I’m doing a webinar with the University of Vermont’s Sustainable Agriculture starting at noon on Thursday, May 10. Since it’s difficult to share videos over the webinar system, here are some you can watch on your own after we’re done:
What to Expect When Animals First Try Weeds
If you’d like to participate in this webinar, register online at www.uvm.edu/pasture, or contact Jenn Colby at jcolby@uvm.edu, 802-656-0858.
Here's a California trainee chowing down on Coyote Bush in Marin.
Since I posted about the success of cattle eating multiflora rose, I’ve been getting questions about other kinds of brush. So I thought I’d post this column I wrote in 2009.
Prejudice: an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason. – Dictionary.com
Grassist: a person with a prejudiced belief that, for raising cows, grass is superior to all other vegetation. – Kathy Voth
I have a confession to make.When I started my livestock career I had a strong prejudice against brush. For a time I worked diligently to develop simple techniques for creating fuel breaks in it or for eradicating it from pastures. And of course I used goats because, like everyone else, I was taught that “Goats are browsers and cows are grazers.”
But goats aren’t for everybody, and when I couldn’t convince western ranchers to use goats for weed control, I decided to teach the cows to eat them instead. The cows showed me they could eat weeds with just a little bit of training, and then one day in Marin, California at the Nicasio Native Grass Ranch the cows showed me something else. They showed me that they could do every bit as good a job on brush clearing as my goats ever did. (more…)
Rachel Gilker of UVM will be shuttling me from place to place in her mini-van while I'm on tour in Vermont. Naturally, we thought the "Tour Bus" should have signs, so here they are!
I’ve added a few things to my schedule:
May 10 – Brown Bag Weed Webinar, sponsored by the UVM Center for Sustainable Agriculture over the lunch hour. Here’s the write up on that:
Hundreds of Northeastern livestock farmers met Kathy through her visits to VT, NY and NH in the last year, becoming excited and hopeful about teaching their own livestock to become weed managers through her simple, quick process. Now that the weed season fast approaches, can you remember the tips and tricks? Are you ready to go out and try it?
Kathy will hit the highlights of weed-eating success, show that it can be done and answer your questions. Visit www.livestockforlandscapes.com for more weed-eating resources.
Contact: Register online at www.uvm.edu/pasture, or contact Jenn Colby at jcolby@uvm.edu, 802-656-0858.
May 30 – A presentation at 3:00 p.m at the Bowman Haley Marina in Bowman, ND. Sponsored by the Bowman Weed Board, Bowman-Slope Soil Conservation District and NDSU Extension Service. Contact Randy Gaebe for more information: bowmanweed@nd.gov
July 16 – 19 – I return to Vermont for some presentations and field tours as part of “The Great Weed Grazing World Tour.” More information to come as we zoom in on locations and dates.
July 21 – Teaching Cows to Eat Weeds Presentation in Westport, NY sponsored by the Essex County Soil and Water Conservation District. Contact Tiffany Pinhiero for more information: tpinheiro@westelcom.com
August 14 -15 – Two Presentations at the Nebraska Grazing Conference in Kearney, NB. Contact Pamela Murray for more information: pmurray1@unl.edu
November 14 – Half-day workshop at the Quivira Coalition’s annual meeting in Albuquerque, NM. This year’s theme is “How to feed 9 billion people from the ground up.”
This multiflora rose is beginning to take over the trailer on this small farm plot. (Thanks to http://3creativepeople.blogspot.com/2011/06/tale-of-mrs-hansens-farm-garden.html for the picture!)
Greg Angell came to my presentation in Hinton, WV in March and then went home to teach his cows to eat multiflora rose. It took him about 10 days to have multiflora rose eating cattle in his pasture.
For those of you with plenty of that plant in your pastures, that’s good news. You can invest a few hours over 10 days to train your cows, and then use all the other time and money you would have spent on multiflora rose for something else.
Greg and I wrote back and forth as he went through the process so that I could answer questions that came up for him. Here are a few of his comments from our emails:
The Dalmatian toadflax in my test pasture in Boulder County Colorado is already a foot high. Normally it would be 2 to 3 inches high at this time of year.
It’s been an early spring here in Colorado and today will feel like summer as we’re expecting temperatures in the 90s – a record for this time of year. If your area has been anything like ours, you’ve probably noticed that plants are coming up early too, and if it has been as dry for you as it has been for us, you might be wondering how much forage your pastures will produce. To help you with that, here are some plants you might have that can be useful alternatives to your traditional pasture grasses:
