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Pasturing, Planting & Rotational Grazing

38K views 145 replies 32 participants last post by  Griffen 
#1 ·
We are fencing off 2 acres for our five Large Blacks and I'm wondering if it's big enough that they won't turn it all to mud? It's got a lot of good grass and clover. Also, what does everyone use for water? They are using a big tub now, but they like to dump it. We don't plan on keeping all four gilts unless they all turn out to be great moms.
 
#2 ·
That is too big. Instead fence the two acres with a good strong perimeter fence and then divide it up into multiple paddocks so that you can do rotational grazing to prevent any one area from getting too beaten up. As you rotate them, plant behind them. This will improve the forages, break parasite life cycles, prevent compaction of the soil and gradually improve the pasture.

Rotational grazing is pretty simple to implement and allows you to produce a lot of food for their diet. The basic rule is don't leave the animals on a paddock longer than about two weeks - much shorter is much better. Don't return to a paddock for at least 21 days - longer is better. Smaller paddocks are better than bigger paddocks. Mob grazing is useful for knocking down brush and opening up the soil for seeding. This breaks the parasite life cycles and gives the forages time to regrow. We also do frost, storm and mob seeding behind the rotations.

On the waterer, if you sink the barrel into the ground and put a small hole at the top for them to drink out of then they can't move it. Put some rocks in the barrel so they can't dive in and drown.

Here are some articles on how we do rotational grazing, fencing and water:

http://www.sugarmtnfarm.com/?s=rotational grazing

http://www.sugarmtnfarm.com/?s=fencing

http://www.sugarmtnfarm.com/?s=waterers

http://www.sugarmtnfarm.com/?s=frost seeding

Cheers,

-Walter Jeffries
Sugar Mountain Farm
in Vermont

PS. I have added the word Pasture to your title and will make it a sticky for this sort of discussion as this topic comes up a lot.
 
#141 ·
That is too big. Instead fence the two acres with a good strong perimeter fence and then divide it up into multiple paddocks so that you can do rotational grazing to prevent any one area from getting too beaten up. As you rotate them, plant behind them. This will improve the forages, break parasite life cycles, prevent compaction of the soil and gradually improve the pasture...."[UNQUOTE]

Hey Walter,
I wanted to pick your brain a bit (its easier then searching for thread)....Pretty soon we'll be moving to our own place. Its just a little 6 acre farmette/hobby farm. We've got to change some fencing (its 6 strand barbed wire), but I am "planning" on using about an acre for them to graze on & I've been looking for the thread where you mention dividing the acre into paddocks, but I can't find anything where you mention what size the paddocks should be. Right now I have 3 Mulefoot/Red Wattle Cross Sows (full grown about 5-600 #'s + & a young boar (same breed). I'll have them probably in their own space (at least the boar separated from the sows....maybe, right now he's too short to commence any business). But I want to start making plans on the size of the paddocks. I have cows, horses & goats that'll share the 6 acres. The cows (2) & the goats (10) will spend the summer on a 5 acre parcel elsewhere for the summer, so I can use a more grassier area for the pigs (& horses) while I work on the one acreage. But, I was curious about the size of paddocks to make.
I am making a list of the grasses, legumes, etc. that were mentioned in another thread.
And I was looking at sharing this acreage with the goats, to give them a broader foraging variety to their diet. But not have them on at the same time as the pigs. there's weeds that the goats will eat, that the pigs may not.
thanks :)
 
#144 ·
#4 ·
The most important species will be legumes - pigs can utilize legumes well. Grasses are good roughage but not much nutrition. Some broad leaf plants are very useful.

On my place it is difficult to raise ruminant because the pasture is so "hot" (high protein from mostly legume composition) that it's bad for the ruminants.

Depending on how many large blacks you have and what you feed them you might be good on 2 acres. It's real difficult to say over the internet.

Rule of thumb is that if they are ripping up the pasture real bad then just feed them more.

Good luck and let us know if you have any other questions
 
#5 ·
Grasses are good nutrition for pigs and they can get a lot of food value out of them. It depends on the type of grass and the stage of growth. Grasses produce softer leaf growth earlier on which the pigs benefit from. This is much like with sheep and cattle although cattle can digest rougher stems better. Grasses at later stages produce seed heads which benefit the pigs as well.

Best of all is a good mix of forage species rather than a monoculture.

First time through a new pasture they may root more because there may be good tubers and grubs below the soil but later if they're rooting too much then rotate them faster. Rooting is a indicator for rotation. See:

http://SugarMtnFarm.com/rootless-in-vermont/

We do managed rotational grazing and our pigs get the vast majority of their diet from pasture and we get very little rooting.
 
#6 ·
Diet isn't really quantity it's calorie. Highlands it sounds to me that your pigs are getting most of their calories from whey and milk products and eggs, not the forage.

I do managed rotational grazing without feeding 2000 gallons of whey a week or eggs. Highlands your pigs diet is, on a calorie basis very little pasture. I think you have a neat system and probably great pork.

Everyone's different and nobodies 100% got the perfect system. I feed whole grains and no protein source so therefore I need to use the pasture for protein. Our diverse mixture of legumes, forbs and grasses provides a pasture based diet that on a calorie basis is more dependent on forage then external inputs.
 
#7 ·
PasturedPork, I've raised pigs solely on pasture without the eggs, whey or anything else and they do fine. It takes a few months longer for them to get to market weight and they are lean due to the lower calorie diet. Adding whey brings the growth rate in the warm season up to the same six months that commercial feeds offer.

You seem to think I'm telling people they have to not use grain. That is not the case at all. I'm suggesting including managed rotational grazing as part of the system what ever else people are feeding. It need not be an all or nothing. Do what works for you. Just don't dismiss how other people are succeeding just because you haven't done it. Be open to other possibilities even if you don't want to do it that way.

A great thing about pigs are they are omnivores that can thrive on a wide variety of diets in a wide variety of conditions.
 
#10 ·
What would be the best things to plant in the paddocks after the pigs are moved?
It would depend on where you are at and what time of year. I feel there is always room to improve my forage variety and quality after or just before I move my pigs.

In the spring you should be able to get away with planting most legumes, grasses (bluegrass, ryegrass, fescue and timothy) and brassicas (I particularly like dwarf Essex rape). In the summer you may be limited to forages that will establish well in the heat. In the early fall I'll plant brassicas and grasses. In the late fall I plant winter rye, and barley which will green up early in the spring.
 
#11 ·
Besides your regular pasture be nice if you had a couple acres fenced and divided into 3 areas to plant Milo,wheat and peas. Also i plant rape. The wheat comes up first and can be used when it gets about 8-10inches tall. Later the milo and peas can be used. This really cuts down on any feed bill.

300ft. from my well is where i water the hogs. I use the bottom of 55 gal. plastic barrels for the water. Installed inside the fence with two steel posts on sides to hold them in place. Also have some big rocks surrounding the water containers to help hold them in place. I have a stand build overhead to hold a 55 gal. barrel fill with water to drip down into pan below. The stand is just a square post install two feet in the ground and just outside the fence with a couple of 2x8 inch. boards nailed on top of the post and extending over the fence. A 55 gal. barrel sits on top of the boards which extends over the fence above the pan below.
I have under ground pipe running from my well out to the fence with a pipe running up to the top of the water barrel to keep it filled with water.
 
#14 ·
What would be the best things to plant in the paddocks after the pigs are moved?
You can graze the forages down quite low and some rooting is not a problem, it aerates the soil. I find that the tend to just flip the top layer and then it comes back stronger than before. The sorts of plants we want on our pastures handle this activity well but the weed species get killed off.

Ideally plant small seeded species of forages a day or two before the animals will leave an area. This way they trample the seed into the ground. The more animals in an area for a short time of this the better if seeding is the goal. If it is just before a rain storm so much the better. The rain beats the seed into the soil. This is mob and storm seeding.

We plant:
Soft grasses
Legmes - Alfalfa, Clovers, Trefoil...
Brassicas - Rape, Kale, Broccoli, Turnips...
Millets
Chicory
Plantain
Herbs

We do hand broadcasting of all the seed since our land is stumpy, stony and steep so it isn't good for tractor work. Thus we work with the mob, the storm and the frost for planting times.

Species selection, especially for the grasses, depends on your climate. Check with your local ag extension on what soft grasses grow well in your soils and area. Avoid the toxin producing grasses - ask them which. Some grasses produce toxins under drought or frost stress.
 
#15 ·
The seed is expensive but worth it. It grows fast and the pigs eat this plant like candy.
Gerold, around here D.E. rape is only $.80-$1.30/lb depending on where and when I get it. Like you said, it grows like a weed, is about 28% protein, the pigs (and cows) absolutely love it, and once established the pigs can't keep up with it and often reseeds itself.
 
#16 ·
If you remove too much top growth via grazing the plant won't recover as quickly and you will ultimately lose forage yield.
Look at videos from extension agencies on rotational grazing cattle and apply those same principles to pigs.
Unless you are specifically looking to change the paddocks composition you are wasting money by reseeding.
 
#18 ·
Not to get off topic but how hard is it to establish?
Very easy, PP. I broadcast and lightly rake if on a small area, or drag a 6x6x8 behind a tractor or ATV if on a larger plot. The key is to let it get about shin high which should take about 6-7 weeks. After that the pigs shouldn't be able to keep up with it under normal stocking conditions. Once cooler weather kicks in, the sugar content will rise and becomes higher energy with less protein.
 
#20 ·
Where do you get small quantities of these seeds? I can get just about everything through MFA, but its almost always a 50lb minimum.

I've noticed biologic has a brassica mix probably get that next time I'm at bass pro.
I can buy it by the lb. at my local farm co-op. Also, these guys are great to deal with and will ship. I don't know how reasonable their shipping prices are because they are near me and I've never needed shipping from them.

http://www.ernstseed.com/
 
#23 · (Edited)
Copied from another thread:

Can you explain to me how [managed rotational grazing breaks the parasite life cycle]? I have always raised pigs on concrete so I am not familiar with this.
Like Pastured Pork said. The basic idea is to leave the parasites without hosts during their vulnerable stage and break the life cycle through managed rotational grazing.

The basics of managed rotational grazing are:
1) Have a bunch of paddocks - the minimum is 4, more is better, smaller is better.
2) Move livestock in to paddocks and let them graze.
3) Move livestock out after no more than two weeks, faster is better but they should be eating or beating down all the weeds. Ideally don't over graze the goal forages (soft grasses, legumes, chicory, brassicas, millet, etc - what ever you want regrowing)
4) Keep livestock out for at least 21 days (parasite life cycle) and preferably longer so the forages have time to regrow. Longer could be a whole year - seed with what you would like to come up in the future. We use mob, storm and frost seeding since we can't tractor work our land (steep, stony, stumpy, sandy soils)

This breaks parasite life cycles, prevents soil compactions, beats out weed species as they don't tend to compete well with the desirable species when dealing with grazers (the definition of weed in this case), encourages desired forages and maximizes the food for the livestock.

Other things that help with parasites are cold winters, copper in the soil, garlic in the feed (I've tested this with controls - very effective) and an acid pH to the digestive tract as can be caused by whey. I've read one report of fiber helping - pasture is pretty fibrous. For new incoming stock I would quarantine and double chemical deworm with Fenbendazole/Ivermec to get a clean start. I would also vaccinate at the same time.

Here is an example with photos of a very tiny 100'x100' managed rotational grazing system. We use this mostly for our weaner pigs to train them to the various fencing types and tame them. It is big enough to raise two or three pigs a year instead of hoards of weaners:

http://SugarMtnFarm.com/south-weaning-paddock/

Further reading material:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotational_grazing

http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/li...53-pasturing-planting-rotational-grazing.html

http://www.sugarmtnfarm.com/?s=rotational grazing

http://sugarmtnfarm.com/worms-au-natural/

http://www.sugarmtnfarm.com/?s=frost seeding
 
#24 ·
You mention acid pH in digestion. I add a little cider vinegar to the water (1/4 cup in a 3 gallon pail) for our pigs and sheep. They had no trouble adjusting to it and it seems to help. Many other benefits are enumerated in literature about it.
 
#25 ·
Thank you all! I haven't been on in a while. We might try making it into smaller sections in the future. My husband is getting tired of my animal projects I think :)
All four gilts are getting bigger. We have two months left before they are due.

They are so fun to watch when they start running across the field with their big ears flopping! Lol.
 
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