The sacrifice pasture

Yesterday we saw how the cows are moving through our inventory of hay faster than poop through a goose.  You can see the round bale we rolled out a week ago this morning is pretty much gone.

The hay disappearing act

We do have another trick we use to stretch the hay.  We call it the sacrifice pasture.  All Spring and Summer and part of the fall, we leave the animals on the main pasture and they do a good job of keeping it mowed down.  We have a small pasture behind the barn that we let grow up tall in grass.  We put up a temporary fence in it and will turn the animals into it every once in a while.  Think of it like the canned goods in your pantry.  Normally you eat fresh grown produce.  But when the fresh produce isn't available, you reach into your pantry and pull out the stored items to supplement your diet.  Same principle here.  We're giving the cows a pasture we've stored up for them and it gives us a little more time so that we save the hay for when we really need it.


The sacrifice pasture

The picture above was taken from the sacrifice pasture looking back to the barn.  You can see how tall the grass is in there.  The cows can't wait to get in there!  You can see how Daisy, Rosie and Maggie rush into the pasture we've saved for them. 


An open gate to more food on their plate

Immediately, you can see that their heads are down and they are enjoying the new grass.


Thanks for opening that gate!

One thing we want to be sure of is to electrify the temporary fence that borders the new pasture.  This is done by taking the jump wire, attaching it to the perimeter hot wire and then running it to the temporary fence and attaching it so that the electricity conducts around that fence as well.  You can follow this in the picture below.  If you look on the bottom right, the red clip takes the electricity, runs it through the black wire and then clips into the temporary fence on the upper left. 

Jumping the electricity to the other fence

Here below, Tricia is applying our 'electric fence tester' to the wire to test to see if it is "hot."  This homemade tester is simply a blade of grass that we touch to the wire.  If it is electrified, you can feel the pulses hitting the blade of grass and confirm it is working without hurting yourself.  If it is not, you can troubleshoot and fix the problem.


Is the fence hot, Tricia?

The answer is yes.  We feel safe to let the cows in the sacrifice pasture now.  Cows respect electricity.  They are 1000 pound creatures that could run through that little wire like a hot knife through butter, but they don't because they've been shocked before and don't like the feeling.  For the record, I don't like being shocked either!