MGFN Newsletter

Winter 2008

Volume 4 Issue 1

The new name of the Maine Grass Farmers Network is - The Maine Grass Farmers Network!

Attendees at the 4th Annual Conference overwhelmingly voted to keep the name we have had since the beginning. As announced in our last newsletter, the SARE grant that has provided funding for MGFN runs out at the end of 2007, so starting in 2008 we will become a membership organization supported largely by member dues which have been set at $25. The membership year will run from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31 each year, which will simplify recordkeeping.

This spring we will have a field day to do demonstrations and training on operating the equipment. Please contact Gabe Clark if you are interested in signing up to use this equipment. (207) 340-0098 gabe.clark@coldspringranch.com

Our first Annual Meeting and election/appointment of Board members will take place at the Maine Ag. Trade Show on Wednesday, Jan. 16 at 11:30 am. Please come and be involved in planning the future of MGFN.

We plan to update the product directory in February. Only people who are members as of February 14 will be listed in this edition, so please join before then! If you are already listed in the directory, this would be an excellent time to check your listing online and send any changes to Sónia Antunes at santunes@umext.maine.edu or call 1-800-287-1426.

Tuesday 9-5, Wednesday 9-8, Thursday 9-3. Visit over 100 exhibit booths to find out what's new, and attend seminars and meetings held by various organizations to learn about the latest developments in the ag arena. For agenda, visit www.getrealmaine.com/visit/trades_show.html

Featuring Missouri grazier keynote Greg Judy who’ll also lead additional workshops on high density stocking and leased land opportunities. Schedule includes themed tracks for dairy, meat, poultry, diversified farming, animal management, soil and forages, consumer interests, grazing partnerships, kids’ mini conference, and an intensive afternoon session focused on meat processing. Lunch time discussion sessions! Cheese table! Seasonal farm lunch! Terrific vendors and displays! For printable conference brochure, payment by credit card, lunch discussion details, radio commentary outlining the conference, check out the Vermont Pasture Network web site at: www.uvm.edu/pasture or call Jen Colby at (802) 656-0858

Participants will receive in-depth workbooks and other educational materials. These are paid for by Northeast SARE and NRCS Grasslands Conservation Initiative Funds. This is a unique opportunity to ratchet your grazing skills up to the next level! Visit www.comfortinnconcord.com or call (603) 226-4100. Only cost to participants is their own room and board. Rooms have been reserved at the Comfort Inn until January 14^th at a rate of $75 each. Rooms will have either a king or two double beds. Please register by January 20^th by calling Pam Joslin at Sullivan County UNH Coop Ext (603) 863-9200.

Gary Zimmer will reinforce the basics of eco-agriculture and give us a fresh perspective on mineralizing and balancing our soils to provide healthy food & feed, while sustaining healthy, profitable farms. Contact: Tessa Burpee, 207) 947-6622 ext. 5 Fax (207) 942-0574 www.heartofmaine.org To learn more about Midwestern Bio-Ag, their philosophy or to read a full bio for Gary, please visit www.midwesternbioag.com/aboutMBA

Featured speakers are Jim Gerrish and Sarah Flack in the morning, with an afternoon panel on producing and marketing grass-fed products featuring NH producers. Contact Carl Majewski at carl.majewski@unh.edu or (603) 352-4550

Registration $125. Registration can be by phone to Becky Casteel at 304-293-6131-4231 or visit www.umaine.edu/grazingguide for registration, agenda, and more. Registrations must be received prior to March 20, 2008.

Hosted by the Central New York RC&D Project Inc. Over 35 practical workshops, local grass-fed meats, Vendors and Surprises! For more details: Visit www.cnyrcd.org or call the CNY RC&D office at (607) 334-3231 Ext. 4

Watch for a special postcard mailing later this month with a calendar of
winter walks and meetings focused on winter management and other topics!

Business meeting followed by guest speakers: Audrey Slattery, State Dairy Inspector Cathy Cotton from the Milk Quality Laboratory and State Veternarian Dr. Don Hoenig. Current licensed cheesemakers will be on hand to field questions. If you are looking to get into cheesemaking in Maine or have questions regarding current regulations and licensing, please join us for this panel discussion.

The ‘Maine Feeds Maine’ (MFM) project is a collaboration of people who believe that by bringing producers, consumers and other interested parties together to think cooperatively about local and regional food networks, we may discover strategies, directions and allies we were unaware of before.

The first session focuses on marketing one’s farm by “word of mouth.” The second session focuses on barriers to integrating crops and livestock on the same farm, specifically as this relates to the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) standards.

Moderator – Bob Spear, President, Maine Sustainable Agriculture Society, Presenter – Greg Franklin, Principal, Gregory S. Franklin Associates Consulting, Panel Members: John Bliss, Broadturn Farm, Scarborough, Maine (tentative), Mark Guzzi, Peacemeal Farm, Dixmont, Maine, Gloria Varney, Nezinscot Farm, Turner, Maine (tentative)

Moderator – Rick Kersbergen, Extension Educator, University of Maine Cooperative Extension, Presenter – Dave Handley, Extension Specialist, University of Maine Cooperative Extension, Panel Members: Dick York, Nature’s Circle Farm, Houlton, Maine – organic certified and GAP certified, A representative of Whole Foods Market (tentative)

Treasurer/Secretary’s Report, President’s Report, Election of Directors, Other Business

1:30 Organic Eggs Success Story & Invitation to Maine Growers, Jesse Laflamme, Pete & Gerry’s Organic Eggs

2:45 The Basics of Organic Poultry Production - A focus on Feed & Health, Diane Schivera, MOFGA

3:45 Rodent Prevention & Control on the Farm - Richard Brzozowski, UMaine Cooperative Ext.

The Entrance of the Federal Government Into the Grass (Forage) Fed Livestock Industry
by Gabe Clark

In the words of the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) “we are trying to standardize the grass (forage) fed marketing claim to avoid customer confusion of what is and what is not grass fed.” This is the reasoning behind the new federal definition of grass (forage) fed livestock. Additionally, (and for similar reasons), AMS is working on a set of standards for the “natural” marketing claim. While the new guidelines for the grass (forage) fed claim are already published, the “natural” guidelines are currently in the open-for-comment phase, so now is the time to submit any thoughts that you have on the subject to AMS www.ams.usda.gov/news/241-07.htm

What do the new grass (forage) fed guidelines mean to the grass fed industry of Maine? Whether you are for or against government intervention in the market place, it does standardize what producers and marketers of livestock and livestock products can label as “grass (forage) fed”. Hopefully, standardization will clear up the gray areas in which some producers have been operating. What is not allowed to be labeled as “grass fed”, in the words of AMS, are animals fed “cereal grains, grain byproducts (starch and protein sources), cottonseed and cottonseed meal, soybean and soybean meal, nonprotein nitrogen sources such as urea, and animal byproducts”. What is allowed for feed sources are feeds classified as “roughage” (e.g. cottonseed hulls, peanut hulls, and almond hulls) These are defined as any feed high in crude fiber and low in total digestible nutrients, on an air-dry basis, and can be supplemented in a grass (forage)-based diet. These feeds tend to be low in nutrients and their bulk stimulates “peristalsis”. Additionally mineral supplements are acceptable, according to the AMS guidelines.

The AMS has offered the following statement to clarify when a crop becomes a grain and when it is a grass or forage: “Crops normally harvested for grain (including but not limited to corn, soybean, rice, wheat, and oats) are only eligible feed if they are foraged or harvested in the vegetative state (pre-grain).”

The new grass (forage) fed claim now reads as: Grass and forage shall be the feed source consumed for the lifetime of the ruminant animal, with the exception of milk consumed prior to weaning. The diet shall be derived solely from forage consisting of grass (annual and perennial), forbs (e.g., legumes, Brassica), browse, or cereal grain crops in the vegetative (pre-grain) state. Animals cannot be fed grain or grain byproducts and must have continuous access to pasture during the growing season. Hay, haylage, baleage, silage, crop residue without grain, and other roughage sources may also be included as acceptable feed sources. Routine mineral and vitamin supplementation may also be included in the feeding regimen. If incidental supplementation occurs due to inadvertent exposure to non-forage feedstuffs or to ensure the animal’s well being at all times during adverse environmental or physical conditions, the producer must fully document (e.g., receipts, ingredients, and tear tags) the supplementation that occurs including the amount, the frequency, and the supplements provided. (AMS Grass Fed Guidelines) Although this new definition of “grass fed”, and the necessity to now comply, both in spirit and on paper, with the new federal regulations may seem cumbersome, there may be a positive value in the development of more specific guidelines. The new regulations clearly state that animals qualifying for the grass (forage) fed claim must have continuous access to pasture during the growing season. This may help exclude feedlot type grass (forage) fed systems from being utilized. In addition, clarifying the definition of a grass (forage) fed system may assist in subduing historical customer confusion over the differences among grass fed products.

For sometime it has been a common practice for conventional and natural meat companies to talk about the pasture time their animals receive; now with the institution of grass fed standards, customers will be able to identify the difference between a system in which the livestock are on pasture for merely a season versus truly grass finished livestock.

It is my hope that this new set of definitions and regulations can be used to improve the grass (forage) fed livestock industry on a local scale. Because of the establishment of these more clearly defined regulations, it may be more difficult for large centralized companies to set up products labeled as grass (forage) fed, when in fact, they are not. And maybe these new regulations will promote consumers to be more aware of what they are eating, where it came from, and what went into producing it – in short, to become locavores. I will leave you with a quote by Martin Picard, a French-Canadian chef who said, “You should always know the first name of the person you buy your meat from.”

Hanne Tierney of Cornerstone Farm, presented a great slide show of her operation at the Annual Conference in September. Below are some of the tidbits on management. Also check the spring 2006 newsletter for more information and a picture in Paula Roberts’ Farm in the Spotlight article.

· Sows can farrow outdoors well as long as the piglets have a place to get away

· Housing for older animals: A-frame of two pieces of plywood and enough framing to keep the plywood off the ground and handle across near the top

· Some genetic or maternal influence: rooters beget rooters and pasture eaters, pasture eaters

Jim is a Vermont farmer using mostly rented land to graze his livestock, in an operation that supports 3 families. Jim farms with his two sons in Shelburne, VT, within 9 miles of Burlington. Their farm, La Platte River Angus, raises cattle on 700 acres while owning only 10 acres. Jim has consciously minimized his equipment and mastered the art of low cost wintering without destroying sod. His animals have no housing and he does not own a manure spreader. Jim has developed some innovative techniques using his cattle to manage the land he uses.

The Kleptzes direct market five to six cattle per week in the summer and three to four weekly during the winter. They are the largest direct retailer of locally produced beef in Vermont. Jim attributes his success to being a low cost producer along with the division of expertise among him and his sons.

Jim talked about marketing his natural beef and how it was hard to sell when he started in the 1970’s. Gradually he convinced some local stores to carry his beef, and little by little he built his market to include many stores and restaurants in and around Chittenden county.

Jim said in order to use leased land, he had to learn how to build fence. He mainly uses 3/8” fiberglass posts with one strand of metal wire for perimeter fences. He makes good use of plastic square bale twine for corners and to secure wire in and around trees. He collects 5 gallon plastic buckets, and cuts the circular ribs at the top off with a table saw and removes the handle. He then cuts the round ribs in half, and uses the hole where the handle goes to string wire through with the bucket rib as an insulator around the tree secured with plastic twine. This way he can use trees without driving any nails. He uses polywire for interior pasture divisions.

Jim said that a good fence charger of at least 10 joules was important. He also tries to keep animals in a “training” pen with 4 hot electric wires for a time to make sure especially new animals are well trained to the electric before being released into leased pastures. He tries to have a corral system at each location with a semi circle chute built with strong wooden posts and 2 by material. His headgate is portable and can be moved to each of up to 7 locations attached to a trailer hitch. He said these handling areas are important so cattle can be gathered and worked on or loaded when necessary.

One thing Jim does that has saved him a lot of money, is haying some parcels and leaving the round bales right in the field. Then he’ll run animals there in the winter and put bale feeder rings over the bales, while moving through the field using polywire attached to fiberglass posts stuck horizontal into the bales. This saves a lot of money moving and storing bales, deposits manure in the field, and can quickly improve marginal land. Many neighbors have noticed how his grazing management is improving fields, and Jim is very close to the point of being able to actually charge people to “improve” their land by grazing his cattle!

Another thing that Jim is not afraid to do is to start feeding hay in the August - September slump in a dry year.

Jim has designed and built his own round bale feeders using ¾” stock. He makes his feeder openings 1’ wide, and wants 20 animals around the feeder. He said this is important to eliminate wasted hay. If less than 20 animals are in a group he will actually block off some feeder openings.

He said that spreading about ½ ton of lime a year on pasture was important in bringing many of these lands back, many which have not been fertilized for 5 or more years. A lime supplier close to him can spread ¾ lime and ¼ ash for as little as $30.00 per acre.

Jim has a cow herd of about 70 cows although he has between 300 and 400 head of animals at any given time. He said that the best way he’s found to wean is to leave the cows in the “training” pen and keep the calves outside, but within the perimeter fencing. He weans at 200 days and says that minimizes the feed required to winter the herd. He calves in April, and castrates right after birth along with giving the calves a shot of Bo-Se.

Jim does his own AI on the herd, and always uses bulls with birth weight EPD’s under 1. He still uses bulls, but tries to do enough AI to get replacement heifers. Most of his stockers are purchased from surrounding cow/calf operations.

Jim brings his stockers in as heavy as possible (around 1000 to 1100 lbs). He then slowly weans them off haylage and onto feed in a feed barn at his home farm. He or his sons examine every carcass, and he has over the years developed a fairly good eye for when an animal is finished. His animals average 18 months old at slaughter.

Winter may not seem the most charming time to visit a farm, but a winter visit can be as interesting and informative as a June pasture walk. Most of us who keep livestock all year would probably welcome ideas for improving our winter management systems. I look forward to visiting more farms in the next few months. Hay feeder for square bales at Longmeadows Farm

Hay feeder for square bales at Longmeadows Farm

On the afternoon of Sunday, December 10, a cold, partly cloudy day almost a week after a snowstorm dropped a foot of snow on the middle of Maine, I visited Xandy Brown at Longmeadows Farm in Benton. After graduating from Northeastern University with a degree in political science 6 years ago, Xandy returned to this farm where he had grown up and realized that he wanted to farm. While he lives in an apartment in Waterville and has a couple of other part time jobs, he spends part of almost every day at Longmeadows Farm. The farm has been home to a herd of Shorthorn cattle since his father, Mark, started raising them in the late 1970s, and currently has about 18 cows, along with their calves and a few calves Xandy bought from the local dairy farm where he does the bookkeeping.

The farm is on the Sebasticook River and has about 200 acres, 60 acres of which are hayland and about 30 acres of pasture. Xandy and his father hay about 70 more acres in the area for people who want their land kept open. They put up about 5000 square bales, some of which are sold locally. This year they made 11 bales of grass baleage and 22 of triticale silage. The triticale, an annual wheat/rye cross, is part of a rotation. Each fall three acres of the 60 acre hayfield are plowed and oats are planted the next spring. The oats are baled for feed in August and triticale is planted at the beginning of September, with perennial grass and Alice white clover underseeded to make hayground when the triticale has been harvested. This past November they grazed the young triticale, and they will bale the regrowth next spring. In summer 2007 Xandy had it harvested in early July when the seed was in the milk stage, and he feels that is too late. The animals seem to like it, but it is very stemmy and the cows have some trouble eating the stems. Feeding a mature grain plant also puts him in the position of feeding grain to his grass fed cattle and wondering if this means they are no longer truly grass fed. He plans to harvest the triticale at a younger stage next year, expecting it to be better feed.

During the grazing season the cattle are moved to new pasture about every three days when on 20 acres of the pasture. They plan to set up fencing in the future so that they can rotationally graze the regrowth on the hayfields, but now the cows graze the whole area when grass has regrown after haying.

At this time of year the cows spend most of their time in the yard around the big barn. If the weather is bad they can gather underneath the barn for shelter. There are a couple of round bale feeders in the yard, and a long hay rack built out from the barn with a ramp above where one can carry square bales from the barn and drop them down into the feeder. The cattle can feed from either side. Xandy said he has weaned calves by keeping cows on one side of the feeder and calves on the other so that they can still eat nose to nose, but the calves can’t nurse.

One major change he has made this year is to breed the cows much later than in other years. Previously the cows would calve in January and February, but though the calves have done all right, it is a hard time to calve, and he’s generally had to bring the cows into the barn at night. In 2008 the cows will calve in April and May, and he expects it to be easier on everyone, with the calves being born outside.

I asked Xandy why they raise Shorthorns, and he said, “Shorthorns have a good disposition which makes them very easy to handle. They calve very easy, usually without any help. Because they are dual purpose we feel their calves do very well due to the increased milk production. This also allows us to throw an additional calf on the mother who will then nurse two calves and save us on milk replacer (a nurse cow). Shorthorns are known to do particularly well on grass alone, not needing many nutritional inputs. They are also hardy.”

I observed that his cows were unconcerned about having a couple of strangers walk around among them, and a couple even approached us.

He added that a story in the NY Times said that Shorthorn beef was judged to have the best flavor of a variety of breeds, though they might not be as tender as some.

They direct market the meat through their website, the sign out front, and word of mouth. The meat is custom processed and the beef sold as quarters, sides, or whole. A few pigs are raised each year, purchased as weanlings, and the meat from these is sold by half or whole.

I expect watering systems are a challenge for many of us, particularly in the winter. I was interested to see the frost-free Ritchie waterer that was installed a couple of years ago in the cow’s yard outside the barn . It has a single hole with a float in it, and Xandy said that it didn’t freeze up even when the temperature dropped to -20 degrees. He said that John O’Donnell had given them the tip of pouring a pitcher of hot water over it twice a day, and he feels that has helped. Occasionally he has had to break a layer of ice on top with a rubber mallet.

Before the Ritchie was installed the cows had access to a stream that flows through the farm to the Sebasticook. That has now been fenced off except for two crossing areas. The cows have had access to the new waterer from all their grazing paddocks in the summer as well as during the winter, but Xandy has plans to provide water to the paddocks next summer. Many decades ago a windmill was put up by the river. It has not been used for years, but Xandy is planning to get it running to pump water from the river to water tanks in the pasture so that the cows don’t have to go all the way back to the barn for water.

Another new water system will be ready for use next year in a pasture beyond the hayfield across the road. With NRCS support, Xandy had a concrete dry well, four feet in diameter, set about 14 feet into the ground. The bottom tile has holes in it, the one above that has a four inch pipe that leads to a 500 gallon holding tank 110 feet down the slope. Ground water fills the well and flows down the pipe to the tank where the cattle will be able to drink.

I look forward to returning to see the windmill in operation to provide water at one end of the farm and the holding tank full at the other end, and to see those spring-born calves grazing in the pastures with their mothers. Stay tuned!

At MGFN’s conference Marge Kilkelly, former state legislator, gave a workshop about Thyme for Goat, a marketing collaboration between 5 farms to sell goat meat (“the other red meat!”).

Four of the farms, including Marge’s, raise Boer goats, a meat breed, and the other raises Cashmere, which are bred primarily for fiber. They wanted to market the meat directly to consumers because they felt it would be less stressful and more humane. They are also committed to the idea of buying and selling food locally.

The purpose of the collaborative was to share costs, equipment, and the work load with others, since none of them raises enough goats to do direct marketing alone, and they all have other jobs.

This past year they sold goat meat at one farmers’ market, and their goal is to sell at three markets next year. They are also working with restaurants, a cafe and bed and breakfast. So far they are able to raise and purchase enough animals to meet the demand. They have found that dairy goat producers are interested in a more humane outlet for kids and excess animals rather than selling them to a livestock dealer or at auction.

One challenge they have is that they are marketing to people who have never eaten goat before. But many customers are looking for lowfat, tasty foods, and want at the same time to purchase meat from locally raised, natural, healthy animals.

The members of the collaborative provide samples for tasting at the farmers’ market and other information, and have found many enthusiastic customers. They find it helps if the meat is in cuts that customers are familiar with and if they are given recipes. The Thyme For Goat folks have brochures with recipes and are developing a cookbook.

This collaborative marketing venture has worked for these farms, and might be a model that would work for other producers, too.

If you have horses, AND you have pastures that you wish to keep healthy and productive, you probably already know that the two are not very compatible. But there are things that a willing manager can do to bring the two into closer harmony. It is not always easy. There may be some management practices which you will have to be willing to reconsider, and most likely give up, such as allowing your horse or horses access to all of your pasture, all of the time. Being willing to change your current management style may be the single most difficult part of getting your pasture into shape. This was the message that Darrell Emmick, NRCS Grazing Specialist for NY state, communicated to a group of horse owners at the MGFN Annual Grazing conference in September.

Let’s start with the common features of the horse and its care which cause pasture managers a challenge:

Horse hooves: assisted by the weight they carry, they quite effectively cut up turf and compact soil. When soils are wet, the damage is most severe. And then there are those infamous sliding stops that a running horse does as she approaches the pasture fence. Throw in a crow hop or two on moist soil, and you have the makings of a rough, pock-marked surface.

A good set of choppers: Having both upper and lower teeth (unlike cows and other ruminants) allows her to bite off grass plants very close to the soil surface. Keep her on the same ground for a season, and she will choose to bite off the tender new growth over and over again as soon as there is enough to grab. This repetitive removal of a grass plant’s leaves means no surface to take in sun for photosynthesis, forcing the plant to draw on root reserves for regrowth. Over time, root systems weaken and die, and grass plants are replaced by undesirable weeds. Those hooves again: They are great for trampling. A horse will eat for 18 hours a day if given the opportunity. They don’t take time off to sit and ruminate (as do ruminants). So that means 18 hours of walking back and forth, around and around, trampling and soiling potential feed, reducing the amount of edible available forage.

Selectivity: The horse prefers some plants over others. She does not prefer the weeds that fill in the bare spots. She does not prefer what she has trampled under foot. She does not prefer anything that comes close to her manure piles. She has lots of manure piles if she is outside a lot. Oftentimes, she creates a “bathroom” area in which she chooses to drop her piles. The bathroom area gets larger all the time. The edible pasture area gets smaller.

Management styles: There are as many as there are horse owners. Some turn out horses alone. Some in small groups. Some all together. Some year round. Some for short periods. Some 24 hours a day. Some want the horse to be able to run. Some fear that a valuable animal might get injured if it runs. Some expect their horse to get feed from the pasture. Others want to limit a chunky horse’s intake of green stuff. You get the picture. It’s hard to come up with a model grazing system without a typical management model.

What’s a horse owner to do? Learn what makes a pasture healthy, consider your desires and your horse’s needs, make some adjustments to better accommodate the pasture’s needs.

Pasture plants need: Rest (freedom from being grazed) to regenerate their root reserves and to grow new leaf area. A minimum of 2 inches of remaining LEAF MATERIAL (not stubble from stems) after grazing to intercept sunlight and turn it to food. A decent pH level, generally in the range of 6.0-6.5. They may need fertilizer from time to time as well. (Get soils tests done to determine the appropriate amounts for your specific pasture). Soil that is not too compacted to allow air and water to infiltrate. To be grazed or mowed when they get taller than 8 inches to keep them from producing stalks and seeds, and to stimulate new, nutritious leaf growth. Mowing periodically can also help to control weeds before they produce seed that will create more weeds.

Emmick says that for a good pasture system, plan on needing 2.5 acres per horse. Many people won’t have that, which is why use of a sacrifice area is so important. It allows you to put and take horses from pasture to keep it from getting eaten down too far, protect it in wet weather, wait for pasture regrowth to occur during drought, etc. A sacrifice area may be a small piece of the pasture (whose quality you sacrifice for the benefit of the rest of the pasture), or you may create an exercise area with well-drained footing materials such as gravel, a slight slope to keep water from pooling, and hopefully, a good distance (and a vegetated buffer) from surface waters to protect them from rainfall runoff that comes in contact with manure deposited there. These areas are often most conveniently situated close to your barn or shelter. Use roof gutters to direct water away from the area if possible. Gates or laneways to pasture may be located adjacent to the sacrifice area.

In order to maintain a pasture in good (or better), condition, in addition to utilizing a sacrifice area, horse owners and managers really need to subdivide and rotate pastures. If you subdivide your pasture into separate paddocks, and rotate animals between the paddocks, you can allow most of the pasture to rest while you are grazing a small portion of it. To illustrate how rotation can have a positive effect on pasture productivity, Emmick said that one acre of pasture under continuous grazing (no rest) can support approximately 750 lbs of animal (a pony), while a 4–paddock system (moving every 7-10 days) can support 1100 lbs on that same acre (a good-sized horse), and a 16-paddock system (moving animals every other day) can support 1700 lbs.

To put that in perspective, a one acre pasture divided into 16 paddocks that are 50 ft x 50 ft (or 25 ft x 100 ft) can service one large or two small horses. An acre divided into a 4-paddock system to service one average horse would measure 100 ft x 100 ft (or 50 ft x 200 ft.)

Timing of Grazing – spring, start grazing at 4 inches of height, and in June through Oct. start at 6-8 inches. Intensity of Grazing – Always leave a minimum of 2 inches of leaf area (not stubble) for regrowth. When grass gets that low, it is time to move to the next paddock. Duration of Grazing – Shorter rotations are better. The longer horses are in one place, the more trampling and wasting occurs, as well as re-grazing the same plants. Longer rest periods result in higher forage yields. At MINIMUM, move animals to a new paddock at least once a week. Every 1-3 days is preferable. The more frequently you move, the more paddocks you need (i.e., break the pasture into smaller subdivisions). Paddocks will each need to rest for an average of 30 days to reach the minimum regrazing height (2 weeks in May, 4 weeks in June and July, 6 weeks in September). What we most often find on closely-grazed pasture in the northeast is that Kentucky Bluegrass and white clover are the only species that have survived repeated and intense defoliation. If you have these present in your pasture, they can make serviceable horse pasture. It is not always necessary to reseed a pasture that you wish to improve, if desirable grasses and legumes are still present, clipping to control weeds may be all that is needed. Given a chance, the desirable plants that are already there can become healthy and productive. You will find that over the course of a grazing season or two, your pasture will become more productive without the trouble and expense of having it reseeded.

If you must start from scratch, a good species mix that seems to work best for horses in the northeast contains Timothy, Orchardgrass, Bluegrass, and white clover. (However, remember that a newly-seeded pasture may only be lightly grazed the first year, if at all.)

Summary: The key to maximizing the quality of your pasture (on limited acreage especially) is the use of a sacrifice area, combined with rotation through a subdivided pasture. Rotation involves removing animals from a paddock when there is 2 inches of leaf matter remaining, and resting it till it achieves 6-8 inches of height. This is roughly the same standard that all practitioners of intensive-management grazing systems follow. They are fairly simple principles to work with. How you work that out on your land with your horses will be a very individual thing which may take some thinking, some planning, and perhaps a bit of sacrifice. But the rewards are greener pastures, better feed, and less environmental impact.

General rule of thumb to determine number of paddocks needed for an average 30 day rotation:

I attended two sessions presented by Frederick Provenza at the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) conference this January. Both concerned ruminant eating and foraging behavior and biological reasons for this behavior.

In the introduction to his book, Provenza says, “Our work has shown how simple strategies that use knowledge of behavior can markedly improve the efficiency and profitability of agriculture, the quality of life for the manager and their animals, and the integrity of the environment.” When farmers study this fascinating topic and use Provenza’s methods, much of what he says becomes evident to them.

Palatability is a term that describes what and how much of a food an animal will eat. One side of the equation concerns postingestive effects. These are influenced by the chemistry of the food—i.e., nutrients and toxins in the food and the animal’s nutritional needs. The other side of the equation concerns flavor and includes odor, taste and texture. Feedback from postingestive effects will influence whether the animal likes or dislikes the flavor. If an animal eats a familiar meal with a novel food added, and if the food corrects a nutrient deficiency in the animal, the animal will like the flavor of the new food. Many people can relate to a reverse example: Consider how you feel when you get a stomach virus after eating a certain food. Even though you know that food is not what caused your illness, you still don’t like that food anymore. Likewise, if an animal feels sick for some reason after eating a particular food, the animal will associate that food with illness and won’t like the food anymore.

Variety in an animal’s diet is important for sustained consumption—partly because all food contains some toxin. Only a certain level of the toxin can be consumed before the animal will recognize that it will be harmed. Different plants contain different toxins that will detoxify each other if combined. Animals learn by postingestive feedback (positive and negative feedback from cells and organs) to eat these combinations in order to reduce the toxic effects and still meet their nutritional requirements. The other reason animals eat many different plants is to meet their nutritional needs or to correct a deficiency.

Sheep will graze clover rather than grass in the morning when they are hungry, because clover has a higher level of digestible protein than grass. After eating all clover, they satiate or acquire an aversion to the nutrients, soluble carbohydrates and proteins, toxic cyanide and/or the same flavor. In the afternoon they switch to grass, with its new flavor, lower nutrient levels and low cyanide (but higher concentrations of alkaloids). This variety also ensures that they will eat more over the course of the day.

Likewise, if an animal gets a high level protein ration in the barn, it will look for lower protein grasses in the pasture. The reverse will also occur. Excess protein causes a sharp decrease in palatability due to excess (and toxic) ammonia production in the rumen.

Animals will eat more new or toxic plants if they are fed a nutritionally adequate diet, because they are not trying so much to correct a deficiency. They will be encouraged to graze less-choice plants, which will help the biodiversity of pastures. Proteins will help balance plants that are high in tannins, and carbohydrates help animals digest such toxins as cyanogenic glycosides. Choices help the animal meet its nutritional needs and reduce farmers’ costs and waste. Biochemical diversity provided through plant biodiversity will enable individuality, unlike a Total Mixed Ration (TMR). Research comparing TMR with free choice feeding of grains has shown that the latter will increase cows’ milk production by 11%; sheep will consume 25% more; and feed efficiency increased by 19% for beef cattle that were fed a choice of corn, alfalfa, barley and corn silage compared with a TMR; the choice diet reduced costs, too.

One way to encourage animals to feed on diverse plants is to seed pastures in blocks or strips. This allows animals easier access to patches of a specific plant, rather than having to sort through a larger area leaf-by-leaf, to meet their needs. Choice results in efficiency.

Learning to consume different feeds is easier when animals are young and more adventurous. Young animals will encourage their herd mates to eat more and to try new feeds or plants in the pasture. Additionally, research has shown that lambs fed wheat at a young age while with their mothers, compared with those fed wheat apart from their moms, for just one hour on each of five days will eat 10 times more wheat even three years later. A calf that is fed grain will eat it more readily as an adult. The same is true for pasture. Getting calves out to pasture with an adult, especially their moms, will produce cows that are good foragers.

This could be a way to control the bedstraw weed problem in Maine’s pastures. We could encourage animals to eat bedstraw by intensive grazing with their young in tow. Later in life these animals would be more likely to consume greater quantities of the difficult weed.

Whenever you sell an animal, it is helpful to send along some of the hay it is accustomed to eating; the familiarity will make its transition easier. Many research projects have shown that animals take three years to adapt to a new environment and begin to thrive. Environments also take time to adjust to a management change. This is something for farmers who are transitioning to organic to remember.

Animals eat minerals and other nutrients to correct rather than prevent deficiencies. Animals eat for flavor, not color. In older trials, minerals were offered to animals in colors and were mixed with sodium, so the animals did not have a chance to respond to the mineral contents because their taste for sodium was saturated first. The mineral status and phase of development and production of the animal must also be taken into account. Some minerals are stored in the body, so a deficit response would not occur immediately.

With improved understanding of animal behavior, newer experiments are giving animals the opportunity to link the flavor of the mineral with the correction of a deficiency of that mineral. Sheep responded in recent studies by eating additional calcium and phosphorus when their diets were deficient in those minerals and when they were given the minerals separately. They even ate less phosphorus when the diet was calcium-deficient in order to achieve the correct balance.

Farmers who intensively rotate their pastures and have pastures with a varied population of plants can easily observe these behaviors in their animals. The animals are excited to move to new pastures. After they learn the routine, they become very easy to move. They love the variety, and eat and produce more.

For more information, see Foraging Behavior: Managing to Survive in a World of Change, by Frederick D. Provenza, $9.99 from www.behave.net. This Web site has more information about animal behavior and feeding.

About the author: Diane is MOFGA’s organic livestock specialist. Contact her at 568-4142 or dianes@mofga.org

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