About This Time Each Year

Good Morning and hello from your farmer,

About this time each year our warm season grasses have been grazed down and our cool season grasses have not matured enough to start grazing.

Early October marks the end of the growing season for warm season varieties like Bahia Grass. However, because Bahia grass is an excellent stockpiled grass we can extend our grazing season typically into early November. It really depends on how much rain we start getting in November.

As you know, our Spring and Summer were very wet. It was so wet that much of the work we wanted (needed) to do in our pastures was delayed.

October is harvest month and is typically dry. This lets the row croppers harvest the corn, soybeans, cotton, and peanuts from their fields before the rains come.

This year the dry period has been extended. Our farm has only had one rain since early October. Needless to say it is dry here and has negatively affected our cool season forages that were drilled into the soil behind the cows grazing them down.

Our grazing management is based on the principle of "Adaptive Grazing". Maybe I can write about this sometime later.

There is a positive! Because it has been dry longer we have been able to extend the grazing of stockpiled grasses from the summer. You see, wet and humid conditions will spoil summer grasses when the growing season ends making them useless for the cows.

That is why we purchase hay - to bridge the gap between the end of grazing stockpiled grasses and the time when our cool season forages will be mature enough for grazing.

Several years ago I made a short video of how (and why) we feed our cows hay. While this is an older video the process and principles are the same.

This link will take you to the video. We hope you enjoy and have a better understanding of how we steward the land and animals to bring your family healthy and nutritious beef, pork, chicken, and eggs.

We wish y'all God's blessings this Thanksgiving holiday as you get together with family & friends.

As always, thank you for rewarding our hard work with your trust and support.