Rolling up the Paddocks

After ignoring the hay for the past three months, the cows went through the last round bale I had on hand very quickly.  As you can see, there's nothing left.  I called the gentleman that I purchase my hay from and asked him to please deliver me 8 more bales.  At this time of the year, the grass in the pasture falls off in terms of quality as it goes to seed and its nutritional content is not as good.  So the cows begin to eat hay again.

The gentleman I buy hay from told me that he would and then went on to tell me that he's had a rough 3 months.  First, he told me that the tremendous rainfall during August diminished the quality of the hay as well as his yield.  Then a connecting rod went out in his tractor.  Then his hay rake broke and was beyond economic repair so he had to get a new one.  Finally, his baler caught fire and burned to the ground and he barely got the tractor unhooked and moved or it would have burned too.  Those are some tough breaks.

Up to this point, I still had the pasture partitioned off into different paddocks by temporary electric fencing using reels and fiberglass temporary step-in posts.  I move the cows to new paddock to eat fresh grass every two days and that allows the grass to rest and regrow before introducing the cows to it again.

At this time of year however, it is time to roll up all the fencing and allow the cows to have free choice to roam wherever they want to on the pasture and eat whatever grass they want.  The reels to roll up the poly wire make the rolling up process quick and efficient.

Upon opening a new paddock, the girls always rush out to dine on fresh grass. From this point on (until next spring), they can go wherever they wish.

You can see how in some places they've eaten the grass down to the ground.  This is not really a good thing as that is how they pick up parasites.  In other places, you can see how the grass is overgrown and not eaten.  In some of these cases, there is cow poop underneath it.  In others, the grass just got too tall and tough and now the cows won't eat it.

I finally rolled up the final cross-wire and the six paddocks is now only one big 3 acre one.

The cows now have 3 acres upon which to roam and graze.  The cooler temperatures and dry conditions tell me that the grass isn't going to grow much more now and that the cows will still graze, but they will now get most of their nutritional needs met from the round hay bales.

As of right now, I don't think I'm going to supplement their pasture and hay by planting rye grass.  I haven't had much success with rye grass due to the fact that the pasture is in dire need of lime.   Over the course of the next month or so, the cows will have access to the whole pasture and they will clip it down.  No worries, though, my order of hay will be delivered later in the week.