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Trainings | Field Days

Cattle in the Corn, Pigs in the Pasture
By Paul Bransky

This article was first printed in the March-April 2002 issue of the Organic Broadcaster, published by the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service.

"Don't whine about high commodities. Feed pasture." That's the philosophy of Dan Specht, a certified organic farmer with the CROPP meat pool who raises beef cattle and hogs on 150 acres of pasture and grazed row crops in northeast Iowa. "Nothing beats perennial plants for not spending money. There's nothing to plant, and the animals do all the fertilizing."

Specht's presentation at the recent Upper Midwest Organic Farming Conference, "Integrating Livestock into your Crop Rotation," detailed his experience and experiments with New Zealand-style rotational grazing, as well as insights from New Zealand graziers. Specht has seen a gain of approximately 600 pounds per head of cattle from May to February on an average of 1 1/2 acres, and raised ten litters of hogs per acre per year.

"This is a good use for marginal crop land," said Specht, who pastures his livestock on side hills. He visited people in New Zealand whose cattle gained about 4 1/2 pounds per day on low wet pastures only. "No one feeds grain in New Zealand," Specht said, "there are graziers with no tractors--just a holding pen, a milking parlor, a bulk tank, and fences."
Timing plays a key role in Specht's success. He moves his herd to new pasture every four days or sooner, to avoid parasite problems and to leave enough root reserve for the plants to rebound. "Don't be concerned about making it look like a hay field when you graze," said Specht, "westerners say take half and leave half, but I think you'll gain more if you leave more than that because the cows will be healthier and the plants will get better regrowth." Specht referred to research in New Zealand on the life cycle of round and stomach worms , which determined that infective larvae, or "veligers" hatch after four days of egg incubation in manure, and live as larvae for 21 to 24 days outside a host. By grazing each paddock less than five days and not returning until 25 days after the last grazing, the New Zealanders were able to prevent cattle ingestion of these parasites.

Specht noted that this schedule fits well with the needs of pasture plants. "The closer you graze grass, the less there is for the root. If you run into a dry spell you need to have those reserves. And legumes really respond to having 30 days for regrowth. If you do grazing light the legumes actually strengthen." Specht said some conventional graziers put nitrogen on ryegrass for a 14 day return, but "last summer they ran into a brick wall (during the drought) because nothing was left in the 'savings account.'"

Most of Specht's pastures are old seedings of grass/legume mixes. He got a tremendous stand of volunteer birdsfoot trefoil by stimulating an old pasture with disking and chiselling. White and red clovers also volunteer well, he said. For new seedings he likes Alice white clover. "It's a good hardy pasture plant," said Specht, "3/4 of the feed but 5% of the seed". Specht also plants late varieties of orchard grass, "for better regrowth than early orchard grass ,which grows rank and produces seedheads". Also a little rye grass and brome grass.

For his moveable fences Specht uses thin poly wire reeled on a five-dollar crank tool, attached to 79-cent plastic posts. "Moving fences is really simple," he said. For semi-permanent fencing, he uses a single strand of 12 1/2 gauge high-tensile electric wire, with strainers, attached to stripped black locust. "This is easy compared to barbed wire. You don't need brace posts, You don't need four or five strands, just one, and high tensile doesn't sag so you can go twenty paces between posts, using 1/4 as many. The wire costs $60/4000 ft., " cheaper per foot than wire that's a lot thinner".

" Once the cattle get used to a good hot fencer, they don't pressure the fences," Specht said.

Grazing Row Crops
Specht uses this fencing system in row crops also, saving time and equipment costs by letting the livestock gather his harvest. In early June last year he plowed and planted a thick drilling of corn, cultivated once, then let cattle in to graze in September. "It took three weeks for 104 cattle to do five acres." Twice a day he knocked down corn with a tractor, then strung poly wire through the opening. His rule of thumb is to give them only enough access each time so that they are done eating ear corn within fifteen minutes. After finishing the ears they devour the leaves and stalks. "When the stalks are green it looks like a silage chopper went through," said Specht. Later in the year the cattle eat less stalks and he gives them more access to grain-also good hay round bales and some lush pasture near the corn that he rations out.

For grain he chops barley for silage at the doughy seed stage, when the stalks are still green. "My guess is it's close to corn silage in energy," said Specht, "and barley straw is pretty palatable, at 8.75 % protein." With an early spring in 2000 he was able to chop barley at the end of June, then replant that field with soybeans on July 1st. He bagged the silage in the winter pasture, and protected the end of the silage tube with moveable wooden feeder panels.
Specht's hogs graze in a smaller pasture area than his cattle-five acres compared to 130--to accommodate their instinct to return to the same place every night. He noted that pigs also like lusher pasture than cattle. "For pigs, nothing is richer in minerals or vitamins than good legume pasture," he said, "and there's no feed bill. The price is right."

When it comes to putting pigs in corn, he is emphatic. "It is the most natural thing in the world to hog down corn. There is no labor, no manure handling, just water."

The sows are bred all at once. "It is natural for them to farrow together in a group. They have a herd instinct, and will run around with 50 to 60 in a group," said Specht. He gives two pounds of shell corn per day to gestating sows, and pushes the nursing window to 6 weeks, until the "juvenile delinquent" stage when they are getting out of fences. Then they move to a large hoop building, open to the south for plenty of winter sun, with a feed wagon and "bales of barley or oat straw that they chew on instead of each other"

In December they ate turnip greens from a thick field stand which stayed green until a nine-degree freeze. "Cattle, hogs and sheep will eat it, and turnip greens provide minerals, vitamins and protein," said Specht. He noted that pigs don't naturally like the root, but he trained some to graze it by first offering it in their feed bunker. It was planted August 15 after the hogs finished the corn. He disked and rolled the field, broadcast turnip seed at two pounds/acre, then rolled once again.

Specht concluded his talk with a bit of advice. "A lot of organic people belong to a grazing group in their area. You might be able to borrow equipment, or get ideas-I strongly recommend joining one."

Paul Bransky is a Wisconsin organic vegetable grower, and the former editor of the Organic Broadcaster.