Getting the cattle our is great and I'm sure you've seen videos online of cattle going out to pasture after being in the barn all winter. Fun fact, it's similar to how I will be when social distancing/isolation is over :)
But what is often missed is how much work it takes to get everything ready for them to go out.
Once they get outside it's great but getting pastures and fence lines ready takes a lot of work. This year in particular I took on the task of rebuilding a lot of the fence lines because of problems with low readings on our electric fence. Low charge on the fences means cattle will most likely get out when the feed gets low. This winter I took lots of time to research how to build a good fence and then invested in everything from new types of insulators, posts and grounding systems to put in a fence that had maximum readings on the charger. This means I'll be less likely to be chasing cattle back into the pasture.
The next thing is pastures and hay fields. This year I decided to try spreading wood ash on the fields to help raise the PH and give a better hay crop and pasture grass. With chemical fertilizers costing roughly $600 a ton, wood ash from a local biomass plant is significantly cheaper and should hopefully yield the same result. I was also able to spread manure on many of the fields which significantly increases the hay yield every year.
Both these things aren't cheap, with the fencing supplies costing about $1500 and getting all the ash and manure spread was a few hundred dollars in gas. The impact from both these investments is significant to the state of the cattle through the summer and winter.
From a time commitment, I had started working on both these things in April and literally wrapped up the last fence repair 1 hour before I let the cattle out. It's a huge time commitment if done right, but it pays off all year.
Here is to hoping for good weather to keep the grass growing for hay and pasture grass.
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