Subject: (none)
From: [email-masked] (Jim Bates)
Date: Sat, 7 May 94 06:16:00 -0800
Newsgroups: alt.sustainable.agriculture

JW>                               She is using sustainable practices with
JW>our sheep and having good success in managing our pastures, in a limited
JW>way (more pasture than sheep). What she would like to know is:
JW>1. Anyone using sustainable agri managing grassland
JW>2. Anyone using sustainable agri as a tool for managing food animals,
JW>sheep in particular
JW>3. How can she reach these people, if any
JW>4. Is there any way she can participate in this type of research

JW>We would appreciate any comments that anyone might have. She has had a
JW>hard time finding people who practices sustainable agri with food animals.

        I'm not sure what you or she may have in mind by "sustainable
agri with food animals."
        But here's what I do, and what we've done for the last 102 years
on this place.
        We raise cattle and hay.  My sister raises cattle, sheep, and
hay.   The hay is used to sustain the animals during the long winters we
have in Montana.
        The hay is fed to the cattle on the hayfields during Winter,
when the soil is frozen.  That converts the hay to a large supply of
manure, spread here and there about the hayfields.  I'm currently
harrowing the fields with a chain link harrow, to break up and
distribute the manure and uneaten hay.  That provides all the
nourishment that is added to the soil.... no chemical fertilizers are
used.
        The manure makes an abundant hay crop, the hay is fed, the
manure distributed, and the cycle goes on and on.
        The sheep are herded in bands, with a herder's gun and dogs
providing the primary protection against coyotes, which are abundant, as
as are mountain lions and bears.  The sheep feed largely on leafy
spurge, a plant which, except for sheep feed, is a noxious weed.  With
roots as much as thirty feet deep, it is ineradicable with toxic sprays.
An import from eastern Europe, it arrived without any natural predatory
controls and so thrives at the expense of grass.  Cattle won't eat it.
        With either cattle or sheep, a most important consideration is
pasture rotation.  The animal numbers should be proportioned to the
pasture size.  A pasture is grazed early in the season.  The food supply
is eaten well down.  Then the animals are moved to another pasture, then
another, and so on.  The first pasture, meanwhile, is regrowing,
nourished my the manures deposited.  Eating it is much like mowing it;
the grasses are stimulated to further growth.  This results in coming
back into the first grazed pastures late in the season and finding
abundant grass.
        We have a short growing season, about 100 days, and limits
imposed on pasture usage by numerous plants which are toxic to animals,
such as death camus for sheep and larkspur for cattle.
        If your wife has more sheep than pasture, she should consider
either increasing the number of sheep or cross fencing to proportion
pasture size to the sheep population.
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 þ OLX 2.2 þ If it screams, it's not food, yet....