Free Lawn Care

As Spring arrives, the flowers begin to bloom, the bees begin to buzz, and the grass begins to grow. We love all these things as they are part of the cycle of life. Most of the land around our house is pretty untamed and we like it that way; however, we like our front yard to stay somewhat trimmed so we can do normal front yard things and to keep the snake population down. Mowing the lawn isn't that hard but we always find it takes double the time we think it will because issues always arise with the lawn mower. If you've ever owned a machine you totally understand. SO, I decided we could use the mini goats to mow the lawn. It's a win win, right? My lawn gets mowed and they get a nice little snack outside the confines of their fenced in home.

In my mind I had this picture that I would go get the goats and they would joyfully follow me to the front yard and willingly go on their leashes and eat happily in harmony in the front yard, enjoying the green grass and freedom. THAT picture did NOT happen! At least not at first. My experience was hilarious and probably a lot like wrangling twins.

I got the stake and twisted into the ground and hit rock (we live on a giant rock). I moved two feet over and twisted again and hit pay dirt. I packed the dirt in around it and set off for the goats. I leashed both goats (they're leash trained and wear collars all the time so I can grab them easily) and DRAGGED them to the front yard (we haven't practiced the leash in a while). I attached each of them to the same stake and sat on the front porch to make sure they did ok.

Tank (my billy goat) is ENAMORED with Fancy Pants right now (breeding season) so he took advantage of the fact the she was on a leash and couldn't get away. It was a nightmare for her and I was reprimanding him for taking advantage of her. He finally stops and finds that he can reach the front porch. So he jumps up joyfully to the front porch and poops EVERYWHERE. He's so happy and starts tap dancing and pooping all over the porch. I pushed him off the porch and swore that if he didn't start behaving that he was going home (they hate to be separated). He didn't care one bit and called my bluff on that one. He went over the the stake in the ground and started head butting it from each side to loosen it and pull it up from the ground. Then he head butted the water bowl and dumped it out so Fancy couldn't get any. I got tired of fighting with him so I took Fancy's leash (which is actually like a 20 foot rope type thing) and attached her farther away from the stake, took up the stake, replanted the stake FAR FAR away and leashed Tank off by himself. They had just enough leash to touch noses and both reach the water but that was it.

Fancy went on with her day enjoying the snack and gratefully grazing her area. Tank tested the radius of his leash for like an hour before he gave up and started eating, rolling in the dirt, and sunning.

They mowed my lawn to a perfect length and I took them back before dark. Instead of walking them back on the leashes, I grabbed a bucket of food and started running. They followed me in hot pursuit in hopes for what was in the food bucket. They were rewarded with the feed when they safely entered their fenced in home.

Next time, I'll separate them to start with and get a different water bowl for Tank because all he does is head butt it and knock it over. I also won't leash them to walk them to the yard but use the bucket of food approach instead. They did a great job at being goats and I learned a lot as their human. I can't wait to try it again without all the mayhem.

Disclaimer: We were home all day and left the window open so we could keep an eye and ear on them in case something went wrong. I would not feel comfortable leaving those two hooligans unattended. Also, goats regulate their temperature with water so we made sure they had hydration the whole day. They eat anything that fits in their mouths so remember to remove any yard ornaments you don't want eaten. They will eat your entire flower bed so keep them away from that.

Lessons Learned in Winter

Working with Cows in the Winter...

Working with Cows in the winter is... interesting. I'm not really sure how this differs from spring time and summer time work as this is my first winter under the management intensive system. Suffice it to say, that there is a steep learning curve. Below is a breakdown of how I thought winter would go in my head, the way things are really going down, and the kinks that sometimes derail the whole thing.

The Ideal Situation:
  In the winter, the ideal situation for my cows would follow these guidelines. They would slowly work their way through thick green grass that has been stockpiled on the back half of summer/fall. This grass would have been grazed at least one time, in early spring, prior to being stockpiled and would consist of a variety of grasses. Every one of these grasses hitting their growth peak during this fall to winter switch. The "growth peak" is the period of time just prior to maturity or seed reproduction. During this time, the ideal cows would slowly eat every square inch of the stockpiled nutrient rich grass. Not only would they eat it, but they would uniformly eat it. Every blade would be perfectly mowed as if I brought out the ole riding lawn mower to do the job myself. Finally, the girls would be so fat that they wouldn't need any extra hay supplements.  The extra hay supplements, by the way, to which I don't have access. They would continue on utilizing only the grass native to my farm. The team would love this grass so much that even when snow came, they would root through it in search of these tasty green morsels. That's the ideal situation anyway. Let me be the first to admit that I may need to lower my expectations a smidgen. This is the color of my farm in winter. If you find green, it's the exception not the rule.

The Real Deal:
  My cows do not follow any guidelines. Therefore, my cattle operation follows fewer and fewer of the commonalities others enjoy. The frustrating part is that every "old timer" around me is warming up the "I told you so" line. (To cover my rear, an "old timer" does not refer to one's age, but someone totally given to the conventional method of raising beef cattle. They are the first to point out the apparent flaws of my system.) My cows do whatever they want, whenever they want to do it. For instance: The don't do anything slowly. To think that they would take their time working through the pastures stockpiled grasses was apparently a joke. They immediately run into the next paddock and fight for the smallest morsel of fresh grass. This is the same fresh grass that was supposed to be all over my pasture by now. No! I started this little endeavor in the fall. Thus, I was unable to harvest the grasses at the appropriate time. Since I was unable to time this, all of the grasses have reached maturity. Instead of lush winter grasses, I have fully mature old world blue-stem everywhere. The girls hate it! Rushing to the next paddock indicates that they are not getting enough to eat. This left me with two options. The first was to open up larger sections for a paddock to allow the cows more grass to consume in a given day. The problem with this option is that they were already leaving behind mounds of very good grass behind them. They only wanted certain grasses. There goes the perfectly mown grass theory! Secondly, I could augment their daily consumption with hay. This is the method that I have chosen to employ. I have divided up square bales to be available for each move. Each paddock receives the appropriate amount of square bales for the cows. They eat the hay after they have searched the paddock for the grasses that they like and leave quite a bit of hay each day. They are literally never satisfied. Yet, this is my favorite part of the game. Part of the fun of this process is tweaking the different elements to ensure the happiness of my harvesting team. And I'm getting better at it. That is... until the snow came.

The Kink:
  The day after Christmas, Texas experienced a freak snow storm. Actual snow! I mean, we get ice and stuff that they try to call snow from time to time, but this was real white puffy stuff. Snow! I have heard that cows are adapted to handle some pretty extreme conditions. I have even heard from folks that it doesn't hurt to leave them where they are to weather the storm. Maybe I'm a "softie", but I couldn't do that to my harvesting team. So, I abandoned my management intensive grazing system for a few days to help my girls ride out the storm. I moved them from out in the field where there was no cover from the snow to our goat yard where there is plenty of cover. In the goat yard, there are trees, the back side of a barn and many different things to aid in riding out the storm. The team didn't exactly understand why I brought them in from the field, but their concerns waned when I brought them some fresh hay. Also, the grass in the pen has been resting for the entirety of their stay out in the pasture. This meant that fresh young winter grass was spread throughout the cage. I knew that bringing them into these close quarters would mean the end of the stand of grass in the cage, but between the health of grass and cows, I choose cows every time. Grand total time spent in the cage was 3 days. After three days the snow had melted and the cows were restless to see the pasture again.

Wintering Cows Wrap-up:
  I wasn't able to see the results that some have reported about being able to ride out a full blown snowstorm without changing their management intensive plan. However, I don't feel too bad. Reports have come in from across the state and the loss of cattle life was extensive due to the storm. I think the combination of a freak storm and my grass fortitude not being where it should be led me to balk at the first sign of significant snow. I'm glad I did! Maybe things don't need to go perfectly every time. That may be hard for someone like me to hear, but it seems to be essential to raising cows...especially in winter.