Slow Growing Grass

I hope everyone is enjoying this dry sunny weather! We are enjoying it here, but the grass wishes for more rain. Since early summer, the grass growth has slowed way down. We just fed our first bales of hay to help stretch the grass. Every day the cows and their calves need to eat around 1,600 pounds of dry feed. When we don’t have as much grass in the fields as we’d like, we can feed a bale of hay, which adds around 700 pounds of dry feed to their diet. Adding baled feed gives the drought-stressed grass more time to recover, and the cows love having a bale of hay to mix with their grass.

Even when we have to feed hay during the grazing season, we still move the cows to fresh pasture every day. Here I am getting ready to move the cows from the spring field to the corral field, completing their rotation around the farm.

The cows are lined up waiting at the gate, ready for some fresh grass. 

Moving the cows daily provides an opportunity to visually check all the animals to be sure everyone is healthy. A cow tree is a great place to sit and watch the herd go by.

Once the cows get onto their fresh pasture, they all spread out to look for the tastiest bite.

Tuffy the bull is in with the cows and is looking good. He is just as happy as they are to move onto fresh pasture.

Thanks for reading,

Leith, Mary Kate, Norah & Edith MacKenzie