So far, I have divided two of the pastures into a total of 4 paddocks. I am not entirely sure what my end goal is. I think I would like to keep the cows on a piece of land for a week, maybe 2. This allows for vacations and other items (without requiring assistance from a farm helper, moving the cows every day while I am trying to relax!) Ideally, they are on a plot of land long enough to get the good stuff and the “blah blah” stuff. It is absolutely a learning process.

The variables never end – each pasture seems a bit different (what’s growing, moisture level, facing direction, etc…), the cows are changing (eating more – two calves, two 10 mo heifers and one jersey cow all eating more each day!) and the weather/seasons are changing. But, I am trying to record how long it takes my cows to eat down a paddock (none of them the exact same!) I hope to extrapolate this information going forward to get into a pretty good system (a few years out, no doubt!)

The main lesson learned of late was that you can’t judge a paddock from the barn. I knew I wanted to move the cows on August 1 and kept watching the paddock to be sure. Then, I noticed my Jersey nibbling on the stubble in the barn’s circle pen. When I went out into the paddock, I realized that the stems from various plants had made it look a bit more “full” than I thought. They were working on the last 5 inches on most of the area and it definitely looked over grazed.

Weather and everything plays a part, but I know that 1 month is a bit too long for the West Broad Street Paddock. I had been hustling to extend my fencing over to the next pasture (to create my third paddock) and had to simply pull out a solar energizer and divide the pasture with a strand of polybraid wire. The cows were insanely happy when I put them into it, but that’s another story.

My adventures with identifying the paddocks, setting up the paddocks (including water, etc..) and then dealing with getting my Jersey back to the stanchion from different locations on the farm are keeping me on my toes. More on these items later.

Finally, I have mostly finished the base design of the site and hope to post my first VLOG tomorrow. I need to dust off my old YouTube channel and see if I can get this thing to work