winter grazing hay full edited podcast
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drew: [00:00:00] Hey friends, today we're bringing you a quick tip on winter grazing. How to build your pasture for spring right now during the middle of winter. Welcome to The Schoolhouse Life and our I Bought a Homestead, Now What? podcast.
lacey: I'm Lacey. And I'm Drew. Homestead health and business strategists. And between us, we have nearly 40 years experience in homesteading, parenting, and holistic living.
We love helping people live more sufficient, deeply rooted, and satisfyingly connected lives. Two to three
drew: times per month, we post a new podcast on Wednesdays that will inspire, ease, and answer questions about this lifestyle you may not even know to ask.
lacey: People and homestead strategy clients ask us all the time how, why, and what to do to make their homestead less chaotic, more efficient, and mostly more peaceful.
The lessons we've learned, the training we've had, and our strategic approach will help you skip steps and find more ease in your homesteading journey. Did
drew: you hear something you like? Did you learn something new? Please share with a friend or on [00:01:00] social. Tag us at the Schoolhouse Life and we will be thrilled to share and connect.
Your shares, encouragement, and even questions are what keep us going. Thank you. Fun. All right. So, fun topic. Laci's super excited
lacey: about this. I almost left, but Drew said that my questions make this more interesting.
drew: Yeah. I think it's fascinating. But quick tip, we're keeping this super short and down to the nitty gritty.
Okay.
lacey: First, I want your feedback on this. Uh, cause I just, I had this idea, um, human scale homesteading or no, that wasn't. Human powered homestead. The human powered homestead. Do you think that Drew should write a book on the human powered homestead?
drew: Laci brings that up because we were just out rolling a hay bale and we had a, uh, grazing workshop online and one of the people there was Which is still available, right?
Which is still available. Yeah. One of the people there asked me how I moved the hay bales because I said we don't have a tractor on the homestead and,
lacey: um, Oh, this is a question that's been an [00:02:00] ongoing kind of, uh, I don't want to say point of contention. It's not a contention for us. We talk about it. But, you know, usually we come up with they're too dang expensive and we got this.
Um, but like I do remember one time I posted in a group and it was a fun, fun thread where I was, Berated and also, you know, it kind of went back and forth like this definitely
drew: took until we did a whole podcast on it. We did, we did. So you can go back, you can listen to that. It definitely, you know, got personal.
Whether or not you need
lacey: a tractor on the.
drew: No offense, I honestly don't care if you have a tractor on your homestead or not. I think that rolling out the hay bales by hand is a good exercise. It's a good way to connect with your flock, herd, whatever you have. And, um. And really think about where you're putting your hay bales.
Oh yeah. I mean, we do have a lease property where we do use a tractor and do roll out the hay bales with the tractor.
lacey: So I think most mistakes and most expenses are done when it's not hard enough. So like, [00:03:00] if it's not hard enough for you to do something to make you have to think about it more than just, I'm going to go do this.
And then you do it, you waste more time, more money. I mean, it feels like you're saving time, but really you're just like. I, what I think I know about people with tractors is there's a lot of time spent on a tractor just for the sake of being on the tractor. Yeah. And so, like, there's nothing wrong with that.
That's what you really enjoy. But, you know, is it really moving the needle forward? All
drew: right. So this is supposed to be a quick tip. Sorry, quick
lacey: tip. Turns
drew: out I do have a lot of thoughts. I know you do. That's why we wanted you here. So the quick tip is that, um, now is the perfect time to be bale grazing.
Meaning that you're Feeding out hay bales in areas of your pasture that are, uh, not as good as they could be. Can I just point
lacey: out though, just back to my point about farting around on a tractor. You're never going to fart around rolling
drew: out hay bales by hand, unless you've got a good [00:04:00] hill and you're eight years old and want to see if it will roll all the way down the hill.
I'm
lacey: eight plus a lot of years
drew: and I would like to. Yeah, it's pretty fun. Um. I can't say as I blamed him when he did it, but it still meant we had to roll a hay bale by hand back up a hill, which is not as fun. Um, so back to the point of it, now is the time to be looking at your pasture and when you roll out a hay bale, there's, there's a lot of different things you can do.
So, or when you feed a hay bale, you can feed it in a ring. Which is like the traditional way like a metal ring metal hay bale ring. Yeah Could you put
lacey: a hay bale in a ring without a tractor?
drew: How would you put the ring over top of the hay? Okay. I mean, I think I don't know I've never tried to pick up one of those rings. So I don't know. Yeah. Okay. I imagine they're heavy Um, so you can do that. Unfortunately what that does though is it concentrates the manure the urine and the animal impact To that [00:05:00] location and it's
lacey: so wet right now.
It's so wet that can that Over one
drew: day it can be they call that devastation. They call that impact pugging
lacey: It could be something you want to do though. I mean you could you could for sure Intentionally do that
drew: somewhere. Yeah, I think like a good spot would be like in a blackberry thicket or multiflora rose thicket Something that you just wanted to destroy.
Yes, but you have to realize with that comes the destruction the greater the impact the greater The recovery, the recovery, but, uh, I wanted to see if you do, um, but that comes with time. So, you know, you're not going to be feeding or grazing grass in the spring where they make that kind of destruction.
It's going to be later on in the summer. Um, if you're properly managing, um, the other way is that you can roll out a hay bale with no hay ring and just leave it laying there in a spot. The downside of that is when you don't have enough [00:06:00] cattle to consume that hay bale in like say three days They take a lot of that hay and they thank you for their really nice dry bedding That they're going to poop on and pee on and then they don't want to eat it because they pooped and peed on it So your hay bale goes Out the window, out the window.
When you
lacey: start feeding. I mean it still has an impact on the ground and you know, like it's a
drew: mulch. It does. And they say the general rule with that is if you're going to feed that way, you can plan to see your best grass growth in year two and three from when you fed that. So the following year, like this spring, you're not going to notice.
In fact, you're going to see like kind of a die back in grass or a lot of hay just sitting there on the ground. Which eventually gets decomposed and feeds all the soil critters. This would be a
lacey: really good use of hay that is, like, spent. Hay that's old, hay that is molded, hay that has, you know, you can't be used to feed animals already.
Which I know, you know, you run into that here and there. Sometimes you can find it for real cheap, um, [00:07:00] on, you know, Craigslist or Marketplace or wherever you find your hay people. Um, and so that might be a good thing to do is to buy those bales and roll them out and knowing that that's your goal. Yeah. Not for feeding animals.
Right. But using up this and improving the pasture. Yeah,
drew: and depending on the livestock, you have to be careful of like those spent ones. Like you would want to not let them get to the moldy ones. In a not animal. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then the. The next way is to actually unroll the hay bale. So that's what we do.
And on the homestead, we have four, uh, head of cattle right now. And which means that they don't eat an entire hay bale in three days. It generally takes them a week and a half to two
lacey: weeks. How many full grown cows do you think it would take to eat a
drew: hay bale? Well, we have, we have 20 out of the shoove and it, I would say that the majority of that hay bale is gone by the second day.
By day two. Yeah. So 20. So, yeah, so around 20, um, 40 [00:08:00] a day, maybe, yeah, 20, uh, uh, small, like, because those are all Dexter.
lacey: Okay. Can you translate that down to like sheep or goats?
drew: I cannot. I mean, I could with like pencil of hay. Well, we
lacey: know. Okay. So we know how many, how many cows per
drew: acre. It's roughly five sheep to one cow.
There you go. You do know that. Yeah. So whatever that equals out to. Um, but so when you're rolling it out though, with just a little bit of livestock, what you want to do is not allow them to have access to the entire hay bale. And you don't want to roll out the entire hay bale. You want to figure out what they're going to eat in a few days.
Um, here, because we have the time and resources, it's every day I roll out a little bit more, so I put a polywire down the middle of the hay bale section that I rolled out, and then pull that back slowly so that they're, they have to stick their heads under the fence to be able to stick their heads under the hay bale.
Um, [00:09:00] eat the hay, so that keeps them off of it, keeps them from pooping and peeing on it and then not wanting to eat it. And, um, it also saves your hay bale. I took some pictures. Lacey got some pictures,
lacey: some video. If they're not on Instagram by the time this gets published, then we'll make sure that they're.
We'll put
drew: it on, uh, put it on the YouTube podcast. You can, you can look at it on there. There you go. Um, so that's. The quick tip really being able to do that and roll out that hay bale allows you to start building soil now in the winter by spring. If your cattle are cleaning up that hay, and there's just a little bit of residue, you're essentially feeding the bad.
Areas of your pasture, really good hay, really good, yeah,
lacey: exactly. So I noticed today when we were doing it is that, uh, we're walking through easily walking through areas that last summer we couldn't have walked through. They were, um, poke weed. There was a crown beard. It was so tall and it's things that the cows don't eat.
So. [00:10:00] Um, you know, but now you can walk right through it and push that hay bale right over all that stuff and, and I know that we'll see a huge impact, um, spring and summer. So, um,
drew: yeah. So, like, it's easier to work your fields this time of year. Yeah. And to that point, like we're seeding it without, we're paying 35, 40 around bale versus like.
35, 40 a pound of seed, plus the equipment to put it out.
lacey: Yeah, it's like a two for one, ultimately.
drew: And ultimately we're feeding the soil with that. So the only seed that's going to germinate is stuff that, that soil is in the condition to where it can start germinating. At this point. I mean, let's
lacey: remind everybody the angle here, the angle of hand rolling out bales of hay every day.
And moving lines of wire around and not doing it in a way that's like, you know, uh, just, uh, Oh, what's it called when they just stay out in that area all the time, uh, drop a set stock stockyard. Yeah, um, is that we will [00:11:00] in the winters of the future not have to buy hay and have everything that we need. Um, stockpiled here so that we have what we need for those animals, um, on our own farm and not need that third party, uh, production.
Right. So I think like, you know, it sounds like a lot of work that, you know, like, why would we ever want to do that? That's dumb. There is an end game and the goal is healing, fundamental healing, so that we have a long term. Plan in place for all the animals that we need to feed us. Yeah,
drew: and this year will be the first year where we're going to let a third of our property just sit fully rest until next winter.
So that we have some standing hay, a. k. a. stockpile that we can feed them and cut back on our hay bill. So that this is all working towards that. And it's not like the other thing to remember is that nature never hurries. So this is not like One, it's not a one winter and you're done. [00:12:00] This is like over, you know, we've been doing this a long time, but I would say in the area that we're in at least three years now, and you can definitely see the differences, but it takes time.
lacey: Oh, you can see the differences. I think it's hard to remember when you're out there and you're still seeing multi floor rows and, um, all the things you don't really want to be out there, but, um, But even those, you know, it's like, okay, now I can see like five multiflora, I could go out and chop those down, or I could go out and dig those up, you know, it's which before it was impassable.
So, yeah, I just think, you know, we've, we've done a lot. And there's, we spent all of Christmas Day, actually, because we ended up, our plans got canceled due to illness. So we spent the whole of that day walking through these woods, um, cutting down limbs, burning them, and there's nothing more satisfying than feeling like, oh my goodness, we have made something that was, like, just not usable.
Yeah, and it was a trash heap because people were dumping their trash. Literally a trash heap. And [00:13:00] to see the transformation and to, you know, be a part of it burning, slashing and burning is sort of like the last bit. And, um, it felt good to clean up a lot of that. And, um, granted, if you listen lately, you know, we have a huge new project at the back of our property of seven acres of, newly lumbered disaster land.
So
drew: to do the same thing, let's start
lacey: all over. We said at the end of the day, man, I'm tired. Let's do this again tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Um, but you know, you can make progress one little, one little step at a time. And it's pretty, it's pretty impressive. I'm grateful for Drew's efforts.
drew: And I'll say the next thing and like final thing is that you can also do the same thing with square bales. So like, I think we might use some square bales back in our back area.
lacey: Oh, yeah. And we did originally.
drew: I think that's where we started with those. Square bales are just like two to three times the price of a round bale per pound of hay.
They don't roll. And they don't roll, but you can carry them. So think about, [00:14:00] uh, go out there, get some hay ordered, look for the bad spots in your pasture. I mean,
lacey: all of that said, we have been pricing out, um, equipment with dump beds.
drew: So mini trucks, four wheelers.
lacey: Something that we feel like could be practical, but also make the job just a hair easier.
Right. If you have any thoughts there, let us know. Also, I just wanted to say we, I don't know that we say it enough or if we're clear enough, but you're listening. It means a lot to us and your comments and your feedback and your questions and your encouragement and your support. All of it just means the world to us.
And, um, you know, you will be like one day, you know, maybe we don't need a podcast anymore. Maybe it's just a frivolous thing that we just enjoy. And then you guys will give us feedback or get an email about something and. Um, it just means a lot. So if you have something you've been wanting to say or thinking or, you know, not, you know, had the minute to to reach out and say, please do it helps us.
And, um, we really appreciate it. [00:15:00] Thank you.
