{"id":116,"date":"2011-10-31T09:18:46","date_gmt":"2011-10-31T14:18:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/?p=116"},"modified":"2011-10-31T09:19:44","modified_gmt":"2011-10-31T14:19:44","slug":"making-it-permanent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/making-it-permanent\/","title":{"rendered":"Making it permanent…."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>We’re confident enough of our “mob grazing” experiment that we’ve installed electric fencing around the perimeter of our two major pastures.\u00a0 In two days, Duane Ard (foreground) and Ira McDowell stretched just about a mile of high tensile wire, three lightning\u00a0grounding systems\u00a0and two new energizers.\u00a0 We’re now supplying about 12,000 volts to most sections of the farm.<\/p>\n

We’ll attach movable,\u00a0temporary, polywire to the main line and create small sub-paddocks of less than an acre.\u00a0 The idea is to put maximum cow weight—briefly—on small sections of pasture, which ensures even forage consumption and maximum trampling effect.\u00a0 If we get it just right, the cows eat about a third of the grass, grind a third into the ground to create organic matter, and leave at third for rapid regrowth.\u00a0 The plan does require us to move the fencing each day, no matter the weather.\u00a0 (See “A dress rehearsal” below)<\/p>\n

We’ve seen quite an improvement in the area of our test project this year.\u00a0 Not only do we have a thicker stand of grass but we’ve been able to set aside just about half the area for the winter.\u00a0 That will save a lot on hay costs.\u00a0 We’ve also saved by not having to spray fertilizer.\u00a0 (We normally use fish oil and kelp, not chemical fertilizer, twice a year.)<\/p>\n

Fertilizing pastures and buying hay, which has to be cut, baled, transported and fed, all\u00a0burns a lot of diesel.\u00a0 And we’re not only cutting costs but also doing a lot less damage to the environment.\u00a0 Coupled with our water conservation program, which won an award from the State,\u00a0 Thistle Hill is as “eco-friendly” as any farm we know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’re confident enough of our “mob grazing” experiment that we’ve installed electric fencing around the perimeter of our two major pastures.\u00a0 In two days, Duane Ard (foreground) and Ira McDowell stretched just about a mile of high tensile wire, three lightning\u00a0grounding systems\u00a0and two new energizers.\u00a0 We’re now supplying about 12,000 volts to most sections of the farm. We’ll attach movable,\u00a0temporary, polywire to the main line and create small sub-paddocks of less than an acre.\u00a0 The idea is to put maximum cow weight—briefly—on small sections of pasture, which ensures even forage consumption and maximum trampling effect.\u00a0 If we get it just right, the cows eat about a third of the grass, grind a third into the ground to create organic matter, and leave at third for rapid regrowth.\u00a0 The plan does require us to move the fencing each day, no matter the weather.\u00a0 (See “A dress rehearsal” below) We’ve seen quite an improvement in the area of our test project this year.\u00a0 Not only do we have a thicker stand of grass but we’ve been able to set aside just about half the area for the winter.\u00a0 That will save a lot on hay costs.\u00a0 We’ve also saved by not having to spray fertilizer.\u00a0 (We normally use fish oil and kelp, not chemical fertilizer, twice a year.) Fertilizing pastures and buying hay, which has to be cut, baled, transported and fed, all\u00a0burns a lot of diesel.\u00a0 And we’re not only cutting costs but also doing a lot less damage to the environment.\u00a0 Coupled with our water conservation program, which won an award from the State,\u00a0 Thistle Hill is as “eco-friendly” as any farm we know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions\/123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}