Category Archives: Pasture

Meet Bobby Maass, Cattle Producer.

Posted on January 1, 2016 by laurab08

Bobby grew up in Dinwiddie County and has been cultivating an affinity for farming since his childhood. Like many young farmers who start their own operations, he built his vision from scratch starting with just one Hereford cow in 2004. Today, alongside his wife Alicia, he manages a high-quality commercial herd of about sixty cow-calf pairs on his farm in McKenney.

What sets Bobby apart from some of his peers, young and old, is his exceptional ability to manage the forages on his farm. When Bobby started the farm, much of the acreage that is now in pasture was unimproved or full of unproductive broomstraw. On the land he owns and rents, Bobby made improvements, built fences, and applied nutrients to fix fertility issues in the soil, using management to shift pasture composition in favor of tall fescue for his animals to graze.

Establishing grass can be challenging, but keeping a pasture healthy is a battle of its own. Livestock owners who overstock animals, run out of pasture, or allow too many animals to continuously graze one area can wear out their fields in no time. To combat this, many cattle producers including Bobby enact “controlled grazing” plans to maximize forage production, grazing efficiency, and plant longevity. Bobby subdivides his pastures into small sections with temporary fencing and rotates his herd to a new section of grass every few days in accordance with the speed at which the cows utilize the space given to them. “There’s no formula to tell you how often to move them,” he says. “How often I move them depends on the lay of the land, water sources, and other factors. You put something up, get a feel for how long it lasts, and go from there.”

Bobby rotates the herd to new ground frequently to allow grazed sections to recover. “I hate to overgraze,” he says. Plants that are overgrazed have limited opportunities to photosynthesize and rebuild energy reserves in their roots, and each time leaves are repeatedly clipped off by an animal, the plant expends more of its energy reserves to push out new foliage.

While Extension specialists recommend moving animals to a new field when the grass is grazed down to a height of about four inches, visitors to Bobby’s farm in the fall will see that the spent sections in his pasture rotation have nearly a foot of leaf area left behind, sometimes more. A closer look reveals acres of uniform grazing, even manure distribution, and a manageable number of weeds. “Sometimes I think we like fescue a whole lot more than the cows do,” he jokes, noting that his cows plunder any green weeds that they find palatable in the midst of all the grass.

The strip of grass to the left of the white post has already been grazed and is recovering. In the next strip to the right of the temporary fence, a cow grazes fresh grass.

Bobby employs the practice of “stockpiling” his tall fescue—in essence, leaving some sections ungrazed from late summer to late fall—so that there is a bank full of grass available for him to use as winter approaches. Cattlemen who are unable to stockpile forages must feed large quantities of hay to get their animals through the winter, and hay feeding is one of the most costly inputs that cattle farms in Virginia encounter. In good years, Bobby rarely feeds hay because his stockpile lasts throughout the entire winter. However, he maintains an insurance policy in the form of a barn full of round bales. “If you’ve got it and you need it, you’ve still got it. If you need it and you don’t have it, you’re in trouble. I think of hay like money in the bank,” he says.

Although Bobby minimizes his dependence on hay in order to control costs for his cowherd, he maintains a reputation as a producer of high-quality horse hay, a skill he honed in his early days starting the farm.

Prior to obtaining his cows, Bobby earned a bachelor’s degree in Fire Protection and a master’s in Loss Prevention and Safety at Eastern Kentucky University. Around 2004 when he graduated, he went home and met his wife Alicia who had returned to the area after graduating from Virginia Tech and who had grown up nearly next door. To feed his small but growing herd and Alicia’s horse, Bobby started borrowing hay equipment from a neighbor. “What I was making for my cows was better than what she was buying for her horse. Next thing you know, I’m making eight thousand to ten thousand bales of horse hay a year,” he says.

Bobby and Alicia have twin daughters and a newborn baby girl, so for now, the cows take priority over the hay side of the operation. Bobby still likes to make hay, but coordinating haymaking days with his other full-time job as a captain in the Richmond Fire Department can be challenging. “I always wanted to farm, but wasn’t sure how to make a living doing it,” he says. “I figured if I was a firefighter, I’d have time to farm.” To effectively juggle both worlds, Bobby employs the help of his “right hand man on the farm,” retired crane operator Charles Wells, to check the herd and move animals from pasture to pasture.

Because the farm is spread out over several unconnected parcels of land, Bobby hauls a portable cattle handling facility to the herd when animals need to be bred, tagged, or treated. Bobby’s herd is docile and accustomed to handling thanks to frequent exposure to people when animals are moved from pasture to pasture. Mike Henry, fellow cattleman and manager of the Amelia Area Cattlemen of which Bobby is a member, agrees that controlled grazing systems help cattle become calm. “One huge benefit is socialization of the cow herds to humans—cows can be handled with ease,” he says. He believes that a management system reliant upon grazing also keeps aggressive behavior in check within the herd. “With controlled grazing you can offset the ‘boss cow syndrome’ since all the animals have equal access to feed. With hay the cows on the high end of the social structure get the best and most,” he notes.

No matter how docile a cow is, however, she can become aggressive if she feels she must protect her newborn calf. Bobby had several close calls with defensive cows when trying to catch calves to tag them for identification or to treat illnesses. “I said, ‘We can’t do this anymore,’” Bobby recalls. He searched for alternative options, stumbled upon a “calf catcher” system, and gave it a try. The system consists of a box-like enclosure which attaches to his ATV and has gates on both ends. When he approaches a calf, he can whisk it into the box, which is too large for the cow to access, and he can treat or handle the calf safely within the confines of the enclosure while the mother is allowed to stand nearby and watch. “As far as safety goes, it was money well spent. I wish I had bought it years ago,” he says.

Bobby Maass demonstrates his calf catcher which is attached to his ATV.

Bobby aims to have all his calves born within a defined season so that his cow-calf pairs can be managed together as one cohort. “It’s all fall calving,” he says. “We typically breed the first week of December artificially, and then we turn the bulls in.” To develop an effective artificial insemination program, Bobby has consulted in the past with Select Sires to develop sound pre-breeding nutrition, health, and management protocols that promote higher chances of breeding success. The A.I. program enables Bobby to diversity his herd and import genetics that meet his production goals. Having watched Bobby’s operation grow through the years, Mike Henry believes that the choice to focus on genetics is a progressive one. “In using A.I. breeding on the first cycle each year, Bobby has developed excellent pedigrees especially when you consider the A.I. influence in the heifers he buys—a number of them have several generations of A.I.,” he says. “In addition, his herd reflects a lot of Knoll Crest Farm pedigrees which has resulted in a tremendous phenotypic uniformity,” Mike notes.

Bobby Maas (right) discusses forage management strategies with Mike Henry (left), manger of the Amelia Area Cattlemen of which Bobby is a member.

In his role as manager of the Amelia Area Cattlemen, Mike Henry has a big-picture view of the growth and changes cattle producers have undergone in the past few decades across Southside Virginia. Mike coordinates heifer development programs for members of the Amelia group and plans an annual Virginia Premium Assured bred heifer sale which takes place each year at Knoll Crest Farm in Red House, Virginia during the Bennett family’s spring bull sale. Over the years, Mike has seen the development of “phenotypic uniformity” within herds and even between herds across the region thanks to a sustained influx of front-line genetics from purchased Knoll Crest Farm bulls and Amelia Area Cattleman heifer consignments.

James Bennett (right) of Knoll Crest Farm joins Bobby Maass (left) and Charles Wells (center) to take a look at the herd.

Bobby Maass himself became intrigued by the Virginia Premium Assured Heifer program and Knoll Crest Farm bull sales in the early years of his farm’s development. He purchased his first heifers from the spring sale in 2005 and now returns regularly to buy Knoll Crest bulls or bred heifers consigned by his peers from the Amelia Area Cattlemen. “He can purchase the type of heifer he wants, he can buy heifers with bull fetuses to be able to turn the money around, he can buy heifers that will calve before mid-September in order to breed them back in early December with A.I., and he can concentrate on buying the best bull genetics without having to consider birth weight EPDs since he will be breeding cows, not heifers,” Mike Henry says. Furthermore, “He can save on the additional expenses of developing his own heifers,” he notes.

Bobby Maass (left), James Bennett (middle), Mike Henry (middle), and Charles Wells (right) take a trip out to the field to visit Bobby’s herd.

Cattle operations, specifically cow-calf operations like Bobby’s, are an integral part of Dinwiddie’s agricultural economy. Just ask Mike Parrish, senior agriculture and natural resources Extension agent for the county. “These operations we have help diversify many full-time and part-time farm operations,” Mike Parrish says. However, land resources can sometimes be difficult to access. “Availability of productive pasture and hay ground a big challenge. Competition with cash crop production acres and residential growth has limited acres for livestock operations to start or expand,” he says. “But, there is a mindset of change with some landowners favoring pasture and hay land production. Hopefully our producers can benefit in future from this potential change,” he says.

Many cattle producers turn to the Dinwiddie Extension office for assistance. “A majority of our calls from current and new producers are related to forage management,” Mike says. When cattle producers need help managing their land resources, he connects them with programs and services to help them succeed. “Our office conducts farm tours and pasture walks in conjunction with Extension and Soil and Water Conservation District programming with our beef and forage specialists. Our office also works with Extension specialists to recommend area beef and forage programming at the nearby Southern Piedmont Agricultural Research and Extension Center,” he says.

Mike Parrish has served as an agent for twenty-two years and thus is well acquainted with the ups and downs that cattle producers like Bobby face. “When Bobby was starting his expansion of the family farm, he did a great job in thinking though his plan to make it work. He spent a lot of time getting information from several sources—both from Extension and from members of the Amelia Area Cattlemen. He was very determined to make it work and didn’t let a few setbacks deter him,” he says. “He had several challenges to overcome with turning forest land into highly productive pasture ground in such a short time. His hard work and willingness to try new techniques has helped him be successful,” Mike notes.

Mike Henry echoes the words of Mike Parrish in describing Bobby’s business growth and success. “He has developed a sound management system—he has sought out information, asked good questions, stayed with the program, and evaluated costs and benefits,” he says. Mike, who retired from Extension before managing the Amelia Area Cattlemen, is forever an agent at heart and thus applauds great cattle management when he sees it, adding, “Bobby developed an excellent forage based system—he strip grazes almost year round, maximizes forage quality, has a sound vaccination program, and uses mineral supplementation. He keeps good production records.”

Bobby himself may have his hands full balancing his firefighting career, a long commute, and his family, but the vision he had for the farm when he and Alicia purchased their first few heifers is now a reality, and by all accounts, he is doing what he loves with great proficiency. After all, he says, “The cows have always been where I want to be.”

Photo by Bobby Maass of his wife Alicia Maass and his daughters out on the farm.

Photo by Bobby Maass

Additional Resources for Readers:

Amelia Area Cattlemen

Virginia Cattlemens Association

Virginia Forage and Grassland Council

Virginia Cooperative Extension Beef Resources

Meet Bluestem Farms.

Posted on April 30, 2015 by laurab08

While in past years the Amelia County operation has been home to a herd of Kiko goats and several outstanding performance-tested bucks, Robie and Angie Robinson and their children have spent the past twelve years shifting their focus towards growing and improving their sheep and cattle herds.

Like many farmers, the Robinsons raise a little bit of everything to sustain their family—chickens, meat from their livestock, and a large garden with everything from asparagus to onions. While they also finish, harvest, and sell some meat to a group of local customers, they market most of their animals including their weaned feeder calves conventionally on the livestock market as most local cattlemen do.

However, their cowherd is rather unique—it consists primarily of Devons, not to be confused with Milking Devons which are also rare in this area. Devons are a hardy, red-coated breed from England and they come in the relatively small to moderate frame size that Robie maintains as a goal for his breeding program. He pays particular attention to the genetics of his herd through bull selection and culling. Because he relies on a forage-based production system, he wants cows that are programmed to efficiently convert grass to milk for their calves and he wants beef calves that grow well on a grass-based diet. Like the many other cow-calf operations in the region, most of the calves will be weaned and sold as “feeder calves” to buyers who will take them elsewhere for more growth and “finishing” prior to harvest. However, since Robie finishes some of his own animals on grass and harvests them for customers, he pays particular attention to carcass quality traits when he selects bulls for his program.

While driving past Bluestem, it is hard to miss the Robinsons’ herd of sheep. After all, relatively few people in Southside Virginia still raise sizable herds of sheep. Robie made the transition after he noticed more desirable marketing opportunities for his sheep than for his goats, and today he raises them primarily for the Easter market, a prime window for selling lambs.

Like his beef herd, Robie’s sheep are also unique. His ewes are mostly Katahdins, a breed of hair sheep that requires no shearing because the animals shed their coats in the spring. Katahdins have been recognized for their success on grass, high fertility, and adaptability to a variety of conditions, making them an excellent fit for the Robinsons and their forage-based grazing management program. While some breeds traditionally lamb indoors and require special care to ensure good mothering and survival immediately after lambing, Katahdins are well-suited for “pasture lambing,” and Robie notes that he rarely has to provide any assistance to his ewes at lambing time.

As with his cattle, he uses careful culling as a tool to reach towards his goals for herd genetics. Ewes that fail to produce and raise twins are generally removed in favor of ewes who are predisposed to prolific lambing and good mothering traits. He also culls in favor of sound feet and easy shedding. The Robinsons have managed to import desirable genetics into the herd via purchasing performance-tested rams from University of Maryland and Virginia Tech.

Sheep are notorious for wearing out pastures and cattle can be equally hard on forages if producers do not manage their grazing systems carefully. Since the Robinsons rely on grass to do all the legwork for growth and milk production for both species, they have prioritized pasture care on the operation to meet their needs. Robie has a few goats in every field with the sheep because they tend to graze onions and some of the other hard-to-control broadleaf weeds that sheep may pass over.

While he used to apply conventional fertilizer regularly, Robie’s philosophy on fertility management has shifted over the years and today he prefers to rely mostly on chicken litter when it is needed. However, when using litter, he notes that he must take care not to overload the field with certain nutrients, especially phosphorous. Like all farmers, he occasionally needs to lime his fields to adjust the soil pH. He manages his grazing strategy according to conditions—in some cases, he chooses to “flash graze” his fields to manage bouts of rapid spring top growth.

A visit to the Robinson farm yields a blue-green view of plentiful orchardgrass throughout the sheep pastures. Orchardgrass is a high-quality, highly-palatable species that also makes excellent hay. However, if it is mowed or grazed repeatedly close to the ground, it does not tend to persist. Robie uses a haybine instead of a disc mower when he cuts his fields for hay, and over the years he has seen that his orchardgrass has thrived and persisted for much longer than expected.

Mixed with the orchardgrass is some hairy vetch and plentiful clover, much of which turned up in the pasture on its own. Robie planted some stands of hybrid Bermuda grass experimentally in past years and those stands remain productive each summer. He has also planted Red River and Quick and Big crabgrass, both of which make excellent forage and seem to reseed themselves readily.

Bluestem has changed considerably over the past twelve years, as have Robie and Angie’s production strategies. Robie used to engage in row crop production before favoring livestock—the farm as it stands today was started with twelve registered angus cattle. Around the same time that Robie gained an interest in Devons and Katahdins, he also shifted his paradigm surrounding farm management in favor of grass ecology and robust soil microorganisms. “I was a cattleman, then I was a grass farmer, now I’m a mycologist,” he jokes. Nonetheless, his goals for building healthy land and soil are serious, and the proof is in the results—healthy lambs and calves, green pastures, and happy customers.

Additional Resources for Readers:

Sheep and Goat publications from Virginia Cooperative Extension

Beef cattle publications from Virginia Cooperative Extension

Pasture and forage publications from Virginia Cooperative Extension

Breed profile: Katahdin sheep

Breed profile: Devon cattle

Bluestem Farms

Meet Whit and Jennifer Morris.

Posted on March 20, 2015 by laurab08

Their farm business took shape in 2003 when they bought land in Blackstone to support their cowherd. Around this time, Jennifer was an Extension agent in Nottoway and Whit also had a career in agriculture. As the business grew, Jennifer made the transition to caring for the farm full-time, and Whit joins her to manage the farm outside of his job.

Today, the family runs a commercial herd comprised mostly of Angus and Gelbvieh crosses. The farm is primarily a cow-calf operation, meaning that Whit and Jennifer breed their cows and heifers each year, raise the nursing calves to weaning age, and sell the calves after weaning time. They choose some of their heifer calves to stay in their breeding herd. They also send some of their animals to annual Virginia Premium Assured Heifer sales and Virginia Quality Assured feeder calf sales in conjunction with the Amelia Area Cattlemen, a local producer group.

While the calves born on the Morris farm may eventually go on to a feedlot for the last few months before harvest, these calves and their dams spend a considerable portion of their lives out on grass. In fact, the many cattlemen who run cow-calf operations in Virginia know that the most efficient and economical way to manage cows and their offspring from calving time to weaning time is on pasture—pasture which, Whit and Jennifer have learned firsthand, requires strategic management if it is to meet the demands of lactating cows and large, growing calves.
Cattle producers can feed hay to meet the animals’ forage requirements when grass is not growing in the summer or when it goes dormant in the winter, but the cost of making or buying hay can far exceed the cost of maintaining a good stand of grass. To minimize the number of days that they must feed hay and to maximize the health, efficiency, and productivity of their pastures, Whit and Jennifer have spent the last several years building and improving a controlled grazing system to take full advantage of the tall fescue, clover, Bermuda grass, and other species growing on their land.

Their grazing plan changes throughout the year according to conditions and forage growth habits. In the summer, the cattle follow a “rotational grazing” system. In this system, the pastures are subdivided and animals are given access to one area at a time. Jennifer moves the cattle to a new area when the grass is grazed to a critical height. If cattle stay in one place too long and graze forages too closely, grasses lose nearly all of their leaf area. They then have to expend their root reserves to supply energy for sending out more leafy growth, and they tend to bounce back slowly even when given a rest period. If Jennifer pulls the cattle off of each paddock before the cattle overgraze it, the grasses have enough leaf area left behind to fuel fast regrowth through photosynthesis.

In the cold months, the farm switches to a “strip grazing” system to make use of the tall fescue which was grown in the fall months and saved or “stockpiled” for the winter. Strip grazing offers benefits similar to rotational grazing, but unlike a rotation in which animals are moved from fenced paddock to paddock, strip grazing entails setting up a temporary fenceline and moving the animals’ fenceline further and further down the paddock as the animals consume what is offered to them. Each time Whit and Jennifer move the fence and provide access to a fresh part of the pasture, the animals consume the available forage far more evenly and efficiently than they would if they had simply been turned out continuously on the entire area at once.

In a continuous grazing system, animals access the entire available pasture at all times, and, due to behavior and preferences, end up overgrazing some areas and underutilizing others, resulting in changes to both the health and the quality of the forages. Animals also tend to congregate and loaf in the same areas each day, concentrating nutrients from manure in these areas. To complicate matters, many parts of the pasture can never adequately rest from overgrazing and the stand of grass eventually becomes weak.

Both of the grazing strategies that Whit and Jennifer employ—rotation and strip grazing—have well-documented advantages over continuous grazing including more even nutrient distribution, higher pasture utilization, and more efficient use of available forages. Whit and Jennifer have also seen a significant downsize in hay feeding requirements because their management strategies create highly productive pastures and lengthen the number of days that forage remains available during the winter.

A cattle producer who does not have enough available pasture or who does not use a controlled grazing plan may end up feeding hay to pick up the slack during the summer, in the late fall, and all throughout the winter if the pastures become weak or overgrazed. This can quickly become expensive, and Whit and Jennifer have been grateful that their pasture management plan has brought relief from a portion of their hay costs. “We didn’t feed hay til the snow this year,” Jennifer notes. In a typical year, she also feeds some hay in the fall so that pastures can build some growth and later be used for winter grazing. “We might feed hay around the end of October or first of November while the stockpiled fescue is growing,” she says.

Enacting rotational grazing or strip grazing may sound like plenty of work on its own, but to Jennifer, it beats the labor and fuel associated with making hay. “We cut hay when absolutely necessary, and if we don’t need to cut it, we bush hog the extra to save the nutrients for later,” she says. In the business of raising cattle, “there’s enough work in it already with maintaining fences,” says Jennifer.

A good grazing plan may save on hay, but some people worry that adopting an intensive plan may rack up fencing costs in the short-term, trading away the economic benefits of reducing labor, fuel, and fertilizer for haymaking. However, Jennifer has advice for graziers who wish to adopt a sensible controlled grazing plan for the sake of reaping the long-term benefits. “Keep fencing simple,” she offers. “Use good outside perimeter fencing and cross-fence with a simple single wire—a few T-posts, a few wooden posts, and your wire. The worst that can happen is mostly some calves might get into the next paddock and graze more. It doesn’t have to be built to government specs.”

People who have limited time or who are not yet ready to jump on board with strip grazing can benefit even from simply dividing a pasture in half and rotating cows between halves—many who start this way later choose to subdivide pastures further, including the Morris family. “We went from one paddock to seven in Blackstone using the available water,” Jennifer says in reference to the developments she and Whit made on the farm soon after they purchased it.

What is next for the Morris farm? Whit and Jennifer hope to address some challenges plaguing herds in Southside Virginia including their troubles with fescue toxicosis, a problem caused by a symbiotic organism living in tall fescue grass which can cause physiological stress on cattle. For now, they provide as much shade as possible to relieve some of this stress in the summertime. In the future, Jennifer and Whit also would like to incorporate more clover into their pastures for both its nutritional benefits and its nitrogen-fixing abilities. Frost seeding may be on the agenda when winter comes back around.

For now, the farm is thriving and the care and attention spent on grazing management is paying off. The farm has even recently been used as an educational resource during grazing schools offered by the Virginia Forage and Grassland Council and Virginia Cooperative Extension. The grass may have just begun to green up thanks to a cold, sluggish March, but come spring and summer, the pasture rotation will be in full swing, and the Morris family eagerly awaits the chance to get their cattle back on some good grass. To the animals, who have learned that the grass really is greener on the far side of the polywire, the presence of Whit or Jennifer coming to open the gate to the next field elicits equal excitement.

Additional Resources for Readers:

Pasture and Forage Publications from Virginia Cooperative Extension

Planning Fencing Systems for Controlled Grazing

Controlled Grazing of Virginia’s Pastures

Amelia Area Cattlemen

VA Beef Cattle Programs

Meet Robert Harper, Cattle Producer.

Posted on January 24, 2014 by laurab08

Robert manages cattle as part of a partnership called Cross River Farms, LLC. Robert’s operation is located at Dungeness Farm, which has fascinating roots in early American history. Dungeness was built by Isham Randolph in the early 1700s, and Thomas Jefferson’s mother was raised there. Today at the Goochland farm, Robert specializes in several aspects of cattle production. In addition to running a cow-calf operation that includes Red Angus cattle, he custom-raises Holstein heifers for a nearby dairy farm. He also manages a group of females for the Amelia Area Cattlemen Heifer Development Program. Heifers in this program are produced and owned by individual livestock producers from across the region, but they are brought together to live at Cross River after they are weaned. They are bred in December and undergo further development through the winter. In the spring, most return to the herds on their home farms where they were born. A few are sold in April to buyers looking for high-quality females for their cow-calf herds.

To keep up with so many cattle, Robert must carefully manage his feeding program to ensure that he has adequate pasture and hay available to the cattle throughout the year. Because each set of cattle on his farm has a unique purpose, Robert must tailor his feeding and management to suit the needs of each particular group. His brood cows in his cow-calf herd need enough energy and protein from feed to produce milk for their calves from birth until weaning. The calves, in turn, need to grow steadily before and after weaning so that they will perform well at a finishing operation later in life and provide high-quality beef for consumers.

However, the young female calves in the heifer development herd require a different approach. Unlike their counterparts that will not remain in a herd for many years and must instead reach a robust “finished” weight in a timely fashion, the heifers need to grow at a more moderate pace. The young heifers must build bone, fat, and muscle tissue at a rate that promotes longevity and sound reproductive traits in preparation for a future career living on pasture and raising their own calves on a cow-calf breeding operation. To meet this goal, the heifers are run on pasture and receive a daily ration of silage, commodity feeds, hay and grain to grow and mature in preparation for breeding. Robert periodically weighs the Cross River heifers to gauge their growth and make management decisions.

Once the heifers reach an appropriate age and body size and undergo a reproductive soundness check from a veterinarian, they are ready to be bred. Robert Harper and the rest of his fellow cattle producers in Virginia have the option to use a live bull for breeding or rely on artificial insemination. Both options follow the natural cycle for cattle reproduction, allowing females to produce one calf each year as they would do if left to their own devices. After breeding, cows remain pregnant for nine months before calving, and the calf nurses the cow on pasture for several months before it is weaned.

Unlike most horses and sheep which only can be bred during certain seasons, cattle cycle naturally throughout the entire year. However, instead of leaving the bull with the herd full-time and allowing heifers and cows to get pregnant and calve sporadically, producers aim to confine calving to a single season, often the fall, so that calves within a herd are all of approximately the same age and can receive the same health treatments such as vaccinations at the same time. This practice reduces stress on the animals by limiting the number of times that the herd must be brought in close proximity to humans for handling. For these reasons, Robert and the Amelia Area Cattlemen choose to breed the heifers at Cross River in December so that they will calve during the following fall season. To ensure that the animals can all be bred around the same time, they follow a heat synchronization program that causes all of the heifers to cycle on the same schedule. Once the group of heifers collectively comes into heat, they are bred. This herd is first bred using artificial insemination. This advanced, well-studied reproductive method puts little stress on the heifers and allows herd managers to bring cutting-edge genetics into the herd from bulls all over the country.

The heifers at Cross River wear heat detection patches. When the silver surface of the patch is rubbed off, the heifer is ready to be bred.

If a producer wants to use a live bull, he or she will not have to spend time synchronizing cow and heifer cycles or watching animals for signs of heat—the bull takes on this job himself. However, a locally-purchased bull’s genetic traits may not always be predictable, and the producer will need to rotate a new bull into the herd every few years to ensure that the quality of the herd and its collective genetic potential continue to progress. If producers choose instead to buy units of semen from a company that offers a catalog of bulls available for artificial insemination, they can select semen from bulls with well-documented performance traits that match their goals to improve traits like mothering ability, meat quality, animal build, or a plethora of other factors.

Bulls that are selected for use in an artificial insemination program are considered the “top of the line” in the industry and are subject to extensive performance testing and offspring data collection. Hence, producers like Robert Harper and members of the Amelia Area Cattlemen who choose to breed via artificial insemination have the means to improve their herds far more quickly and increase their genetic diversity far more easily than they could with a live bull. However, old-fashioned bulls still have their place and there are still many high-quality bulls sold locally that may never be featured in a semen company catalog. These animals are useful even to a herd that relies on artificial insemination, as not every heifer will successfully conceive through this means. Hence, the “cleanup bull” is turned out with the artificially-inseminated heifers so those that do not “catch,” or get pregnant, come back into heat and have the opportunity to get bred by the bull.

Like many producers, Robert likes to stay on top of the curve and adopt progressive practices that improve the health, performance, and longevity of his animals and the animals he custom-raises for fellow cattlemen across the region. His creative edge has allowed him to increase the scope of his operation over the years, but anyone who visits the Cross River Farms partnership at Dungeness can easily sense that Robert’s passion for working hard to raise high-quality cattle has been the ultimate force driving his success.

Additional Resources for Readers:

Getting Started in the Cattle Business in Virginia

Replacement Heifer Development Steps

Ten Steps to Buying the Right Bull

Artificial Insemination vs Natural Bull Service-Where are the Economic Benefits?

Meet Mike Henry, pasture manager.

Posted on January 9, 2014 by laurab08

He has worn many hats over the years—Extension agent for Chesterfield County and then Amelia before he retired, cattle producer, and founding member of the regional Amelia Area Cattlemen. He is also one very excellent pasture manager. He spent the last several years improving the pasture on his Amelia farm, adding fencing and water sources as he went. When he first set out, his goal was to sustain enough forage to successfully support a beef cattle herd on a year-round strip-grazing management system.

Pasture land in central Virginia is abundant, hence the number of cows in the region, but not all producers are able to sustain animals year-round on pasture alone. Why? The availability of pasture forage depends on the seasonal growth of the species in the pasture. Because this region is set between the cold northern climate and the warmer South, cool-season and warm-season grasses can both be grown here and many pastures contain a mixture of both.

Mike Henry’s pastures contain a mixture of tall fescue, orchardgrass, clover, and even some ryegrass that emerged in early winter.

Cool-season forages grow most actively in spring and fall when the weather is cool, but go dormant in the summer when little moisture is available. Many producers must resort to feeding hay during this season while they wait for fall pasture regrowth. Tall fescue is the most common cool-season forage in most pastures, but other plants like Kentucky bluegrass, orchardgrass, timothy, and clover are also in this group. Cool-season grasses stop growing during the winter, but can be preserved or “stockpiled” during the cold. Tall fescue is the hands-down best choice for stockpiling, retaining its nutritional value for several months after the growing season even under snow and ice. In order to stockpile a tall-fescue pasture, the manager must remove the animals from the area in the late summer, giving the pasture a chance to recover and initiate heavy fall growth. The animals can return to the well-grown pasture in December or January, resulting in an extended grazing season that heavily cuts the costs associated with feeding hay. Mike Henry practices stockpiling on his pastures, as do many of his peers in this region.

Warm-season forages like Bermuda grass or crabgrass have the opposite growth pattern. Their growth is dominant during the hottest part of the year, but they go dormant at the end of the summer and do not take off again until the spring. As a result, producers with pastures full of warm-season plants must either feed hay during the cool seasons or establish a cool-season pasture in a new area to keep cows fed during the fall, winter, and spring.

Mike Henry’s pastures contain mostly tall fescue, but other elements including crabgrass, orchardgrass, clover, and ryegrass are present and contribute to the diversity of the available forage. The clover mixed with the cool-season grasses is a legume plant, meaning that it contains a high level of protein and supports the needs of young, growing cattle and lactating brood cows. To establish and maintain dense stands of these forages and choke out competing weeds, Mike has stayed on top of mowing, seeding, reseeding, and nutrient management, but the economic benefits have outweighed the costs.

In a “continuous grazing” system, cattle are given access to the entire pasture acreage at once, so they have the option to overgraze forages that are highly palatable, stressing the plants’ root systems. They under-utilize other areas, and they tend to create muddy spots near central hay feeders and water troughs. Finally, they may not distribute their manure very evenly, resulting in both mucky areas with a glut of nutrients and neglected areas that receive very little natural fertilizer. The alternative? Many producers have adopted “rotational grazing,” whereby a pasture is split into a few sections and animals are moved from one section to another every few days or weeks. As a result, each pasture section has an opportunity to rest and build strong roots, resulting in a longer-lasting, more robust stand of forage. Furthermore, the animals consume the existing grasses more evenly and efficiently. Manure is distributed far more uniformly in a rotational system, which aids in desirable nutrient cycling and reduces fertilizer expenses.

Mike Henry practices the more intensive cousin of rotational grazing, known as “strip grazing.” In this management system, cows are given a small strip of pasture at a time and are moved from one strip to the next as frequently as once a day or sometimes even every few hours. The pasture utilization rate increases dramatically when animals are tasked with eating one small area at a time. Mike knows that the key is making sure that the cows always have something to eat, so he will be the first to tell you that strip grazing brings an economic advantage but also a new requirement for labor. Nonetheless, since most cattlemen check their herds frequently, the time it takes to open or close a temporary fence to a pasture strip is negligible and affords an opportunity for the producer to get a close-up look at the cows.

Mike’s pasture setup is conservation-minded. He has excluded his cattle from the dam and waterways on his farm, and on the occasions when he has had to supplement his pasture with an occasional bale of hay, he unrolls and spreads the hay in a new area each time so that the cows do not heavily disturb the soil in one particular location.

As a former Extension agent, Mike understands the value of helping other farmers, so he has had the opportunity to show his system to several beginning cattle producers and even a few experienced ones who wanted to see strip grazing in action. He has also noted one unexpected benefit from all his time spent moving fences and walking the pasture to check on his forages—the heifers he manages have become more docile from close daily exposure to his presence and follow him wherever he goes, making it easy for him to take them wherever he needs them. Add up quiet cattle, a thriving pasture, and annual hay savings to get one content cattleman.

Additional Resources for Readers:

Planning Fencing Systems for Controlled Grazing

Controlled Grazing of Virginia’s Pastures

Rotational Grazing Recycles Nutrients

Making the Most of Tall Fescue in Virginia

Stockpiling Tall Fescue

Meet Windy Springs Farm.

Posted on November 21, 2013 by laurab08

Operated by the Roberts family of Amelia, this farm is home to a herd of beef heifers, cows, and their calves. It is one of the many “cow-calf” operations that contribute to Virginia’s inventory of nearly 1.5 million cattle and calves. In fact, the cattle industry is ranked second-highest in the state, standing just behind broilers which bring the highest value in receipts. What many people do not know, however, is that not all beef producers in this area make a living raising cattle all the way from birth to harvest. In fact, cattle production is often divided into stages, and in the conventional industry different types of farms may specialize in different stages of cattle management.

All beef animals start out as calves, but before the calf comes the brood cow. Left to her own devices, a good female can raise a healthy calf if she is provided with pasture or hay that meets her nutritional demands while she is pregnant and when the calf is nursing. In fact, raising heifers and cows that subsist on grass and hay is by far the most efficient management system. Furthermore, a forage-based system where cows graze year-round in the field promotes healthy rumens in cows, provides a clean calving environment, and mitigates contagious diseases that can worsen when very young animals are kept in tight quarters. Contrary to some misconceptions, most cows in a conventional commercial production system are only given some feed when nutritional needs cannot be completely met by forage, and calves spend seven or more months with their mothers in the field consuming milk and pasture before they are weaned. This is the calf production step of the beef industry; farms that specialize in maintaining cows for breeding and raising calves from birth to weaning are generalized as “cow-calf operations.”

Weaned calves, now known as feeder cattle, may then go to a “backgrounder” or “stocker” operation. They may weigh several hundred pounds at weaning time on the cow-calf operation, but they may undergo a period of additional weight gain and adjustment to peer groups on a stocker operation. The final step is finishing, where cattle are fed to an appropriate weight and then processed for the wholesale and retail market. Virginia feeder cattle are often sent to states like Pennsylvania, Kansas, Iowa, and Ohio for finishing because these states offer an advantage in feed availability and processing.

Although the commercial cow-calf, stocker, and finishing operation sequence is most common, there are exceptions. Farmers who sell directly to consumers at farmers markets and other venues may choose to raise animals from start to finish and take responsibility for processing and marketing. This system is most common on small direct-market operations located in proximity to large numbers of urban consumers. Other farms may specialize in producing purebred animals for high-quality breeding stock, and some may specialize in raising show cattle, heritage breeds, or hobby animals. These operations are far less common than conventional commercial operations due to the nature of their production and marketing needs.

Virginia is fortunate to experience adequate rainfall during average years, and producers who manage their pastures diligently are capable of maintaining medium to high-quality forage for their animals nearly year-round. Amelia County, where Windy Springs Farm is situated, is no exception. In fact, crop production and cattle production overlap in Central Virginia where land is suitable for either use. Hence, Virginia has a reputation primarily as a cow-calf state and Windy Springs is one of many cow-calf operations in the region. Producers in this area often time breeding so that calves will be born in the fall of the year. However, some operations choose a spring calving season.

The Roberts family aims to have all of their heifers and cows calve around the same time so that each calf is at the same stage of growth as its peers. Why is this important? Cows and calves need treatments like vaccination and parasite control in order to remain healthy, grow properly, and prevent disease outbreaks. Windy Springs calves must also be tagged so that they can be identified and records can be made each time they are handled in the future. The herd must be brought through the farm’s handling facility for these tasks to be performed with minimal stress. If all calves within a group are approximately the same age, the whole group can receive certain health treatments at once. This allows the farm to be more efficient and reduces the number of times the animals must be handled.

Windy Springs has a handling facility designed to minimize stress. Animals start in a group pen and are walked down an alley towards a chute and a head gate, which humanely stabilizes the animal while it is treated. Good handlers like Johnny and Lawson Roberts rarely keep animals in the head gate for more than a minute even when completing multi-step tasks, and some chores performed at certain times of the year can be completed in just seconds per animal. Cows have a herd mentality, so they follow their peers in line as they walk towards the chute and they rejoin the herd immediately in the pasture after they are treated. The end result is a vigorous crop of calves that will remain healthy later in life when they are transported to another operation or comingled with new peers. Windy Springs Farm, like many cow-calf operations, takes pride in maintaining a high-quality herd of cows and working long hours to raise calves that excel on the farm and provide a top-notch product for the consumer.

Additional Resources for Readers:

Getting Started in the Cattle Business in VA

Beef Cow/Calf Herd Health Program and Calendar

Beef Cattle Management Publications

Meet the Alexanders.

Posted on August 16, 2013 by laurab08

They operate Avery’s Branch Farms, a dairy, pork, and poultry operation in Amelia County. The Alexanders started their farm business about six years ago and moved to their current location in 2009. They are primarily milk producers who interact with local consumers via a cow shareholding system, but they also raise poultry and pigs in order to offer chicken, turkey, pork, and eggs for sale. The family has made it their goal to feed their milking herd a pasture-based diet and to build healthy soil that can sustain pasture plants. Tim, his wife Joy, and their children run the operation together.

The Avery’s Branch milking herd is composed of about fifty head of Jerseys and crossbred animals. Why Jerseys? This breed does not produce the same volume of milk per day as the Holstein does, but Jersey milk tends to be high in butterfat and protein and is excellent for making cheese. Jersey cattle also perform well in the outdoor conditions on grazing operations and are widely used in many parts of the country.

The milking herd relies primarily on forages to meet their needs. The cows receive a small amount of grain to meet their remaining nutritional requirements because lactating animals naturally require a high-energy diet in order to produce milk.

Like any grazing operation, Avery’s Branch strives to manage their pastures in such a way that forage is available for the majority of the year. Any farmer who runs out of pasture by the winter or faces a slump during a hot summer must resort to feeding hay, which can become costly. To reduce the number of hay-feeding days per year on the farm, Tim utilizes a diverse mix of annual and perennial forages in his pasture. Some of his pasture consists of tall fescue and clover, both of which are cool-season grasses that thrive in fall and spring and can be “stockpiled,” or saved up in the fall for grazing during the winter. The clover also “fixes” nitrogen from the air and adds it back into the soil, making it available for plants to use. Since cool-season grasses typically do not grow well during the hottest months, Tim plants warm-season annuals such as sudangrass, sorghum-sudangrass, and crabgrass, all of which thrive during the summer months when cool-season grasses have gone dormant. Keeping crabgrass as a desirable pasture plant may come as a surprise to people who despise seeing it in their lawns and gardens, but crabgrass is actually a higher-quality forage than many of its warm-season counterparts and contains about 15% crude protein and 60% total digestible energy when it is grown in fertile soil. The Alexanders have also planted winter annuals like ryegrass and oats to help get through the coming months.

Weeds, weather, and soil factors all play a role in the quality of the forages that are available to the cows. This year, wet weather has allowed cool-season forages like tall fescue to keep on growing all summer long. Weeds are also a concern on the farm, as they are for all producers, but the Alexanders combat them by clipping them to weaken them and rotating animals between pastures. Pasture rotation reduces the stress on desirable plants and allows them to recover quickly and choke out undesirable plants.

The Alexanders have continued to grow their farm to further meet the needs of their customers and shareholders. Their willingness to try new practices and evaluate their successes and failures objectively has allowed them to take their farming operation from an idea to a real-life success.

Additional Resources for Readers:

Warm-Season Annual Grass For Summer Forage

Forage Establishment: Getting Off to a Good Start

Information about Direct Marketing for Farm Products

Avery’s Branch Farms Website

Meet the Hutchinson family.

Posted on July 31, 2013 by laurab08

Their farm, Deer Run, is located in Amelia County. Like many producers in the area, Robert and his wife Ruth Ann raise beef cattle and chickens, but their operation is rather unique. They market their products directly to consumers in the area who prefer to eat grass-finished meat and eggs.Their cattle consume pasture and hay year-round, and the family sells their meats at local farmers’ markets and via an ordering system. Their broilers and layer hens are raised on pasture, resulting in chicken and free-range eggs for their customers.

Raising animals this way requires its own set of management principles, and the family has spent considerable time learning and perfecting them. Grass-finished cattle must reach market weight on forages alone, whereas conventionally-raised cattle may eat both forages and grains. In order to help his animals reach market weight in a reasonable amount of time, Robert practices good pasture management to encourage the growth of high-quality forages. Tall fescue is common in Virginia and grows at the farm, but Robert has planted other grasses such as orchardgrass and bromegrass to improve some of his pastures. He has also mixed clover into his pastureland. Clover is a legume, just like alfalfa or lespedeza, and it contains higher levels of crude protein than most grasses. The added protein helps supplement what the grass may lack and helps maintain a steady rate of growth. Deer Run’s chicken flocks also enjoy it, and it benefits local populations of pollinators. Robert and Ruth Ann are also in the process of establishing more acres of silvopasture—pasture that contains both trees and forages. The trees serve as shade and are a harvestable crop in the future, and the grasses in between sustain the cattle below.

Like any farmer, Robert must provide for the needs of his plants, too. Pasture plants require varying amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium as well as a slew of micronutrients to support regrowth after grazing or cutting. Some of these nutrients are provided by decomposing plant tissue that eventually becomes reincorporated into the soil. Some are provided by manure from cattle and poultry. Robert takes a soil test each year to determine his pastures’ nutrient needs. To fill in the gaps, Robert uses composted chicken litter from the farm and turns it into fertilizer. His clover also does some of the work. Legumes, including clover, have nodules on their roots containing bacteria that are capable of “fixing” nitrogen from the air and putting it back into the soil so that plants can access it. Since nitrogen can be costly to apply, the savings offered by legume plantings are significant.

Weeds are a challenge to all pasture managers because they compete with forages for nutrient resources and they reproduce rapidly by creating vast numbers of seeds. Deer Run Farm aims to prevent weeds by promoting desirable grasses. In other words, they rotate cattle between each of their grazed fields so that the plants are able to recover and outcompete weeds. They also reseed thin pastures and clip weeds, since some weeds eventually succumb to frequent cutting.

Deer Run farm is full of relaxed cattle and chickens busy foraging away in their moveable outdoor pasture enclosures. The Hutchinson family is one of many families who have creatively found ways to have a hand in taking their product all the way from the farm to the table.

Additional Resources for Readers:

Controlled Grazing of Virginia’s Pastures

Forage Establishment: Getting Off to a Good Start

Deer Run Farm’s Homepage

Central Virginia Ag Spotlight

Connecting communities to agriculture

Category Archives: Pasture

Meet Bobby Maass, Cattle Producer.

Meet Bluestem Farms.

Meet Whit and Jennifer Morris.

Meet Robert Harper, Cattle Producer.

Meet Mike Henry, pasture manager.

Meet Windy Springs Farm.

Meet the Alexanders.

Meet the Hutchinson family.