COCHRANE, Alta. – Nick and Janet Warner turned to the mob for help when getting their pastures in shape for an extensive custom grazing program.The couple, who operate Lochaven Farm near Cochrane, used a technique called mob grazing, in which large numbers of animals graze small paddocks.The cattle are left in the area until all the forage is removed evenly and close to the ground. The approach is often used to clean up pastures that contain a lot of coarse, mature plants.The Warners say they are among the first in their area to use this technique, which is gaining attention in North America.Five years ago, they took over 480 acres of timothy hay land that had degraded over time. They needed new grass and legumes to cover bare patches and provide adequate forage for their custom grazing business.”Our pastures were getting played out to the point where we needed a thicker stand of grass,” Janet said.”Mob grazing is a way to introduce seed into these timothy fields.”They blow seed into the ground from an all-terrain vehicle and then turn in the cattle to work in the seeds with their hoofs. Heavy grazing also stresses the timothy so there is less competition for the new seeds to germinate and grow.Once the new plants are established, the Warners leave about 30 percent of the grass rather than taking it down to almost nothing. They rely on their own seeding plan and what nature provides from a large seed bank in the soil.”If you mob graze correctly, a lot of those seeds will just come,” she said.They seeded brome and alfalfa in some paddocks and a brome-cicer milkvetch mix in others.Cicer milk vetch is a slow germinator and may take five years to develop a good stand. It also reseeds itself over time.”We don’t want alfalfa in all the paddocks because we need some escape paddocks if the conditions change for grazing alfalfa,” Janet said.Too much alfalfa can cause bloat problems.”There is nothing difficult about what we are doing, but it does take some time and you just have to be patient. A lot of this stuff fixes itself if you are patient.”Nick said he believes his cattle need to do more work.”Let them find their own bed and breakfast,” he said. “They are going to distribute their own fertilizer where they took that grass.”The Warners have another nearby quarter for late season grazing that contains a wider variety of wild and tame forages providing a different range of nutrients.Their grazing plan involved building 25 kilometres of permanent fence and five km of above ground pipelines so every paddock has water. They created 50 paddocks of 10 to 12 acres each that are divided with a single strand of 12 volt electric fence.The infrastructure cost $130,000, but they no longer have large farm equipment because the cattle do most of the work.The pastures will appreciate over time while the equipment will not.The new system will also leave them more time for their agricultural fencing business, which produces most of their income.The Warners placed more than 400 feedlot heifers in the summer grazing program this year.Grazing starts at the end of May and runs to the end of September. However, the cattle were not turned out until June 15 this year because of cold, wet weather.This year the Warners are moving their cattle three times a day – early morning, noon and late evening – because 2,000 pounds of dry matter per acre are enough feed to keep them going for longer periods.The cattle must eat everything in the paddocks before they are moved. Each paddock receives an extended rest period to allow plants to recover.Cattle weights increase from 580 to 680 pounds when they arrive on pasture to 950 to 1,000 lb. by the end of the season, for an average daily gain of 2.13 lb. for heifers.They charge a base rate of 12 cents per day per hundredweight. The cattle are weighed once a month.The client pays for medications and freight and allows a two percent death loss after the first month.Some cattle do not do well in such a system because they cannot take the pressure from the other animals. These are moved so that they can graze with less competition.The Warners netted about $70 per acre last year and believe they can double the carrying capacity and earn more per acre once the pastures are improved.Dandelions are plentiful in the pasture but the Warners leave them alone because they are palatable with high protein.”The dandelions and excesses of weeds are typically an indication of the fertility of the soil and we realized as the soil quality improves, the biodiversity improves and the dandelions will start to take more of a back foot and some of the grasses and legumes will come forward in our grazing program,” Janet said.
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