Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #185: Rising Beef Prices, Shrinking Cattle Herds, and the Art of Moving Livestock with Joel Salatin

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Episode #185: Rising Beef Prices, Shrinking Cattle Herds, and the Art of Moving Livestock with Joel Salatin · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, everybody.
• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode of Beyond Labels with yours truly, our farmer Joel Salatin.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: That would be me and our favorite, favorite researcher, Dr.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Cena McCullough.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is a bit of a um an extension or piggyback of the previous episode where we started down the path of bird flu, backyard flocks of chickens, and and how to how to you know develop that kind of uh become more food participatory in your life, if you will, as we see things fall off.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing is happening in our in our culture, besides the bird flu, of course, is the rising beef prices.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: You're seeing that.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the uh you know, the beef herd is the lowest it's been since 1951.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so for more than 70 years, uh, you know, we've had more beef animals.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're we're seeing um much higher prices of uh of beef uh in the in the stores.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have this kind of double whammy scene.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we've got we've got bird flu affecting uh chicken and primarily eggs.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: The bird flu is primarily eggs.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's not it's not the broilers, which is interesting.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's not the the meat birds, it's the it's the egg layers who um egg layers tend to be a little bit older, and uh and a lot of ways are more um you know uh confined tighter, you know, caged uh caged birds.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um so we've got we've got the egg situation primarily, and then we've got the cattle situation.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: The numbers are lower than they've been since 1951, and there's uh a sp a reason for that.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: One is the the main one is the reason that it really dropped off in 2020 was not because cows got COVID, um, it's because of the drought.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And um and I was actually in Mississippi in the fall there of uh 2021 and talking with farmers who were actually having their cows step into cracks uh in the ground.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: It gotten so dry the ground had opened up with big enough cracks, cows were stepping in it and breaking their legs, they were having to go out and shoot them and put them down uh because the cow had a broken leg.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so so I think it's hard, and and this went from Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, South Georgia, that that entire southern tier of the U.S.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um had had uh back-to-back years of devastating drought, and a lot of farmers simply they didn't have grass, they didn't have hay, they just sold out.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and the cycle on cows is long.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a chick a chicken can lay an egg and it hatches in a month, you know, and you've got a new chicken.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas a cow, if you get rid of a cow, uh, you know, by the time you replace you you get a new cow, breed her, she has a calf that you can then breed to have a calf, you know, you're on a three or four-year cycle.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then by the time that calf grows up big enough to be slaughtered, you know, you're not you know, it's it's a long, long cycle, cycle in this beef thing.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: So the the drought, the drought, I think, was the initial drawdown, okay?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And in the past, when that happens, the build back is fairly quickly, quick.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: But this time, it's not building back very quickly.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a couple of reasons for that, at least the the people that I'm reading after, and it makes sense.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Number one is that a lot of these farmers are elderly.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, in since the last cycle, whatever, 10, 12 years ago, um farmers are 10 years older.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: And they don't it doesn't matter how high prices can go, they don't want to get back in because now they're 70 instead of 60, or 60 instead of 50.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so the you know, the the aging farmer situation is is very real.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Another one is now we have high interest.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, that that the last cycle we didn't have uh high interest rates.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, we have that issue as well.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's a lot of things um working on on the the fact that are that are uh dealing with it.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know how long this is gonna last.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how long these high prices are gonna last, and I don't right now I don't uh see a nefarious agenda behind this.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean if it doesn't rain, it doesn't rain, you don't have grass.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't have grass, you don't have cows.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean that's just that's just the way it is.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now we've just had the same the same southern tier of the U.S.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: is now coming off of two of its most wet years it's ever had.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And there's feed up the wazoo and nothing to eat it.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh so that's a you know that's a fascinating um uh thing as well.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I thought I thought it'd be interesting today, uh Cena, to to jump into we we talked about a backyard flock of chickens before, but I'd like to push this forward into even having raising a couple of steers or you know, your your own beef.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and this moves us to the entire discussion of the importance of moving animals.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason that this is such a a topic for me is because uh I travel a lot, get on a lot of um, talk to a lot of small scale, and I'm and and I'm addressing, I'm not addressing big, great, big commercial operations.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, if you're listening and you've got 10,000 acres, well, this applies to you, but I'm I'm we're really focusing today on the very small acreage, you know, one to one to ten acre um um person.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna I'm gonna give my I'm gonna fuss, I'm gonna fuss first, then we're gonna talk about solutions.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: My fuss is that often these very small-scale folks think, well, I've only got 20 chickens, I've only got two steers, I've only got one milk cow, whatever it is.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it doesn't really matter.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly, they're they're here, they're here on this lot, and um, and I've heard Joel talk about you know moving the animals around.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: And come on, I've only got two.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um you're you're actually gonna put them in little you know cubicles and move them around.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, just just philosophically and logistically, you know, it so what's what's the what's the return on this?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's time consuming, it's a pain, you know, really gonna do this.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and so uh my my fuss is that some of the most overgrazed pastures I've ever seen in my life have been on homesteads, where people have just a couple of animals out, and they're just in this, in this, you know, the out back lot, you know, glorified yard, and that's where they stay, and the thing is eaten to nothing, and and um essentially they're on hay for, you know, you gotta go buy hay for you know 180 days a year because there's no grass.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so let me let me start here, and Cena, we'll go to your we'll go to questions, um, and maybe even have some some listener questions.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna give the the the Cliff's notes um explanation of why movement is so important.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: The first reason is because of the way grass grows.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: So grass grows in an S curve.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Think about an S, a sigmoid curve, okay?
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Starts slow, grows real fast, and then it slows down.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: If if that grass can never get into its what's called its blaze of growth period, I call it, you know, it's teenage teenage years.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: If it can never get into his teenage years, you know, when the kids you can't fill them up, you can't, you know, the the boys keep growing out of their britches, you know, and and and they're you're shooting up, you know, there's a period of time when you just like it's a bottomless pit, you know.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And and I know Cena, you have one uh right now, your oldest, like you got to put a brick on his head, like he's growing an inch a day, you know.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, he's taller than me now.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and they'll say, Now I literally and metaphorically look down on you.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Every mom wants to hear her son say, I now look down on you.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, right.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but but um, but but that that gross spurt, you know, he eats.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he eats like crazy.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, a ton.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: He's very expensive.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like very expensive.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's the way we feel about you know, our stewards and stuff.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, these are all uh pretty much young people, you know, and they're still in their you know, their uh their heavy eating phase, and whoo, wow.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Boy, I mean, you know, these guys will typically eat you know um half a pound of sausage and and uh eight eggs a morning for breakfast.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, whoa man, and you get you get seven of them together and suddenly, whoo.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so anyway, so so the grass, the grass has this same kind of you know, infant, juvenile, you know, senescent uh uh growth cycle too.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so the reason that you you move them is to give the the grass rest a rest period, a long enough rest period that it can that it can go through this juvenile growth phase.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And and even if you've got a very small acreage, if you rest a spot and and just watch the grass growth when it's resting, uh you'll it'll make a believer out of you.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you'll you'll wow, this is I've suddenly got you know three times as much grass as I ever had, uh, even up to four times as much grass as I've ever had, because it gets out of first gear and and can go into overdrive.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the idea, okay?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so so that's the number one reason is to actually stimulate way more grass than you ever thought possible.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm assuming is that is that that healthier grass, like when you allow it to go through that juvenile spurt, is like more nutrients, maybe that the cow needs.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it it turns from protein to carbohydrate.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And very short grass is primarily protein, but what uh what a ruminant needs is carbohydrate, because they are a they are a fermentation tank.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what do you what do you want when you're fermenting?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: You want sugars, right?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean yeah, that's what ferments.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so the cows, uh, they're they're looking for almost no cow is short of protein.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they're they're they're short of carbohydrate.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's why a nursing calf, a nursing calf uh gets its protein from its mother's milk.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Milk is very high in protein.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so the the so the very small animal does want protein as an animal matures, they want they want more um carbohydrate energy.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the grass follows that same cycle, you know, as it as it gets longer.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't that beautiful?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like, it's amazing the things that we don't learn in our culture and in the school system and things we don't think about.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I didn't know that until you just said it.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, how amazing is that that like nature provides what if you allow it, right?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: Allow nature to take its course, it provides for what the cow needs and what we need.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's incredible.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and it's the it's the migratory pattern you know that we see in nature.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's the migratory pattern in nature that um that that that that gives the rest period for the grass to grow to that length.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: So when the animals come back to it, it is now at a at its most um you know energy, you know, energy intensive level, uh as opposed to being high protein.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: You can tell a lot, uh you can tell if your animal is um is getting too high of protein by looking at their manure.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there's there's kind of three kinds of manure.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: One one is um what we call sheet cake, you know, squirt, okay, it's very runny.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the second is the second is cookies, where it comes out in little you know, ringlets of cookies.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that means it's the the the forage is too fibrous.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: You you you waited too long.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it got coarse and and you know and uh lignified.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: And but what you're looking for is a pumpkin pie.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're looking for a nice round, um a round uh pie, uh slightly elevated on the you know edges, sunken in the middle, with a little kind of you know, little uh um uh pedestal of you know blip blip, you know, right there where she pinched off the last little bit, you know, is it the technical term?
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so I've seen the pumpkin pie patties at your farm when we were walking around and that time when we went out and we were with Hilda, and remember I got to lay down with the cows, right?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: And you had me walk out a certain distance, and you're like, lay down.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm thinking, there's a cow patty there, like there's cow poop.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: But it but now that you say it, they they look like pumpkin pies.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: So you you can tell a lot about you know, uh, by the way the the manure looks a little harder.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um sheep, sheep are the same way.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's just a little harder with sheep because everything is in little itty bitty, you know, little round balls, and a goat.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but same thing.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: If if sheep manure um gets real, real uh loose, those little pebbles uh will get real soft and loosey instead of being and if they get real hard, hard, then you know it's you know it's two fibers.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um so so so grass growth being able to um to optimize through rest period the grass growth and then and then um optimize the uh you know the nutrition going into the animal, both of those happen.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: The second big reason is for sanitation.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um you don't want the animals to lounge in the same place every day.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, animals don't you don't you don't nobody changes and washes the bed sheets, you know, for animals.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: So how they change and wash their bed sheets is they lie in a different place.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if they lie in the same place, and and and I'm I know uh and I'm not trying to be difficult here, but you know, I I see these homesteads, and you know, there's a tree out there, and this tree is completely manure underneath that cow or whatever they go, they they they they lounge in the same place in the same shade every single day, and it's a um it's a mess.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that becomes an incubator for parasites and pathogens, and it puts the manure out, you know, it puts you don't need the manure under the tree.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: You want it over here in the pasture where it can help to grow the grass.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: And this is one of the I just um I've just finished uh uh reading a manuscript.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm supposed to do a cover blurb for, I'll put it up here.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's the the title is Sea of Grass.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's not out yet.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's gonna be out in um, oh, it's it says it's on it's gonna be on sale the end of May.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: The end of May, it goes on, it it's for sale.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I I have an uncorrected uh proof here.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and the guy goes into a fair amount of uh uh explanation that I hadn't seen as technical as this, the difference between bison and cows and the behavioral differences.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: And uh uh bison, bison never stood in rivers and creeks.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: They would they would uh wallow and make dust baths, cover them kind of more like a chicken, uh, cover like a big chicken, uh cover themselves up with dust, make the and make these uh wallas, and uh, and cover themselves up with dust, and um and their their actual their actual behavior they were not nearly as sedentary.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: A bison, a a bison, they can cover they can run 30 miles an hour for three hours.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: So where a cow three consecutive hours?
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about 90 miles, 90 miles in three hours.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh so where a a cow herd uh is is much more sedentary than a bison herd.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Bison herds move a lot more and and their their physiology, uh the way they're they're heavy in the front, lighter in the rear, anyway, they're their physiology is conducive to this.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, it was it was a fascinating I I had never seen the the technical um as much technical information difference between a cow and a and a and a bison.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: The point is that with a cow, uh sanitation, you've got you've got to make a move.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Bison, they moved just they wanted to move.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Cows don't want to move.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's the that was my takeaway.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that that that as long as a cow is happy, you know, she's gonna just stay in one place.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: A bison, even if they're happy, they're wanting to move a different place.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: And and and this created this this movement, this sanitation, sanitation across the landscape because they were lounging in the same place.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Cow, man, they're very happy to lie down in their same poop every day for a year.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: They they have no problem doing that.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: I had never I had that was kind of new, you know, I hadn't really put that together before.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um But you would think like kind of makes me disappointed in the cow compared to the bison.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm thinking, don't instinctively they know like not to lay down in their poop day after day, or like this kind of goes back to the whole germ theory.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Do we have it wrong?
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why would an animal knowingly go lay in its poop all the time?
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I I don't get it.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't know.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: I I I I guess I guess nobody told them about germs.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: They missed that day of school, huh?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think it's because uh and and he didn't say this in the book, but um my sense was that because bison are well deer, okay.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we see it with with uh white-tailed deer around here.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um a cow is a is a very sedentary uh, you know, uh, and that's why they're so well there, that's why they're so wonderful as domestic domestic stock, because they tend to be sedentary.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and no farmer wants a cow that that won't settle, that that's always, you know, like nervous and wanting to run over the hill and you know, run out on the interstate.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: No farmer wants that.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: But that's actually the way deer are, you know.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Deer at night you got to be careful they don't run out in front of your car, right?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh bison, you know.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: So so there's something in the temperament that makes the wild animal.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know that it's inquisitive, maybe whatever it is, but but something makes them want to move.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas cows, if they're content, hey, I'm this is my shade tree, man.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh I'm you know, I'm just here.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: They're just on vacation 24-7.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right, right, right, right, right.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: But wouldn't it be nice to be that content yourself?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: So so so this this is why this is why um stewardship and and management, you know, the the the the beautiful thing about livestock is that they are docile and content and you know, and and you can handle them.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: The negative side is they depend on us to make some decisions for them, which is this is poopy, this is clean over here, you're gonna lie over here today, not over there, okay?
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like having kids.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you have to make them get up and exercise, make them, you know, don't play in the poop.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right, right.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: So, so so sanitation is really um really important and and that means that lots of times you may need to have and and I'm a huge uh fan of portable, portable shelter, uh, you know, nursery shade cloth, simple little things.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I mean, if you've only got a couple animals, you know, something, goodness, 10 feet by 12 feet, you know, uh uh uh you know, you you can put an awning off a trailer, I mean, get an axle.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a million different ways to make a very simple uh shade structure that you can move around like a glorified wheelbarrow and and um and and and let these let these animals uh be uh in a new you know in a new spot.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then the the the third main reason to move them around, so you got yeah, number one is got grass growth uh and nutrition, number two is sanitation.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Number three is um is a diversified diet, a diversified intake.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: So when you so animals, animals always eat dessert first.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: All animals, they eat dessert first.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: They they never they never start with the liver and onions and end up at the cake.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: They always start with the cake.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: And and you're just giving me justification to to to change my eating habit, dessert first.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: If they're doing it, right?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, um, yeah, so they always eat dessert first.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, the most palatable thing they can find, they're gonna eat that first.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: But um that's that's not always i if if if that's all they do, um that's not necessarily the best for them either.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so by moving them to fresh spots all the time, they get a you know, we call it a salad bar, they get this this buffet of things, and when they're and when they're confined to it, they got to eat a little bit of the Forbes, you know, some plantain, some other things along.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: It actually, you know, uh helps them to be to have a more diverse diversified intake of of stuff.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: And and and by but uh what is dessert for a cow?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it can vary.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it can vary from from one month to one month, depending on what plant.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, at one time it might be red clover, another time it might be the the seed heads off of fall panicum.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: At another time it might be uh it might be the tender toplets of a of a wild carrot.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so it varies, you know, it varies throughout the season.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, if you're not moving them around, you will never have the diversity of you will never have that plant exp, that diversified plant expression to offer those specially tasty morsels throughout the season.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be a pretty much you know same thing every day, every day, every day.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're moving them and they get onto a very diversified, different sword, oh, well, there's um there's there's plantain blossoms and there's you know um they they don't like they don't like dandelion seeds, but they love dandelion leaves when they're real, real tender early in the spring.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, so these kinds of things will change.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've watched them, I've watched them move them into a paddock, and the first thing they do is go and they find if there's a burdock, I mean, you know, who would think?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: But first thing you see, there they are.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: They're eating a burdock, you know, um, which is which it has a lot of medicinal qualities to it.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, so you know, giving them this diversified uh uh buffet, if you will, to choose from, you can't div you can't offer that to them if they're in the same place all the time.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: It just it it never it never develops.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's never allowed, that salad bar is never allowed to develop.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: And and so um so that the the different forages, the different things are good.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: So those are three three things grass growth, sanitation, and the diversity of forages are I think the three main reasons to move them around.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you do this?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know, with a with something like a a goat or a a sheep or a cow, um they all have different requirements.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, at scale, at scale we use, you know, electric fence.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: The easiest thing to keep in with electric fence is a cow, and you only need one strand, and it, you know, you want it about nose height, so you know, something 30 inches is usually pretty good, and one strand, and and um so you give them enough to eat for one day or maybe two, you know.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to turn this into a addiction, but um, but you you just give them you know a one or two day what they'll clean up, and then you move them to the you know to the next one and and you move them around.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm not gonna belabor that point, except that it's it doesn't take much time.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, they get very they get very used to this when when you say, as you know, pets are very routine.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you miss your feeding time for the dogs, they're all over you, right?
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: They they oh yeah, they will jump on the bed and stand on me.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like, get up, we're hungry.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly right.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, so all uh domestic livestock is the same way.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and so that's why you a routine is really good.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you can move them, you know, within within an hour or hour and a half of the same time every day, uh, that's really good.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: And because then they, you know, they they get used to it.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if if you if you shorter them a little bit, they don't get antsy because this this everyday move, I didn't mention this as another uh reason, but what happens is there comes this wonderful trust that they begin trusting you.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you missed it one day, let you say you didn't give them enough or you're a little bit late or whatever, um, they don't get all antsy because they trust you that you know, she's gonna give me a new spot sometime today.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we've watched this over and over.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: This this is why you don't want to move them in the morning one day, afternoon another day, before dark another day, and at noon another.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: No, you don't want because then they never get content.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: They never get content because they never know when their new meal is coming from.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, so having a routine where, okay, sometime between four and six o'clock every day, uh, I'm gonna I'm gonna move you, they they just become extremely content and they trust in you.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so this whole domestic livestock thing, the pinnacle of it is when your animals are when your animals completely trust in you to take care of them.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's like that's like the pinnacle of of you know husband of animal husbandry.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: And and um and so that that's another thing that that moving does.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is you're you're going to move them, and uh, and so then it becomes a math, um, a math issue.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: If I gave them, you know, uh uh 200 square yards and and it and I and it was too much, well, by you know, whatever, 10%.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a bit of a it's an art and a science, all right?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's an art and a science.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um if I'm if I gave them 200 square yards and it's um a little bit too much, I'll drop it 10%.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, then I'll give them 180 yards tomorrow.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: And by the same token, if I go out and ooh, boy, they really skinned this.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: I should have given them 10% more, I'll give them 220 yards, okay?
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: And and and that will that will change, you know, as they as the animals grow, as the season changes, you know.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, in the spring when the grass is grass is real washy, lots of water, you know, um, they'll eat more more volume, more pounds of material than in the dry summer when it gets concentrated, it's highly mineralized, and there's not as much water.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: They'll eat a lot fewer pounds of grass than they will in the spring when it's so uh watery.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, all these nuances, and I I don't want to I don't want to belabor this podcast getting into all those weeds, except to help people to understand that there are there is a recipe here, you know, that there is a protocol, and you can learn it.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the biggest reasons to move them every day is so that you become expert at knowing how much forage you have.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: So so that you so you you begin reading the forage.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this is and and and our measurement is cow days, how uh cow, cow, cow equivalents, um, how many cow days is this grass?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 cow day grass.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but on a small acreage, you might work with you know square yardage.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, how much square yardage do they need?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is, if you don't know, if you don't know how many animals you have and you don't know how much you gave them, you can't make an adjustment yesterday.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh or you can't make it, you certainly can't make an adjustment yesterday.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Make an adjustment tomorrow, okay?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you can and so think about the electric fist becomes a steering wheel, a brake, and an accelerator on that four-legged pruning sauerkraut vat.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you're literally, you're literally mowing, you're mowing your landscape with the same precision as a zero-turn mower.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when you get into the smaller stock, like a sheep and a goat, uh those, a sheep takes at least two wires, a goat takes at least three, and they've got to be hot, way hotter than a cow electric fence.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so if you have a a fairly a relatively small uh group, you know, four sheep, whatever, four goats, three goats, something like that.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, again, we're talking about very small acreages.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: Many of those, I think it's actually best to build a portable um a portable pen.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, you can go down to tractor supply and get, you know, uh caster, you know, nice big, you know, 10-inch caster wheels.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: And um, we've made these, we we've made them for um uh we've made them for the for the ram.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: We called it a a rambler.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and and and uh it was just on casters, and literally the ram actually pushed it around himself.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was like a it was like a big playpen on wheels, and he just uh when he got hungry, he just pushed it, you know, into some new grass and he'd be there for a while and then he'd push it in and um he kind of moved it around the landscape.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: So so um that is so cool.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was very cool because it kept it kept him controlled.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he was where he was supposed to be.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: But but he he just kind of, you know, and we could we could bring him up to the yard, you know, he'd mow the yard, you know, mow around the garden, you know, and just um um mow through.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: We you could do this with a you know with a milk cow or or or two steers if you wanted a, you know, a big um uh I I designed one once, I called it the ox box.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and and uh so you know something, you know, um whatever, six, six, maybe twenty by twenty, uh, fifteen by you know, something that that that you can actually pull, or you and you and your kids, you know, could, or, or you know, you and uh um, you know, for for a cow, it's got to be, you know, a little bit stronger.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: But for something like a sheep and a goat, it can be very, very light, and you know, where one person can just you know move it around real easy.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you when you get into very, very small numbers like this, electric fence, so sometimes a portable structure can actually be more efficient than the electric fence.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: Electric fence is really efficient, but if you get into extremely small numbers, sometimes uh a portable, one of the neatest ones I ever saw was in Texas.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: A couple, uh, a couple boys had built a, this was big, it was for lambs, and it was um that they'd used real, real light um square tubing and built a portable corral that was like 20 feet by 50 feet, and it was just on casters, and two people could just pull it.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you could put you could put 50 sheep in there and just move them along.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: No electric fence, you could, you know, move them wherever you wanted, and it was it was really, really slick.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: I've never forgotten it.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I I told them when I was there, I said, I said, okay, so the next the next refinement, guys, is to take to put a little winch on this thing or put a put a cable on it that goes out to like a T-post out here on a little solar uh energizer and and uh and it it just winches it along, you know, like like uh whatever, you know, uh three three feet an hour and just winches it along, you know, uh and self self-moves.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: So um they said they'd that would be cool.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: They said they said they'd work on it.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: But um when we talk about moving animals uh on on pasture, um it's it's not nearly as arduous as it sounds, and and the and the benefits as I've described, and the control that you get, the control that you get for the forage, the sanitation, the trust with the animal, the diversified intake, all of that control is really, really cool to watch your homestead blossom instead of just having this, you know, back four acre feet uh four-acre lot that's always grazed into the ground, never really, you know, it doesn't it doesn't make flowers for pollinators because nothing ever gets big enough, you know, tall enough, and and um and you can you know grow so much more and have all these other benefits.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so very basic question here.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: What if you have like one or two goats?
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: Why can't you just turn them out onto the pasture?
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like, are they like the cows where they don't want to move?
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like, won't the will the goats just move around and eat something and then know to go to the next spot?
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: Or do you have to put like one or two goats even in a pin and keep moving it?
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so so goats.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: Let's spend a little bit of time on goats.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um goats are adorable.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people love goats.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: I hear a butt coming.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, however, yeah, however, yeah.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's a fancy butt.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a that's a fancy butt.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we're talking about goats, so butt is probably better.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so the thing about goats is they are browsers and not grazers.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: So cows and sheep are grazers.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: They want to pick up roughly 80% of their diet from below their shoulders.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: So you see them, their heads are down, and they're they're grazing, okay?
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: A goat is opposite.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: They're browsers, they want to pick up 80% of their feed from above their shoulders.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: And interestingly, Sina, the actual saliva, the saliva generated, the saliva glands are completely different in a goat than a sheep and a cow.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: A sheep and a cow, the saliva, um, when they lift their head, lift their the saliva doesn't come out to the end of their mouth.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: They don't, whereas a goat, they have a a different, different mechanism.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: Here, what I'm getting at is the goat wants to browse uh above its shoulders.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: The the sheep and the cow are grazers.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so that difference is remarkable in how you actually handle them.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: So the the beauty of a goat, because they're a browser, is that you don't have to move them as frequently because they don't tend to eat over their poop because they're up here.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: They're pooping on the ground, they're eating up here.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: Cow and sheep, they poop on the ground and then they eat next to it.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you have a much greater parasite pathogen, you know, uh um sanitation issue, hygiene issue with the grazer than you do with the browser, because the browser's above his head.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the that's the silver lining behind the mischievous goat that's so hard to keep in.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: Goats, you know, on fencing, they say if your fence won't hold water, it won't hold a goat.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: And and and you know, um goats are extremely intelligent, very, very mischievous, and they will they will get out.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: The reason we don't have goats is because we had goats.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's a big difference between present tense and past tense.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: We got rid of our goats.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: The final straw was I got up one morning, I looked out, you know, in our house, our bedrooms here, and the cars are parked out front.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: I got up and all the goats were lounging, placidly chewing their cud up on top of the car.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: I said, That's it, that's it, the goats are gone.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, so the goats left and we never had them again.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: But they were constantly, they were, they were breaking down chicken shelters, they were doing all it was just almost impossible to keep them in.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that being said, the beauty of a goat is that they're um that they don't have to be moved every day.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you move them, you know, once a week, that's that's plenty.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: But you still need to move them just from a from a sanitation hygiene standpoint.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: That they need to go on to new ground.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the thing about a goat browse, so bushes and shrubs, that's what a goat likes.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: Their energy cycle is about as third as fast, so woody species, the energy cycle on a woody species is a third or a quarter as as fast as grass and forbs and clovers.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: So when a when a grass plant gets defoliated, assuming everything is at energy equilibrium and you know everything's healthy, a grass plant gets defoliated, grazed, it's going to recuperate four times faster than a bush or a shrub.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's why when people have a bunch of brambles and you know, brush and stuff, goats.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: Goats are the animal of choice because they love to eat up above their heads.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they'll actually, they'll actually, you know, get on their hind legs and you know, um, and and they'll climb a tree if they can.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, one of the most amazing uh sights I've ever saw was in a uh a cool um non-chemical olive grove out in um Northern California.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, olive trees are you know, they they grow real uh you know, the the branches are real low to the ground, you know, and they they like a like a candelabra, you know, like a like a low slung candelabra, and they grow.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: And uh they have a lot of suckers.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: Suckers come up in the middle of the thing, and you have to keep pruning off the pruning off the suckers.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this guy said, Well, man, why am I gonna why am I gonna go out and spend all this time um you know pruning off all these suckers?
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: So he had a hundred goats.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: He had a hundred goats, and these goats climbed up in the olive trees and pruned off those internal suckers.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: I it was one of the most amazing things ever.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: I sat there and you and here were these goats up there 12 feet, 12 feet up in these trees.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um and up there.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was amazing.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: They were as happy as could be.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he moved them about, he moved them about once a week.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: So he used uh electrified netting, and he he would enclose like you know, an acre and a half or so, pretty big area, put them in there for a week, and then next week he'd move into another area, another area.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: But they literally went through this this I don't know how many acres it was, 20 acres of olives, something like that.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was a commercial olive uh grove, orchard, whatever you call it, and and the goats were doing all that pruning, and they were clear up in these trees.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was truly remarkable.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the thing brush and shrubby and woody plants, when they're defoliated, grow back a fourth as fast as forages, which means the energy cycle is is slower, which means The recuperation time is longer.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, so that's why when goats are in an area and they're defoliating the brush and the brambles and the and the uh bushes, it gradually kills all that bushy, brambly growth, and it turns into a beautiful pasture because the goats are actually preferring the browse to the forage.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so they gradually change it.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: So so the the joke in in you know my circles is that it takes about five years for the goats to kill, you know, to kill the the nuisance that you got them for, you know, to and it takes about five years for you to start liking your goats.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh you know, you learn how to keep them in, you learn how to, you know, handle them and all this.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: You get whatever, you know, a lot of people milk them, you know, so you got milking things, all that.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it takes about five years to, and five years, hey, I really like these.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: I finally have gotten to where I like these goats, and that's right when they eat themselves out of their habitat because they've killed all the crush.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: Then what happens is people turn them into grazers, and they start eating clover and grass, and it's too rich.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: And now you start having hoof, hoof problems.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: You have retained placentas uh because they're um because it's too rich.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: You have parasites because they're eating too low on a, you know, too down on the ground, um, all these issues because you turn them from browsers into grazers.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: So the most the most successful goat people that I know all over the world um essentially use their goats as a landscape management tool that they rotate.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: So they start on their own place, and then the next thing you know, this it's a rent of goat, you know, and somebody's somebody's renting their goats or using their goats in a you know in a brambly, brushy, shrubby place.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they'd rather use goats than try to mow it, you know, and and so you know, this is this is how people develop with goats.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: So the thing about goats is you just got to remember they have a very specific habitat.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the habitat that you start them on, eventually they're going to eliminate that habitat because chances are you can't afford the long enough rest time to keep the bushes and shrubs from deteriorating.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: Over time, over time, you're gonna rotate those goats around before those bushes and shrubs have actually fully recuperated, and um and and your your habitat for the goat is gradually going to uh going to dissipate, and then you've got to decide, well, you know, now what do I want to do?
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: Goats are a wonderful, they're a wonderful animal for you know for strategic landscape um uh upgrade, if you will, you know, if you want to upgrade from brushy and woody stuff to to nice pasture, they're the animal of choice, no question, no question the animal of choice.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: But you have to be you have to be ready to um you know to part with them once they've accomplished the task you want them to do.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: You've either got to be ready to part with them or find a neighbor that want that that loves what he sees at your place and says, Hey, you think you could bring them over and do that at my place?
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, and and then you you kind of use use them as a as a tool around.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: Could you just keep planting more bushes for them?
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like going behind and planting more and more well you you could, you could.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh although does it get expensive?
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um most people would not want to plant uh noxious, uh noxious bushes.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh oh, they won't, so they'll only eat like the bramble stuff?
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like they wouldn't eat like could you plant like blueberry bushes?
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_01: Will they eat things like that?
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh absolutely.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: They would eat they would they would completely consume them.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, the whole thing.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, yeah.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, yeah.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like it's getting very expensive to eat it.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: So so um so let me tell you what my brother did.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: He had he had um three goats.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he built a triangular.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: This was cool.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: He he got um um cattle panels, and you can you can uh take two light boards top and bottom and just uh zip tie so zip zip tie two boards so that the cattle panels aren't aren't uh noodly, okay?
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: Tied them together at the corner.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: So basically he had a triangle.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a sixteen sixteen feet, sixteen feet, three, three sides, sixteen feet long triangle.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: He put the goats in there, and he and and because it was a triangle, it made it really easy.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: You could pivot it, you could pick up one side and pivot it on any point.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he just moved these, it worked beautifully.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: He did it for several years, and then you know, then they they they finally got everything cleaned up and got rid of the goats.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_00: But um, but but it worked beautifully as as long as your environment, as long as your bushes and and your weeds or whatever you're trying to clean up are not so tall that you can't, you know, kind of pick this up and and and kind of shove it over your you know over your plants.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: If if if you're in the you know, if you're in the middle of the woods, it wouldn't work very well.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, because you can't pivot it around the trees.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: But but uh but if you're out like in a in a if you've got just a really thistly, brambly, weedy, weedy pasture, for example, and you're wanting to, you know, move the goats around, this this uh this triangular thing worked.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think at the most he had four goats in there, but you know, move it once a day.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_00: It was fabulous.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and you could pivot it because it was a triangle, you could pivot it on any corner you wanted to.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was I thought it was pretty clever, and the goats certainly got along well.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: He put a put a little um uh shade cloth, you know, across one one corner so they had some shade they could get under, and um worked really well.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's really smart.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, very creative.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, and and that that that way he didn't have to worry about electric fence, running electric fence through the brambles, you know, that gets problem.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta go with a weed eater or something, you gotta clean it up so the I mean electric fence through through brambles and woody, that that gets that gets um problematic.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_00: So this this is so yeah, I I think I think the um you know the physical the physical portable pin uh has some really cool I don't think we've begun to really do the number of applications on that that we could do for you know for very, very small numbers, you know, two goats, two lambs, two beef, a milk cow, you know.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I think I think that we have not begun to explore the potential for lightweight um physical portable structures for those.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now this begs the question: what if your homestead is hilly?
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm talking about like steep hills, you know, like maybe what you might imagine you're up in the mountains and there's steeper hills.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um what can you do in terms of having livestock in that uh environment?
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then also if it's hilly with a lot of dense forest on it, are you just out of luck?
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: You can't homestead because um I have some well, you know, my our homestead does it's it's mainly steep and it's very wooded, forest dense, and uh like white oaks and such.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_01: And we have several friends in the same situation, and some of our listeners have sent in questions, they're in a very similar situation as well.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of them have just reached the point where they're like, well, I guess maybe I have to move to where I can go to a flatter area, but I was like, I just built my house here, I'm not moving.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: So is there anything that all of us in that situation can do?
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_01: Can we raise livestock somehow in those conditions?
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_00: Do you do you know, do you know how many uh visitors go every year to see the cows on in the Swiss Alps?
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know there were cows there.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_01: I knew, aren't there goats?
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_01: There's goats there, right?
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: Cows, cows.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know there were cows.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's oh yeah, Swiss Alps.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: They had you know have a big bell around their neck, and um, yeah.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_00: So all animals have four-wheel drive.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_00: So so places that you and I would almost need a repelling rope.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, think of think of mountain goats.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, look at uh they you know, they and and so um, so as long as you are moving them, you the the problem in steep ground is when you leave them there all the time and they and they they make it barren, they denude it, and then now you have erosion, okay?
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_00: But goodness, goodness, um steep ground with with animals moving across it, not a problem.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: Not a problem.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: We um we have some some um acorn glens where we finished pigs up in the up in the woods, and of course, you know, we're we're off uh on the edge of a mountain as well here.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_00: And um I I've put electric fence up there where I almost needed a repelling rope.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I mean, I literally I was I'm I'm stringing this wire, uh grabbing trees to haul myself up the steep, the steepness of this bank.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_00: Pigs, turn them in there.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they just they they sound like a bunch of vacuum cleaners.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: They're just you know, just picking up these acorns.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and and but but we don't leave them there but for a couple of days, you know.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_00: So they don't they don't tear it up and they they they ruffle the leaves a little bit, you know, they kind of disturb the leaves a little bit.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_00: You you can tell it almost looks like a like a like a rake went through it, you know, and and just kind of fluffed everything up, okay?
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: But that's it.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then we move the pigs out and it's fine.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_00: So so the main thing, so steep ground um in your kind of situation is not a, I mean, it's it's um it gets your heart pumping, you know, to to string your electric fence or move your box or whatever, but uh there's nothing there's nothing ecologically or environmentally uh, you know, even logistically an inherent problem on on a steep ground.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now the woods are a bigger issue.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_00: So your you know your herbivores, whether it's a goat, sheep, cow, um, they want grass.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_00: They don't want trees.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, a goat, we've already talked about a goat.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_00: Goat's in a little different category, but cow, sheep, uh, they're gonna want they're gonna want forages.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so if your if your woods is too dense to let enough shade in for grass to grow underneath, you're gonna want to um what we call silvo pasture it.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: And when you do silvo pasture, what you're doing is you're selecting nice, healthy, good trees, and you're cutting out crooked trees, weak trees, um uh low, low value, low quality trees, and you are opening it up so you get more light to the floor, which can then grow grass.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_00: And you can actually make a park, you know, something that looks like a park.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: Think about a you know, a park appearance.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you can actually make a park look appearance.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we've done with our with our pig pastures in the woods, um, you know, widely spaced trees, grass underneath, makes one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_00: But you're gonna have to come alongside the animals and work with them uh to to you know to to get sunlight into the ground because grass won't grow without sunlight.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_00: And if the if the canopy, if the forest canopy is so um opaque that not enough sunlight gets to the forest floor to grow grass, then you know, then you don't have any grass.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_00: But you can open it up, you can open it up enough for that to happen and absolutely create a park-like appearance.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_00: We call that silvo pasture, and uh and and the animals, the animals will go up and down, they'll go up and down just fine.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's so hopeful.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because I was thinking, well, I guess I picked the wrong land that I can't grow any of these things, but so obviously, then you would need to create that light on the floor before you're getting these animals.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_01: So you would need to do this silvo past pasture uh protocol that you're talking about.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, crank up the chainsaw.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, which now I learned how to use the chainsaw.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm going crazy with my chainsaw.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I have somebody you have an electric one or a gas one.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's an electric one, but the neighbor has a gas one that's much bigger than mine.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_01: So he was like, practice with your smaller electric one first, and then I'll give you my gas one to practice with.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I had somebody come over and teach me how to do it, and Donnie was like, You are really the girl version of Joel.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because I was like, like so empowering to do it, you know, and so now we're working on we have this is our really our first homesteading, I'm calling it a homesteading project.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just because there were some trees that got damaged, you know, from storms.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so I've been taking taking those trees down, and then we've been chopping it up.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_01: We even got a an axe, you know, like the kind that the big tall ones that you would get to chop firewood.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_01: We have a firewood chopping station out here, and so now we got some pallets, and we're gonna try to put the you know, a firewood station, uh, and then um the kids and I are gonna build a little pit because they wanna, you know, I have boys, they want to light things on fire.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we're absolutely yeah, so we're gonna build bo boys and pyromaniacs kind of go together, that's for sure.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_01: So it has been very exciting.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_01: I told Donnie, I was like, now I understand why Joel likes his chainsaw so much because it's therapeutic, it's quiet, like because obviously the kids can't be around me because the tree could fall down on the, you know.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_01: So it's my own space, you know.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_01: I have the power to do this, I'm beautifying, like I'm tending to to the land, you know, and I'm and it's like you step back and you look at what you just created, and I got exercise.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm in nature, I'm in the sun, and I'm tending to God's creation.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it's so inspiring.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_01: And now I'm like, I'm gonna do more.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_01: This is now my exercise.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_01: Every day now I go out, and I'm like, what can I do now to give back to the land?
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, very cool.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's very cool.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_00: So as you as you get into your woods, you know, uh every woods has good trees and junk junk trees.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we call this weeding, weeding the woodlot.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and so you can, you know, if you go out, I mean, my favorite is to go out without the chainsaw, just in the quiet with a with a pocket full with a you know survey ribbon, and go out and and put a ribbon around the the keeper trees.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um you don't make this decision with the chainsaw runny, you know.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_00: Go out on on your own time in the quiet.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I the reason I like ribbon rather than paint, I mean, you know, some people paint the trees they want to keep or or whatever, but I like the ribbon because I'm I'm in this spot, you know, I might change my mind.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, I'm gonna I'm gonna leave this one and take the well, I can I can rip or I can take a ribbon off, but you can't take paint off.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I like to go out and and kind of make my decision.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, go out, okay, I've got a quarter acre here and and make my selections.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_00: Here are the trees I'm gonna keep, and I'm gonna cut the other stuff.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_00: I like to do that, you know, kind of in the quiet on my own time.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_00: Then when I go up and I fire up the saw, I don't have to make any decisions.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever doesn't have a ribbon on it comes down.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_00: Boom, boom, you know, and you can, you know, and you can uh you can go after it.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_00: So uh oh, that's very cool.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I I you know the one of the permaculture concepts is we need more forest and fewer trees.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, permaculture, the whole um uh permaculture movement says that our our our our forests are all weedy.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're they're weedy, they're um uh um they're too crowded.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and mine's filled with bramble everywhere, and it hurts to walk by it.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_00: So um yeah, I mean, I mean, you you could, you know, you could certainly uh put some goats in there, but I I can tell you um you know to do to do much with goats, you're gonna have to go to electric fence, which is fine.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you're gonna have to have a really good energizer and make sure you don't get goats until you have a secure corral.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you have some physical place that if worse comes to worse, you can get them in here and they're in they're in jail.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, they they can't they can't get out.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's one of the biggest things homesteaders do, you know.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I've got this cute cow, I'll get these sheep or goat, and they don't have they don't have a good secure physical corral.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_00: So there's no real place.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you get an animal and they're fantastic, they're docile, they just you know, they're uh they just go right on.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then other times you get what you thought was this cutest, nicest little docile animal, and you let them out of the trailer and they turn into a you know to a uh a raging inferno, and you finally catch them 10 miles away at some you know some uh farmer's place 10 miles away with the help of the SWAT team and the sheriff's department.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_00: So oh this happens, all right.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_00: This happens, and so never get never get an animal, never get a big, you know, a goat, sheep, cow, don't get anything like that until you actually have a physical corral strong enough that worse comes to worse, you can you can put them in jail and and and make your decision about what to do later.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_01: So so my takeaway from listening to you talk is that raising all these livestock is pretty much like raising young kids because if you think about it, when we have these toddlers, we stick them in pens, right?
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like we have the pens for them.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, we have play pens for them.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_01: We try to make sure our kids don't just eat dessert, like right.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_01: We try to keep them having a diverse diet, don't don't just eat dessert.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_01: We try to make them exercise to move their bodies, they like routine, right?
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_01: Kids do better when they have routine, they feel safe, they'll trust you more, feel more content, and at some point they try to sneak out, like yeah.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_00: At some point they want to sneak out.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so so you could call this uh everything I ever needed to know about raising kids, I learned in the barnyard.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_01: No, I love it.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_01: Joel, this has been this has been incredible.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_01: The I'm serious.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_01: The more I learn about this, the more connected I feel to it, and the more confident I feel to try some to try some of these homesteading adventures.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it becomes exciting.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_01: The more knowledge we have, the more excited we have we are.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to keep doing more episodes like this.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um to all of our listeners, please send in your questions.
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_01: If you have any kind of homesteading questions, send them in.
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I I think we're just gonna see more uh more and more people moving toward um self-sustainable lifestyle in both food and medicine.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll cover both of those aspects.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Joel, any last um last comments to wrap it up?
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_01: And also a question.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the so the qu the question is um, have you ever uh um had a sheep, goat, or cow um that you ended up chasing down the road, the public road, uh and and a kind of a what I'd call an oops day.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um I certainly have our stories.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_00: Our worst ones was um was we had we had a um a gate break on one of the rental farms, and the herd got out and broke into two groups.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_00: One went to the neighbors and one went up on a railroad, and Amtrak ran over nine of them.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh that was that was that was a sad day.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_00: That'll be in that'll be in my sometime.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do a book of of oops, and um, and the title of that chapter is When 911 Calls You, it's gonna be a rough day.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man, that's sad.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_01: But what a great idea for a book.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_01: I would totally read that.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_01: That could be one of the you know how I'm really big about humor and having laughter as like an essential nutrient every day.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_01: Start your day with that instead of popping the pills.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_01: That would be a great book as a morning laughter read.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely that's um, yeah, that that's that's definitely one.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've actually got a list of list of all those oopses, and uh, you know, they're funny, they weren't funny then, but they're funny now, you know, when you when you look back on it.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_00: So uh good.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_00: So so the so the question is, if you've ever had have you ever had a goat, sheep, or cow uh get out on the public road and um and have a have a uh panic attack and a moment of consternation until you finally got them back.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_00: Might might might make for some interesting uh stories.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody, thanks for joining us on another um episode of Beyond Labels Podcast.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, we just so appreciate having you.
• 1:07:46
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• 1:07:49
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• 1:07:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_00: We'll look forward to being with you again next week.