Shooting the Sh-t
WARNING!
Be prepared. This post might be a bit dirty.
Are you familiar with the phrase,”Shooting the Sh-t?” Growing up on Long Island that saying was a never have I ever.
That was then. This is now.
Who would have thought that composted cow poop flying helter skelter from the back of a rattling, live bed contraption, being pulled by a 1998 John Deere tractor landing in pastures and hayfields would be so rewarding?
Our Highlands stay outdoors all year round even in our harsh Vermont clime. In the summer cows, calves, steers, and bull graze on lush green grass in our intensive rotational regenerative cells. Processing what they eat into muscle, bone, and milk to feed their calves, what is left over comes out. As poop. That poop is automatically spread throughout the pasture to feed and regenerate the soil as the animals go through daily grazing and moving into a new paddock every couple of days routine.
In the winter, however, our cattle must be brought feed, in the form of large, 800 lb. bales of hay. Ray mows, rakes, bales and transports the large round bales himself. We need around 700 bales of hay each winter. I push a lever on the wrapper to seal them tightly, preventing any air from getting into the bale. Inside the wrapped bales, anaerobic bacteria begin working to ferment or silage the hay. This makes the hay sweeter and more digestible for the cattle. Although my contribution to producing our winter feed is minor, I like to tout its importance. If air gets inside the wrapping, aerobic bacteria move in, molding and spoiling the hay. Watching to see when the bale is fully wrapped, I then count eleven more revolutions of the wrapper to be sure the entire bale is double wrapped. Even a pin hole can spoil the bale!
Ray feeds out the large round bales with the tractor, between 3-4 bales/day. The winter feeding area is situated so cattle can get into the woods for protection from inclement weather and have access to our frost free waterers. Highlands are designed to withstand (and enjoy) much of what Vermont dishes out in the winter. Remember the part about going in and coming out? Cattle have to eat all year long, which means they poop all year long. In the winter that can accumulate in a smaller area than in the summer when the Highlands are grazing and spreading the manure themselves. And since some of the cattle like to play with their food, some hay does get scattered on the ground mixing with the you-know-what.
One of the most labor intensive, but rewarding, Spring farm tasks is scraping up all the wasted hay and composting poo-poo into piles, loading it into the manure spreader with the tractor bucket, and returning it to the earth to nourish and enrich the soil. This is the way farmers have fertilized their fields for generations--putting the organic manure back onto their fields to create lush summer grazing and growing high quality, copious hay to feed their animals. No chemicals adding pollution to our rivers and lakes. After the piles of poop are cleaned up and spread, the winter feeding area is backdragged and seeded. The cattle are excluded from that paddock until the new seeds sprout and the fresh green shoots are at least six inches tall. That winter feeding area then becomes one of the sixteen cells we rotate our Highlands through during the summer months.
It is the perfect cycle, what goes in comes out, goes onto the field, goes in once more as fresh green grass, and......well you know the rest!
Remember the term, "Shooting the sh-t?" You now know where it comes from. And why Ray loves doing so.
#ThisIsVT #greenfieldhighlandbeef #shatacreshighlandcattle #highlandhousefarmstay Greenfield Highland Beef Highland House Farm Stay #farmlife Vermont Agency of Agriculture Capital City Farmers' Market Montpelier Vermont FarmHer Farmstay #organic VT Grass Farmers Association Mid Atlantic Highland Association