Don't spray molasse on your weeds. You'll just make a gooey mess in your pastures!

People have been a little confused about the use of molasses in the training process.  Some think that just spraying molasses on their weeds in pasture will get cows to eat them, and have even called me to ask what ratio of water to molasses I use, so they can fill their sprayers.  What I tell them is that molasses is not the silver bullet, and that it’s the training process itself that is really important.  Here’s how I know:

Back in 2006 a Montana researcher commented on training cows to eat weeds and stated that it would be great if molasses were the silver bullet.  I got a little perturbed and decided that I needed to run a test to demonstrate the importance of training over the use of molasses.

Peggy Rathmann, of Nicasio Native Grass Ranch, and I took 5 groups of 5 cows each through the complete training process up to the point where they were ready to try weeds for the first time.  We  mixed weeds with alfalfa meal and molasses served it to the trainees and then measured how much of the weed they ate.  All together they ate 81 ounces of the weed mixture.  Then we took 5 more groups of 5 cows each that hadn’t been through the training process and we served them weeds mixed with alfalfa meal and molasses.  All together they ate 3 ounces of the weed mixture.

The results were not surprising to me.  I designed the training process based on what research told me about how animals choose what to eat.  I knew from Pavlov and his dog that routine was important in creating responses, and Carl Cheney’s work at USU showed that animals with lots of good experiences with new things would be more likely to try other new things.  The training process I developed creates a routine where animals get lots of good experiences with unfamiliar foods so that when I serve them weeds, it’s just one more new thing in a series.  That’s why the educated cows in my demonstration ate the weed mixture, and the cows without training didn’t.

Others have unknowingly demonstrated the importance of the training process.  A graduate student in Canada wanted to teach cows to eat leafy spurge.  Her major advisor didn’t think the training process was important, so instead she mixed weeds with grain, reducing the grain and increasing the weeds over time.  It took 30 days before the cows were eating the weeds plain.  Since my goal has always been to reduce the amount of time producers spend dealing with weeds, 30 days of harvesting weeds and feeding cows seems way too hard.

Today, the only time I use molasses as part of the training process is to reduce stress felt by human trainers.  I’ve found that when a farmer or rancher is nervous, the cow trainees pick up on something in his/her body language, and they won’t eat weeds.  So I encourage nervous trainees to drizzle on a little molasses.  Something in our belief that the semi-sweet syrup makes cows like weeds makes us relax, and the cows do just what we hoped they would do.

If you’re getting ready to train and you’re a little uncertain, buy yourself a large jar of molasses at the grocery store.  When it comes time to feed weeds, just drip a little bit on, or wipe it on the bottom of the tubs, and then go ahead with feeding your cows weeds.  You’ll have great success.  I’m sure you’ll have molasses left over, and if you write me, I’ll share a great recipe for molasses ginger chewie cookies.

Jane Graham wrote an article about my time in Virginia at the Virginia Forage and Grasslands Council Winter Forage Meetings.  Here’s the article.  An earlier article by Jane also appears in American Farm.

Chris Teutsch recorded my talks with the slides and as soon as they’re up I’ll share a link to them.  In the meantime, here is a copy of  the slides for my morning talk with speaker notes and links to videos.  It will almost be like being there:  ScienceAndTheoryOfWeedGrazing

Like all educated cows, the trainees in this program went on to add other weeds to their diet.  In this case they started grazing musk thistle and bull thistle.  According to the Prairie Star article, eveyone involved was amazed at how quickly the cattle adapted to their diets, and they are looking forward to watching the trained cows teach their calves.

Ray Beck with some of the heifer trainees in the Lewistown, MT Project

Christiaens applied for a grant for this project after seeing Marni Thompson of the NRCS present one of my videos about the training process.   But this isn’t the only example of weed-eating cows in Montana.  In 2008 and 2009 I trained cows and a few bison at 8 different ranches focusing on Canada thistle, leafy spurge and spotted knapweed.  In 2009 I gave the NRCS in Roundup the information to train cows to eat Dalmatian toadflax and helped them get the grant to do it.  Justin Meissner of the NRCS said that skeptical ranchers who saw their success wanted to try the training too.  In 2010 I worked with the Montana Department of Natural Resource Conservation on a project to teach cows to eat Canada thistle outside of Lewistown, Montana.  Finally, I haven’t been able to find information on a project in Shelby, Montana, but Chris Christiaens says that the NRCS trained cows to eat leafy spurge there.

Since I developed the training method in a pilot project at Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site in Deer Lodge, Montana, it somehow makes sense to me that the process would be spreading well through Montana.  If you know of projects there, or know of folks who had trouble that I could give some advice to, please let me know.  The more we know, the more we know.  :-)

Meanwhile I’m busy putting together my talks and slides for this series.  If you want to be sure I cover particular weeds of concern to you, do let me know and I’ll add them to what I’m preparing.

I love to see my pictures in such good company!

West Virginia University Extenstion staff, Chuck Talbott, Ed Rayburn and Rakesh Chandran, did a demonstration on Morgan Farm teaching cows to eat weeds.  One of the results was that Chuck told me he found that cows were already eating a lot more weeds in pasture than he thought they were.  I wrote earlier about how I helped them tweak their process a bit to make sure they were successful.

They put together a slide presentation called “Weeds, Monocultures and Monsanto…a time to embrace diversity.” They describe some of the benefits of cows eating weeds, and something about what they learned in the process.  Check it out and you’ll find the protein values for ironweed, spiny pigweed, smartweed, common lambsquarters, curly dock, Canada thistle, buttercup and mustard species (brassica spp.).  You’ll also find some good information about stocking rates and grazing.

I’ll be sharing what researchers have discovered in the last couple decades about how animals choose what to eat, and how we can use that knowledge along with some animal behavior tips to get cows to eat our weeds for us.  I’ll also be talking about the benefits of weeds, and helping folks think about how they can adapt the training process to meet their own needs.  I hope to see you there!

My Voth ancestors after they arrived in Kansas

I come from a long line of Mennonite farmers.

In the mid 1700s, Katherine the Great of Russia recruited my ancestors to farm the Ukraine after she had taken it from the Turks.  In return for turning the area into the Russian breadbasket, they were exempted from the draft, in acknowledgement of their status as Conscientious Objectors.  When the political environment changed in the mid 1800s, and the draft exemption was eliminated, my ancestors packed up their belongings and some trunks of the winter wheat they’d developed, and they headed to the U.S.  My great grandpa Voth arrived in Newton, Kansas as a teenager with 50¢ in his pocket and no parents.

My Grandpa Voth at one of our many picnics on the farm.

My Grandpa Voth had a dairy.  He raised wheat and milo and chickens for eggs.  I thought he hung the moon and I loved working with him.  My favorite thing to do was chores with my grandpa, especially gathering eggs.  We’d take them down in the cellar, wash them, pack them, and it felt like my special time with him.

When we were done, we’d drive back to the farm house, and sometimes he would just sit in the car in the garage and tell me how hard life as a farmer was.  I’m not sure why he would tell a little 11 year old girl the sad things he told me.  But I listened, and then I tried to think of ways that I could make things better for him.

Me at 11 years old.

When I came up with the idea of teaching cows to eat weeds, those talks with my Grandpa were one of the reasons for figuring out the process.  I felt like I’d finally come up with a way to help.   It seemed to me that if a farmer’s or rancher’s cows ate weeds, there would be more forage, and fewer costs for managing weeds.  The producer wouldn’t have to work quite as hard, and would have more money in his pocket.

My grandpa passed away before I started training cows to eat weeds, so I’m not sure what he would say.  Just the same, he motivates me to keep on trying when I’m frustrated, and I send him a little thumbs up every time I hear about someone turning their cows into weed eaters.