Observations

I just came in from riding my mule, Frisbee, in our back pasture.  I noticed this evening that the blue oaks on our property have pushed out new growth since the big rain we had in late June.  Seems like nature takes advantage of positive conditions - the oaks will grow more because of the natural irrigation they received this summer.

The challenge for farmers and ranchers in our region, I think, is to work with natural conditions.  Generally speaking, we get a germinating rain sometime in the fall.  The grass starts to grow, and it continues to grow until the temperatures remain too cold for growth (usually sometime in December).  In late February or early March (usually), the temperatures stay warm enough to promote rapid grass growth.  In May or early June, soil moisture is depleted and growth stops.

For livestock producers, this means that we should try to synchronize the reproductive cycle with the weather cycle.  A female sheep or cow has her greatest nutritional demand in late pregnancy and early lactation.  The grass is at its best, usually, in March and April.  Spring lambing and calving, then, seems to make sense.

For crop farmers, the challenge is somewhat different.  Most of our "annual" crops, at least in California's Mediterranean climate, require summer irrigation.  My friend Alan Haight, from Riverhill Farm, is pondering whether there are any crops that match our weather patterns.  It's an interesting concept.

Successful small-scale farming requires careful observation - of weather patterns, of livestock behavior, of crop responses.  Observation is part of what makes this profession enjoyable!

Flying Mule Farm's Grass-fed Lamb Education Project

We recently started a grass-fed lamb educational project.  While we originally envisioned this project for 4-H members, we decided to open it more broadly (at least in this first year).  Our participants this year include both children and adults - our oldest daughter, Lara; three boys from Nevada County; our newest apprentice Callie Murphy and her boyfriend Matt; and the four children of our other apprentice, Paul Lambertson.

Through this project, we're hoping to help our participants learn about animal selection, husbandry practices, pasture management, meat processing, marketing and financial record keeping.  Each participant selected a lamb at weaning and paid market price for the lamb.  We've been scheduling regular work days during which the participants help with things like shearing, moving fence, vaccinating the lambs, and other activities.

Once the lambs reach finish weight, we'll talk again about live animal evaluation and will place the lambs in order of their quality.  We'll place them again after they've been processed - based on meat quality and yield. Finally, each participant will market the meat (or keep it for their own use, if they want).

4-H does some wonderful things for youth development and education.  Over the years, 4-H has also been a vehicle for teach farmers and ranchers new production techniques by educating their children.  Both of our daughters are 4-H members - Lara even had the 4-H champion lamb at our county fair last year.  While the 4-H program has been wonderful, I think it sometimes fails to expose kids to alternative approaches to livestock production - a grass-fed lamb will not compete well at a county fair.  We hope our project offers kids (and their parents), as well as our apprentices, a hands-on opportunity to learn about grass-based livestock production.

The Right Dog for the Job

Regular readers of Foothill Agrarian will know that we depend on our border collies to help us accomplish many jobs with the sheep, goats and cattle.  Over the last several months, I've realized (not surprisingly) that our two trained dogs, Mo and Taff, have different talents and abilities.  Increasingly, I find myself choosing the dog to fit the job on a particular day.

Taff, our oldest dog at 8 years old, is the best dog for general ranch work.  If I need to move a large group of sheep over a long distance, Taff is the dog for the job.  He's extremely loyal to me - indeed, he will not work for anyone else like he works for me - and with the right encouragement, he'll work until the job is done.  While he's the heaviest of our three working dogs, he also seems to have the most stamina.  Even on warm days, he'll keep going.  This evening, we moved 70 ewes about a half-mile to a new paddock at Sierra College.  Taff was the perfect dog for the task - he kept the sheep moving until we were done.  I let him cool off in the water trough when we reached our destination.

Mo, who actually belongs to our oldest daughter, Lara, has much more "eye" and precision than Taff.  "Eye" is an intangible quality in border collies - in essence, Mo can look at sheep and get them to move.  He's wonderful for loading the trailer, moving sheep in the corrals, or putting a single, recalcitrant ewe back with the flock.  Lara has trialed him once and he performed beautifully.  Unlike Taff, Mo is the type of dog that I can move 3 steps to the left and one step to the right.  However, Mo's athletic build doesn't translate into more stamina.  If he gets hot or tired, Mo is apt to take a break - whether it's appropriate for the situation or not.  Last month, Mo quit working for a stretch during a long move in Rocklin - allowing the sheep to graze on the golf course!

Ernie, our youngest dog, seems to be a combination of Mo and Taff.  At 19 months of age, he's still learning his trade (as am I).  I'm hoping to train Ernie myself - without the help of a professional trainer.  Today, I used Ernie to take the lambs from our corrals at Elster Ranch back to their paddock - a trip of about a quarter mile.  Ernie seems to have lots of "eye" and power - and he also seems to want to work until the job is done.  We'll see how he turns out - I hope I don't mess him up too bad!

Taff

Ernie - he has quite the sense of humor!

Mo!

I'm pretty fortunate to have multiple dogs for the multiple jobs I need to accomplish.  In fact, I'm lucky that my work allows me to be with my dogs every day.  As I've said before, working border collies (or any animal) is a lifetime process - I'll always be learning something new.  I love it!

Someday...

Many of us who have livestock have been talking about Maggie the cattle dog (see http://www.sacbee.com/2011/07/06/3752292/injured-cattle-dog-maggie-goes.html#storylink=misearch for the story).  Most of us agree that we don't know if we'd be able to show as much restraint as Maggie's owner, John Reader.  Personally, I think it would probably be a good thing that I don't carry a firearm - I'm not sure what I'd do if somebody tried to run over my livestock, my friends and family and my dog.

I was relating this story to a fellow stockman from Utah last weekend.  He told me that he had a friend who rode a huge (nearly 17 hands) black horse when he drove cattle to the mountains.  If a motorist showed any inclination towards driving through the herd, his friend would stop his horse in the middle of the road and point at the offending driver.  Invariably, the driver stopped and waited.

Recently, I've been riding my mule more often.  She's almost the same size - nearly 17 hands.  I'm probably not an imposing person to most, but when you're sitting 5 feet 8 inches off the ground, even the shortest person is somewhat intimidating!  My goal is to get Frisbee (my mule) comfortable enough with cars to be able to stop traffic when we're moving sheep!

Growing Grass

To produce grass-fed lamb and beef, we've become students of the art and science of growing grass.  In some respects, we farm grass that we harvest using sheep and cattle!  I thought a brief description of how we take care of our grass might be of interest.

Grass plants (all forage plants, really) go through three phases of growth.  Phase 1 includes germination and re-growth following grazing or harvest.  In this phase, the plant does not have enough leaf area to photosynthesize sunlight and carbon dioxide into energy, so it draws on the carbohydrates stored in the seed or in the root system.  From a grazing standpoint, Phase 1 plants are extremely nutritious, but because of the lack of leaf area, very low in quantity.

The plant will transition to Phase 2 when it has enough solar receptors (e.g., leaf area) to manufacture it's own energy.  At this stage, the forage is both high in nutritional quality and plentiful.  Phase 2 is a grass-farmer's goal!

In Phase 3, the plants are trying to complete their reproductive cycle.  They may be producing seeds, in the process going through lignification (which means they are becoming more coarse and less palatable.  The plants may have so many leaves that the lower ones begin to die for lack of sunlight.  At this stage, the forage is plentiful but of low nutritional value.  Phase 3 plants may also be called decadent - they are past their prime.

An annual plant is one that completes its life cycle all in one year - it germinates, grows, produces seeds, and dies.  Most of California's unirrigated pastures are comprised of annual grasses and forbs (broad-leaf plants). A perennial plant stays alive from year to year.  Most irrigated pasture plants are perennials, as were many of California's original native grasses.

In general, our goal as grass-farmers is to keep our forage plants in Phase 2 for as long as possible.  We try to manage our livestock to remove just enough leaf material to take the plant to the bottom of Phase 2 - the plants should still have enough leaf area to manufacture their own energy (rather than draw on the energy stored in their roots).  At the other end of the cycle, we want to graze these plants before they reach Phase 3, when they will not taste as good to the livestock (and when they will provide less nutrition).

As with every rule, there are exceptions to these principles.  At certain stages of production, Phase 3 plants might be more desirable.  When we wean our lambs, for example, we want to decrease the nutritional quality of the feed the ewes are consuming so that they'll stop producing milk.  On the other hand, we want to keep our lambs on the best forage possible - they'll reach a finished weight much more quickly if they are on high quality forage.

Based on these principles, we can also develop a useful definition of over-grazing.  Over-grazing happens one plant (and one bite) at a time.  If a plant is grazed down to Phase 1, and then grazed again before it's had a chance to re-grow into Phase 2, we'll stress the root system.  Repeated over-grazing will kill the plant because the root system can only store so much energy.  In most cases, we don't want to over-graze.  There are, however, some instances where over-grazing may be desirable.  If we over-graze yellow starthistle, for example, we can reduce it's seed production by up to 90 percent.  Repeated over-grazing of Himalayan blackberries will eventually kill the plants.

So far, most of this probably sounds fairly scientific.  The art comes in when we introduce animals and humans into the equation.  The weather, management timing, stage of production and other factors all enter into my decisions about when to move my animals onto fresh grass.  On irrigated pasture, a grass or clover plant may fully recover and be ready to graze again in 25 days during May or June.  In August, these same plants may be heat stressed - they might take 35-40 days to recover.  Annual grasses typically germinate with the first substantial rainfall in October or November.  If we graze these grasses in December, the cold weather and short days mean that they won't fully recover for 90-120 days.  If we re-graze these plants too soon, we risk killing them.

As a self-described pasture geek, I enjoy tinkering with this system.  I like trying to control undesirable plants like yellow starthistle with grazing alone - no chemicals!  I also enjoy trying to grow the highest quality forage possible - and harvesting it with a biological system rather than a mechanical one!  I feel like I've failed as a grass-farmer if I have to cut hay!

Shearing the Lambs

Little by little, we're trying to get our lambs sheared over the next few weeks.  We've found that shearing them helps them deal with the heat a bit better, which means they'll gain weight faster!  Thanks to our landlord George Nolte at the Elster Ranch for these photos.  Thanks also to Roger Ingram and Michael, Gabe and Ben McDonald for helping out on Thursday!  I'm not the most accomplished sheep shearer, but the only way to get better is to shear lots of sheep!

Buck and Mo found a shady spot to watch the lambs being shorn.

Taking the wool off - a sweaty job even early
on a July morning.

Literature

I'm re-reading Fencing the Sky by James Galvin - in my narrow little world, it's one of the most important novels written in the last 20 years.  I highly recommend it!  Here's a few quotes:

"But of all the conversations man has and has had with nature, agriculture is arguably the most intimate, lively, and potentially loving one, since it is ancient, necessary...."

"Who speaks for the land?  Or, more properly, who interprets the language of subtlety and catastrophe?  Farmers?  Ranchers?  Environmentalists?  What do you lose, from an environmental point of view when you lose a family farm or ranch?

"Besides losing a way of life, a culture opposed to the dominant First World values of expansion and greed, you lose species diversity, care, and the thread of the conversation concerning a particular place."

One of the characters, Oscar Rose, says in response to the above ideas: "So I'm not complaining.  I don't mind the work.  Just let me do it.  I don't mind being invisible.  I just don't want to disappear."

While Placer County has a thriving agricultural community, my chosen "profession" - shepherding - is largely a solitary endeavor.  I like to think that I'm part of "a culture opposed [to] expansion and greed."  I've also realized, especially as we've provided grazing services in a suburban community, that my work is largely invisible.  For the vast majority of Americans, the work that we do is out of sight and out of mind - food is what's on the supermarket shelves.