave yourself room to get machinery in/out/around the farm. Gate sizes and turn radius being equally important. There's so much to consider. Hope you'll keep us up to date with your progress! Glad you joined us and I look forward to following along on your journey!

 

[Yamabushi]

Hi! Thanks for your reply. Here are a few points to address some questions you had...

-I have a barn in #7, at the top of the hill there and slightly in the woods. I could have it at the bottom of the hill (closer to the house) instead of the top of the hill, but I heard that having your watering area/high traffic erosion area at the top of a hill is better.

-I have a spring which ill pump water from, to a water troth in #7 as well. I was planning on eventually having that then feed horizontally to a water troth in 1, and another in 4. Until I have that in place I will move water by hand from the troth in 7.

-For predators I have two Great Pyrenees who live with the sheep, as well as the permanent fence being electrified high tensile woven wire, and any temporary paddocks are electrified netting.

-I was planning on just having them graze without shelter , and if there is bad weather I just move them back to 3/7. They are a St Croix and seem pretty hardy (have been living without shelter until a few weeks ago).

-I was planning on having a drive through gate going into 2/1, one drive through gate into 3, and a walk through gate going into 5

-For rabbits I was going to do rabbit tractors, and I was planning on browsing the rabbits/chickens in paddocks ahead of the sheep so that they aren't grazing with the sheep. So for example, grazing them in 5 while the sheep are in one, and so on and so forth. But I wasn't sure if that would be a long enough rest period for the pasture between animals.

 

[Baymule]

I have Katahdin/Dorper cross hair sheep and they happily eat the weeds first before they eat the grass. So if your reason for goats is for weed control, I'd skip the goats unless you plan on milking them for the family consumption. We put them in a briar infested pasture and they did an awesome clean up as far up as they could reach. When we pulled the briar vines out of the trees, the sheep swarmed all over them, we picked the vines up the next day and hauled to the burn pile. Haha, our sheep run to the sound of a chain saw!

Gates! None less that 12 feet, in some places 16 feet is better. Think swing room for tractor, even if you don't have one. We buy round bales from a neighbor, pay him extra to store them in his barn and he delivers them one at a time with his big cab tractor. We have a tractor, but it isn't big enough to move round bales. I would have a drive through gate for every pasture, you will be glad you did. My husband thought I was nuts with so many gates, now he thinks I'm brilliant.

When it comes to moving my sheep from one pasture to another, all I do is shake a feed can, screech SHEEP! SHEEP! SHEEP! in a banshee wail, and they come running! If I don't want to be trampled, I shake the can, while calling them so they see and hear me pouring out their treat, they are at the gate bawling and baa-baaing, I open the gate and get out of their way!

Why is the outside line so irregular? Are you intentionally leaving out space in your property? Why not go all the way to the property line? Your pastures seem to be leaving out a lot of trees, which the sheep will need for shade in the summer.

Rabbits. They might dig out of your tractor. It would be a lot less intensive on your part if you kept them in hanging all wire cages in a shed with good shade and air flow for summer heat coolness. You can wrap the barn sides with heavy plastic in winter, leaving air space for ventilation. You can raise greens for them and take to them. If you want them to enjoy a tractor, them place a few in the tractor at a time, or grow off the young bunnies in one.

Graze your chickens and bunnies AFTER the sheep, not before. The chickens will poop on the grass and scratch it up, that's what chickens do. The sheep will not eat chicken pooped on grass. Also if you follow the sheep with the chickens, they will eat fly larva from the sheep droppings. If you are going to move your chickens from pasture to pasture, put the coop on a trailer. I have an old boat trailer I bought for a few bucks, waiting on me to do my other projects, for my future mobile coop.

Welcome to the forum, we are delighted to have you here. You might want to put your general location in your information so other members will know your weather patterns and can give better advice for you.

 

[Bossroo]

Since different areas of our country have different weather, soils, and economic situations, we can only offer more general advice as to your specific farm. First, I would seriously reconsider your management system. For starters, I would contact your Land Grant University at their Animal husbandry sheep, goat, chicken, rabbit Departments. Soils, erosion / range/ forage / water management Departments. Vet school for disease / nutrition management as well as control pests that spread disease ( rats, mice,, birds, insects, etc.) . Also your nearest Agricultural Extention Service for the most local tried and true advice. Good luck !

 

[Latestarter]

It's obvious you've put a lot of thought into your plan already. And the wonderful thing about asking for a forum of folks to inject their thoughts is there's a better than average chance that they'll have at least a few thoughts that you haven't had yet And there's quite a LOT to think about! Also of course, since this is a one dimensional communication, and we're limited by space and time, you can't tell us everything you've already considered. Works in reverse as well in that we can't share every detail we've come up with either The one for sure thing is; I think everyone has the best situation for your intended outcome in view as they recommend things. Many won't respond simply because of the vast amount of variables involved with a "whole farm" plan... lots of thought required! It can be daunting/overwhelming...

As Bay said, I would definitely put the chickens BEHIND the sheep! They'll clean up the bugs (free added protein you don't have to pay for) and they'll scratch the sheep poop as well as their own into the spoil for fertilizer, thereby helping enrich the soil for re-growth faster. She also had a great recommendation to use a movable coop (trailer on regular sized wheels pulled by a lawn tractor or larger farm tractor) as well vice a more traditional chicken tractor which will need to be moved daily, or multiple times a day depending on tractor size and # of chickens inside it. Also, typical chicken tractors leave a completely barren/bare dirt/scorched earth area every place you move the tractor to. The chickens will have the area inside the tractor cage basically destroyed in a matter of hours. Bunnies dig holes better than chickens do... and chickens do love a good dust bath... just a thought If you use the electric netting to enclose an area around the mobile coop, you could do it in quadrants around the coop so only move the coop once every 2-4 days within a pasture... a lot LESS labor intensive...

Differing thoughts on barn location; Top of hill so run off rolls away... if heavy precip, this could cause erosion problems down the road. If barn in low lying area, you have to deal with flooding and mud/puddles. In any case, you're going to be looking at the area around the barn being a high traffic area. I get it. Ideally we'd all have perfectly flat or very gently rolling land so we could place the barn in an ideal location. Now if you look at virtually every "old farm" you'll see that in virtually all cases, the barn is very close to the house, and some cases, it's even attached TO the house! There's a reason! Remember, you're going to have to go out there in hot/cold, dry wet, rain/ice/sleet storms to feed/water/check/move the animals... every day... maybe twice a day or more often, especially during bad weather or during lambing (which they seem to plan to happen right during the worst weather). The thought of having to move buckets of water (and hay/feed) from source to distant location every day, in all weather conditions... Ummm, nahh, not interested!

My concern is; I'm not a young man anymore so look at "what's going to make me the least work load"? and then plan accordingly. It's only "fun" until it becomes work/a chore... Then it is no longer fun. I'm going to need to work on animals in the barn (injured/sick/birthing/babies), store feed and equipment in the barn. Basically, the barn is going to become my home away from home... I don't want to have to walk a 1/4 mile to/from the barn multiple times a day (or every hour to check on animals about to deliver babies).

The smaller you make the pasture/paddock, the faster they'll wear it down... and that's NOT linear, it's logarithmic. For example, if 25 sheep will wear out a one acre pasture in one week (typically that would be measured in days days rather than weeks), then it might take them THREE weeks to wear out a 2 acre pasture and maybe 8 weeks for three acres, and on 5 acres, you might never have to move them at all. The reason is their foot wear will be less and the eating pressure will be more spread out over a larger area, allowing the forage to regenerate faster, even while the sheep are still there eating it. Since every location is location specific, having your county extension agent (or local state/farm university) come out and help you is of the utmost importance (as Boss pointed out above)! He/she/they can provide specific guidance for YOUR location based on all the details of what your location has to offer you & the animals, right down to a soil/plant analysis to determine mineral deficiencies for the plants as well as the animals, to help you improve both. And the best part is, their help is FREE!

Gotta love working dogs! Would love to see some pics of your sheep and dogs if you're willing to share. We have a pretty dedicated group of LGD folks here as well as all the Sheeple and Goat Folks. And we ALL are addicted to pictures...

 

[Yamabushi]

Gates! None less that 12 feet, in some places 16 feet is better. Think swing room for tractor, even if you don't have one. We buy round bales from a neighbor, pay him extra to store them in his barn and he delivers them one at a time with his big cab tractor. We have a tractor, but it isn't big enough to move round bales. I would have a drive through gate for every pasture, you will be glad you did. My husband thought I was nuts with so many gates, now he thinks I'm brilliant.

With this said, Ill plan on all 4 gates being tractor wide.

Why is the outside line so irregular? Are you intentionally leaving out space in your property? Why not go all the way to the property line? Your pastures seem to be leaving out a lot of trees, which the sheep will need for shade in the summer.

Firstly its a very irregular pasture (not much symmetry) because it hasn't been managed for over 50 years. Its hard to see but there is a road that cuts through the woods, and that is why you see the fence line cut up through there in this way. On the left you see how it doesn't circle the whole pasture. That is because I am leaving paddock 5 without permanent fence, because I want to encourage deer to graze in that line. I want to leave that pasture open for deer so that I can hunt it in the future, and that line is in perfect line with a treehouse or tree stand site. There is a lot of trees in paddock 2 and 3. The top half of 2 is trees and the top quarter of 3 is trees. There are also a few tree patches in the various other paddocks. The reason it doesn't go around the whole property line is because of cost and also because it would have to cross my driveway, and go through a lot of trees making post driving that much harder.

Rabbits. They might dig out of your tractor. It would be a lot less intensive on your part if you kept them in hanging all wire cages in a shed with good shade and air flow for summer heat coolness. You can wrap the barn sides with heavy plastic in winter, leaving air space for ventilation. You can raise greens for them and take to them. If you want them to enjoy a tractor, them place a few in the tractor at a time, or grow off the young bunnies in one.

My plan was to have a hoop house type structure with bars across the bottom which allow grass to come up but prevent the rabbits digging out. Then I might have a kiddie pool in each rabbit tractor with dirt in the kiddie pool so the rabbits can still dig, and so i can harvest the dirt/rabbit poop from the kiddie pool at will, while still spreading the poop in the pasture by moving in the field. Maybe I'm getting too fancy with this idea but I really like the idea of the rabbits being able to have fresh grass and the ability to dig. But I might just have to compromise if its too hard to work into the scheme.

Graze your chickens and bunnies AFTER the sheep, not before.

Thanks, Ill do that. I just hope the resting period is still long enough between animals where I'm not overgrazing the pasture with various things.

My concern is; I'm not a young man anymore so look at "what's going to make me the least work load"? and then plan accordingly. It's only "fun" until it becomes work/a chore... Then it is no longer fun.

Haha great point. I'm a young man but suppose I need to think about when I'm older too. I originally planned on having the barn at the bottom of paddock 3, just next to the tree line you see there. I'm really still on the fence about which I should do. It's just a 12x12 shed for now, as that is what I have materials for.

Gotta love working dogs! Would love to see some pics of your sheep and dogs if you're willing to share. We have a pretty dedicated group of LGD folks here as well as all the Sheeple and Goat Folks. And we ALL are addicted to pictures...

Here is a picture of both boys. The one in the front I got at 12 months old from a family who were trying to raise him indoors and got overwhelmed. The one in the back is 9.5 months old and has been with the sheep since a couple months old. This is him showing how to relax around the sheep. Trying to get the new dog to adjust to the sheep has been a trick. I've just been bringing them in with the sheep every day. The new dog has a tendency to chase which riles both dogs up. I have tons of questions about proper LGD management so ill make a new thread about it some time later.
http://i.imgur.com/Fmt0UeX.jpg?1

Since different areas of our country have different weather, soils, and economic situations, we can only offer more general advice as to your specific farm. First, I would seriously reconsider your management system. For starters, I would contact your Land Grant University at their Animal husbandry sheep, goat, chicken, rabbit Departments. Soils, erosion / range/ forage / water management Departments. Vet school for disease / nutrition management as well as control pests that spread disease ( rats, mice,, birds, insects, etc.) . Also your nearest Agricultural Extention Service for the most local tried and true advice. Good luck !

Adding this to my list for Monday!

Welcome to the forum, we are delighted to have you here. You might want to put your general location in your information so other members will know your weather patterns and can give better advice for you.

It's great to be here, and I appreciate all the help so far.

 

[Baymule]

What @Latestarter said about the barn location X 2! You will be making midnight checks on expectant ewes and don't want to slog through rain, mud, snow, ice, hurricane weather, etc waaaaaay away from the house. We had a 36'x36' barn built last winter and it is about 60' behind the house. The sheep shelter is in front, to the side, about 40'. Convenient.

Years ago I raised show rabbits. I kept around 50-60 working does, plus several bucks for each color in the breed ( I kept 5 colors). I had a barn under trees with all hanging wire cages. They were hung back to back in rows. To keep the flies down and to keep the poop turned, I had a chicken coop attached to the rabbit barn. The chickens also ate the feed the rabbits dropped, hardly had to feed the chickens at all. That made almost free eggs! It was it's own little efficient eco system. At any one time, I would have around 300 rabbits. Having the chickens in the barn made a world of difference in labor keeping the poop cleaned up. Basically the chickens composted the rabbit poop in place. All I had to do was shovel it out every so often.

You have a couple of nice looking dogs. Keep working with the one that wasn't around animals, he'll come around.

 

[greybeard]

That is because I am leaving paddock 5 without permanent fence, because I want to encourage deer to graze in that line. I want to leave that pasture open for deer so that I can hunt it in the future, and that line is in perfect line with a treehouse or tree stand site.

I wouln't worry too much about that--deer will find their way in and out of that area at will and very easily jump anything short of an 8-10' fence. I see them jump my gates (top tube +6' high) all the time.

 

[NH homesteader]

Read through the LGD section, we have a resident LGD expert who may answer a lot of your questions if you read through old posts. I won't tag her here because that's not the point of your post but look for any info from Southern by Choice and you'll be getting great info.

How do you currently raise your meat birds? Cornish X?

Oh and welcome to BYH!