Grazing Grass Podcast sharing Regenerative Ag Stories

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0:00:00 - Cal
Welcome to the Grazing Grass Podcast, Episode 128.

0:00:05 - Tom
Do not violate the graze period or the recovery period.

0:00:09 - Cal
You're listening to the Grazing Grass Podcast, sharing information and stories of grass-based livestock production utilizing regenerative practices. I'm your host, cal Hartage. You're growing more than grass. You're growing a healthier ecosystem to help your cattle thrive in their environment. You're growing your livelihood by increasing your carrying capacity and reducing your operating costs. You're growing stronger communities and a legacy to last generations. A legacy to last generations. The grazing management decisions you make today impact everything from the soil beneath your feet to the community all around you. That's why the Noble Research Institute created their Essentials of Regenerative Grazing course to teach ranchers like you easy to follow techniques to quickly assess your forage, production and infrastructure capacity in order to begin grazing more efficiently. Together, they can help you grow not only a healthier operation, but a legacy that lasts. Learn more on their website at nobleorg slash grazing. It's n-o-b-l-e dot org. Forward slash grazing.

On today's show we have Tom Kravitz of Ranching Like a 12-Year-Old. If you've read his book Great Conversation Today. If you haven't, I'll tell you more about his book on Friday. So stay tuned for that episode. But Tom talks about his journey, what he's doing, what he's been doing, and we talk a little bit about reducing labor on the farm, which is so very important. It's a really good episode and I think you'll enjoy it.

Before we get started, 10 seconds about my farm. First off, we talk a lot about just getting started, but to get started you've got to make sure you've got that infrastructure in place, whether that includes fencing or watering, or both most likely. However, you've got to be profitable. The farm's got to be sustainable, so if you sink a lot of money in, you've got to be careful about that. Well, the reason I bring up that stuff watering infrastructure is my problem. This week We've had a decent amount of rain. It's came in timely arrivals, I guess, would be the right word but it's been really nice, except one of my leased properties. The ponds have gotten so low now the cows are having to step through or wade mud to get in there and drink. I know I really shouldn't be watering out of those ponds, but I don't have watering infrastructure on those places yet and, to be honest, to get watering infrastructure there, there is not rural water along the road. A well would be one option, or probably the option I'll go with. I need to get those ponds re-dug. Get them re-dug, then I can put a solar water pump in and put some water line. Of course it's leased land so you don't want to sink too much into infrastructure depending upon the duration of your lease. So I'm bringing those cows. I will probably load them up today or tomorrow, move them back to another property I have that doesn't have water issues. Two years ago this is 24 and 22, had the same problem on two properties. Water got so low I couldn't water them over there. Causes a little bit of an issue. However, I did anticipate that maybe being an issue. So I've been grazing over there longer rather than pulling them off there because I thought, well, if I get low on water I can go to the other place. So it's had a longer rest, except I did clip it for the sericea that was getting out of control. So lots of management. We'll see how that goes, but I will be moving those cows shortly.

For 10 seconds about the podcast. I talked to a gentleman the other day about the grazing grass community and if you're not familiar with the grazing grass community, it is our Facebook group Did not start it on Facebook, that was not the plan, but Facebook is an easy place for most people to get to, so we built it on Facebook I have a problem with Facebook groups. I'll just be honest. Most of the time, discussions turn into arguments and nothing gets resolved. The real question at hand never gets answered because people are arguing about something else. I say that, but Facebook groups are one of my favorite parts of Facebook. There is a lot of valuable information. Anyway, I was talking to an individual the other day and he commented about the grazing grass community. If you're not part of it, go join us on Facebook, do a search for grazing grass community. And he says why is everyone so nice and so helpful there? Well, I don't have a good answer. I just know this community is helpful, this community is supportive and we're there for each other, and I just want to say thank you. Thank you to those individuals there sharing about their experiences, answering to help others. I am so glad to be part of a community that's supportive and helpful like that. So thank you.

Second thing later today we talk in the podcast about grazing charts and I mentioned during the episode I wanted to use a grazing chart, but I haven't. I've looked at the online version, I've looked about ordering a paper version, but nothing really worked for me. I prefer it to be technology-based but at the same time, I want to be able to see enough of it. I don't know it's a quandary. However, after talking to Tom and how much he thinks you should be using a grazing chart so you can respect your graze period and respect your rest period Because, I'll be honest, I don't respect the rest period. I just let my paddocks or pastures rest as much as possible. But he makes the case for what the rest period should be in his book. So I've sat down and I've worked on Google Sheets I love spreadsheets so I put together a grazing chart.

It's not great, it's very basic. I know I'm leaving lots of stuff out that a real grazing chart would have, but it's working for me so I can keep track of that. While it's not there yet, I will share it to Grazing Grass Insiders. So if you want to play with it and see and I can answer questions, I try to make it fairly simple. It's easy for me to use. I can see three months at a time. It's working out pretty good. If you want access to that, it'll be at the Grazing Grass Insiders under Downloads.

Now again, don't go there today looking for it. I was ready to put it out today, but I noticed a calculation error, so I have to fix that before I push it out, and I'm sure once it's there there'll be some errors on it and stuff, but we can build this. If it's a useful tool for you, wonderful. If it's not, it's working for me currently and I say working for me for the past 24 days, so not a lot of experience with it, but I am liking where it's going. Anyway, I've talked way too much today and we have a very good episode for you. So let's get past all that and let's talk to Tom. Tom, we want to welcome you to the Grazing Grass podcast. We're excited you're here today.

0:08:11 - Tom
You're excited with every guest you have, so you must be just thrilled with me.

0:08:16 - Cal
I love just getting to talk to all these wonderful people out there doing great things and just to highlight some of them, because some of them aren't highlighted. Some of them have a book, but others but get the word out about people, it does make me very excited, yeah.

0:08:34 - Tom
Well, and you know what I find? It just gets me thinking in a different way. It's why not try that and just put on someone else's cap for a little bit and you get to listen for an hour. Huh, I never thought of it that way.

0:08:47 - Cal
No, it is great. Well, Tom, to get started, tell us a little bit about yourself and your operation.

0:08:54 - Tom
Okay, well, you know what? I grew up in an oil patch. I grew up in an oil town. My parents had a trucking company, oil field trucking company but my heart wasn't there. My heart was with my relatives. Both my parents grew up on farms, so I got to spend a lot of time in the summers on relatives' farms and that's where my love was Just. I never had the chance to until I guess it was really 2000. And I got hooked up with a gal that her parents had two quarter sections that they always rented out and I just thought, oh, here's an opportunity. And I met a guy at work that was telling me about this course called holistic management. So I took that. My wife at that time took holistic management in January of 2000. And then we just started going. We started direct marketing grass fed hog or pork, lamb, chicken and beef and eggs and we did that for a number of years. And then we transitioned. We also had sorry, we also had 40 cow-calf pairs that we custom grazed.

0:09:56 - Cal
Oh yes.

0:09:57 - Tom
Learned how to custom graze Well, learned how to graze and then yeah, and then took Rancho for Profit in I think it was 2003, first time, and then yeah, I think it was 2000. We both took it and then we joined EL for a few years. Executive Link.

0:10:13 - Cal
Yes.

0:10:14 - Tom
Yeah, and then yeah, and then expanded to the custom grazing operation. We ended up having renting 5,500 acres and running 3,000 yearlings in summer with one or two summer students. That was it, and yeah, and then from there I transitioned into ranch management and now I guess the last time I was managing grass was 2001. Or, sorry, 2021. 2021, yes, yeah, and then that was just ranch managing. I need to get something back for myself and do my own thing. So that's what I'm looking at right now.

I haven't been able to find a ranch, but I just decided, actually a few weeks ago, I'm just going to start. I started out with 373 acres and six to seven years I had 5,500 acres and 3,000 heads, so I'm just going to do it again. Yeah, what happened was my buddy rolled his quad this spring and he broke four ribs. So I was just available and I went and helped him out for six weeks and it was exhausting, because he's not set up. Although he has my book, he hasn't read my book and we've known each other for 20 years, but he's a hard sell on doing things simple and easy. He's a very smart guy and I think that's part of it, but anyways, it was a big eye-opener to him. He would have been in a lot of trouble had I not been able to if I wasn't available.

0:11:44 - Cal
Oh yeah, that was a huge blessing to him to be able to go over and help him.

0:11:51 - Tom
He just started calving and when I got there the calves would just start to scour and I, just like I've never had to deal with scours. I've been so scared of it, oh yeah, but I just the skills that I've gained over 20 some years. I just started doing it. I just like the next day I had the cows onto fresh ground as an example.

Yeah, and it was. Although it was good for him, it was good for me too to realize I got to step up and get, I got to find some land and get back ranching, because I'm working in the oil patch right now and I'm not enjoying it.

Oh, it's just a place to make money, yeah, so, yeah, yeah. So that's what I'm, I expect it. I've already put some feelers out, so I expect next summer I will be, I'll be back ranching it. Yeah, be happy. Oh, but one thing about this I did have the opportunity to write my book, right, I think had I not been ranching or, sorry, had I still been ranching I would not have had the opportunity to write the book, because the job that I had in the oil field I was working nights and I was all by myself and I had very little to do. So I just wrote my book and that's how it got done.

0:12:57 - Cal
Well, I kick around the idea of writing a book and I'll be honest, it won't be near as good as yours or informative as yours, but I love that idea. But then I think about the time and effort to do it. Writing a book is you just don't sit down and you have a book. There's a lot to it and it takes a large amount of time to do it. So it's impressive. You put together a book but sounds like working back in the oil field gave you the opportunity or the time to do it. So it's impressive. You put together a book but sounds like working back in the oil field gave you the opportunity or the time to be able to do that.

0:13:27 - Tom
Yeah, if I was at home all the time, I would not have had the motivation. I know that because there's too many distractions and you know what? Writing a book. Yeah, it's a lot of work and I'm proud of it, but at the end of the day, it was just sitting down and writing a couple of pages. Even if I just sat down and wrote a couple of pages a day, that's two pages closer. It did take me two years from the first time I started writing till it got out on Amazon.

0:13:57 - Cal
Oh yes so yeah, well, very good, I was telling you before we started recording. I'd purchased your book last January and when we first made contact I was thinking, yeah, I read that last January, I enjoyed it. And then I start going through my books and I'd got a few books then because I'm a terrible book buyer or maybe I worded that wrong. I'm a really good book buyer, A terrible reader. Well, actually, I read fair, fair amount. I've read two and a half books this week, so I read a fair amount but I buy faster than I can read.

Okay, so your book. So when I went and pulled your book, I'm like, oh, I haven't read this book. So that's one of the books I read this week, past two days. I sat down and read it. I really enjoyed it. I wish I'd read it as soon as I got it, even though that was just a few months ago. That's embarrassing that you didn't, I know right, yes, but I really enjoyed it. So you sit down to write it and you start thinking about all this. What was that process to get it out? Was the thinking just to outline the way you do things? Did your process go in another way?

0:15:15 - Tom
Okay, well, I'm going to be very blunt, I'll tell you. So what happened was grass management was my passion, I don't know why, but I just fell to be very blunt. I'll tell you. So what happened was grass management was my passion, I don't know why, but I just fell in love with it. And so then, when I learned quite a, I learned a lot of things.

And then it was about year five definitely five by year six, I definitely knew that I was not improving the soil. Oh, yes, yeah, okay, I was doing four times better in terms of grazing than people around me. But when I was really looking at it, I had hit a plateau and I was thinking, huh, there's something here, and I wasn't able to ask anybody who knew how to get past that. And then I started to realize they didn't know either. And here I was writing articles, I was getting invited to talk to different places and I felt like a hypocrite because I didn't really know. And that's when I stopped and I stopped reading. I stopped reading and I just went and stayed on the ranch and I stopped and I stopped reading.

I stopped reading and I just went and stayed on the ranch and I learned what I was missing and yeah, and then I was happy I found it, and then what happened was I was reading, I was reading, started reading again, and then these people, like there's people writing and they didn't have an experience or very little experience, and I thought, before you start saying that you should have a little bit more experience, and so, anyways, that's why I started writing articles again and yeah, and then the book came about.

So that was it, and it's just my ideas and it's my experiences, and I know that everybody doesn't agree with what I say, but I have the numbers to back me up and that it's the numbers that I have. But the big thing that I found was I talk about that a lot it's Heather and Tiffany. They were 12 and 13 or 12 and 11. I can't remember 12 and 11 when they first, the first summer that they came out, and I had to make things simple for them, like even a pipe wrench 24 inch pipe wrench you can buy an aluminum one or you can buy the steel one.

The steel one is much heavier. So why not just buy the? Yes, it's more expensive, but they're not going to balk as much about using it. And it's just once I got things set up that way that it was very easy. Then I was able to expand and it was much easier to expand the custom grazing operation. So in no time at all we went to.

We were at a 3,000 head and it was just like how did that happen? Oh, yes, and we only had one or two summer students. Realistically, we had, between the two of us, we had six hours of work a day. Oh yeah, so with that many animals, based on the template. So we had six hours of work. So we'd get up. We usually would stay up late, go to lake or play poker with the neighbors or something, so we wouldn't get up too early. So, but we'd be leave the house about nine o'clock, nine 30, or, sorry, 10 o'clock, nine 30, 10 o'clock, and then we'd each go move a herd. We'd be back about noon. We'd have an hour and a half lunch and then we'd head out again and then we'd be back between four 30 and five 30.

0:18:44 - Cal
And that was our date Time to do it for a tenth of that many cattle, or even a 5% of that. So what really made that difference? So you were able to do it so?

0:18:51 - Tom
quickly. You know what, honestly, I just I had to ask myself can a 12 year old do this? Honestly, kel, that's all that I had to do, and it was just Heather and Tiffany and I had to think can they do it? So I just started asking myself can a 12-year-old do this? And I still do that today. In everything that I do, I ask myself can a 12-year-old do this? And if they can't, I change it or I stop doing it. And it's amazing. Your life just becomes so simplified. And then, like I said, we were able to expand rapidly.

0:19:31 - Cal
And it's not a big deal. I know when I think about my own farm and what I'm doing. So we have here my dad's farm and mine, mine's on leased land, dad's on land he owns. We have semi permanent paddocks. We open the gate, cows, I move them that way super easy. My cows I go over and I string poly braid every day and do it. It doesn't take too long. And I've thought about, I've thought about, I've thought I need to put up some semi-permanent fences to create me some paddocks. That gives me a little bit or gives me the ability to quickly go over and do that. But then I think, oh, greg Judy talks about he did that early on and he pulled all those out because he felt like he could gain greater flexibility. But as I Could, I stop you right there. Yes, you can.

0:20:26 - Tom
Okay, because I know exactly what you're talking about. Okay, it was not Greg who said that, it was his interns who talked him into that. Oh, that's right, you're right. So? But Greg is in an interesting, different situation than the rest of us. Greg has a reputation, and his reputation is long enough and his knowledge is wise enough. He has people clamoring to come and be his not apprentice, but his intern, okay, right. So he has that workforce. If he did not have that workforce, those fences would be there. Do you take my? Do you take my point? Oh, yeah, I agree. So you have the flexibility, but you have to give up something, right, right? So now you're going to have to pay for that flexibility with labor. So are you going to pay for it, or are you going to be like Greg and you have interns that are wanting to come to your place? So there you go.

0:21:28 - Cal
Yeah, and that's an excellent point. And when I think about it I have. I told my wife, I've got numerous notebooks here where I've drawn out these paddocks that I'm going to put up. And then when I get time, I hear that about Greg's interns talking him into it and he talks about how he can manage it better. That it causes me to hesitate In reading your book. You really talk about those paddocks and what they do for you. On time management, saving your time, You're front loading that and getting those up. So then when you go to do your move, it's just a matter of opening the gate and getting the animals to the next paddock. But there's another thing You're not focused on daily moves, Correct, and can you explain to our audience a little bit why that is?

0:22:17 - Tom
Okay, well, there's something that gets missed. I know the daily moves are designed to get ultra high stock density, okay. Now again, my belief is we need to get our labor down first, because if we don't get our labor down, we're going to get burnt out and we're going to quit. Yes, okay, our kids are going to be resentful. So we got to get our labor down first. Once we have that, then we can start doing these other things. But they're down the road, okay. So if we want to get to, don't start moving out every day.

Right, get the labor down, but what I have seen it's a whole system. So what I have seen is once you put together animal behavior, so you get the animals to start acting, behaving as a herd or as a mob, you get that ultra high density without any fencing because they move that way. Bob Kinford just did a post on. He taught a course in Saskatchewan and he was talking about there's a hundred heifers there and that's the way that they move and that's my experience, and it's not just I've had like on the cover you've noticed the cover of my book yes, okay. So there's in that mob there there's 200 head of cattle, different classes. There's in that mob there there's 200 head of cattle different classes. There's 350 ewes and about another what 300 or 400 lambs. In there there's 80 hogs and about 20, 25 horses. Every one of those animals was part of the mob and they knew that. And once I got them all trained to do that, it was amazing. And not only that, they all just stuck together. Not only that, what they did for the soil was phenomenal.

I've always been able to grow great grass, but I'd never saw anything like this, and that got me to thinking. There's a lot of multi-species. Grazing should be the same as a polyculture with cropping, but we normally don't very few people do that. They have a leader follower and I've actually done that. I started out doing that and you know what the amount of labor it took. It was too much and that was the first thing I did to cut down our labor. I put the animals all together. That was the first thing I did and the second thing I did we put out pipeline and stopped hauling water. Those were the two biggest, biggest labor components of what we were doing. The first two years I got rid of those two things and it was just like a huge relief and then we went from. I guess the third thing is what we started putting up the permanent paddocks, yeah, so those three things. I know people don't want to do that.

They talk about flexibility. Just like my buddy that I was, I went to cab for and I've been after this one pasture. I said why don't you split that up into four pieces, long strips, and then you have fresh ground? Yeah, but it's flexible. I said frick, mike, you're freaking exhausted. Who cares about flexibility? Get your labor down Once you have some, because I was exhausted and that's all I was doing, and then he has two kids to chase around to sports. He's a 4-H leader, he's a chairman of a Forge Association board, and then he has a little side business and he's trying to do all this and you can't do it, oh yeah, without beating yourself up and then you think you're a failure and it's just not conducive for good mental health.

0:26:03 - Cal
No, I completely agree. And a lot of times whenever I'm talking to someone and we talk about daily moves, they're like well, how much? Well, just for instance, my dad, he is so against it I hate to say it that way he doesn't see the benefit. He's like you just put too much labor into it. I have to agree, I spend more time moving my cows than I do moving my dad's cows, because I open a gate and they go through One thing. So you talked about a couple of things there. To lower that labor requirement, you put all your species together in one mob to graze them. You got your watering infrastructure down, which watering infrastructure is always a limiting factor, because I've yet to see a farm where that's not a limiting factor. I'm sure they're out there, but I've not seen it yet. And then you put in these permanent paddocks, and putting in permanent paddocks allow you to just open a gate. But how did you determine the size for those paddocks?

0:27:05 - Tom
I didn't. It's not important when you have. It's not important. Again, I don't want to go to the grass management part, but I want to keep the grass vegetative and I call it grazing in the sweet spot, and I honestly think that's the key and that's how we're going to make it to this other level of grazing. Yeah, and that we don't know about yet. I've seen it, but generally I don't think we've seen it, and so that's why people are balking about it. And you know what? I actually don't care, uh, I just want to go and do it myself, because there's things that I haven't done yet. But the, so the size doesn't matter. It has to do with timing, okay, and as long as you're getting around and you're getting that grass clipped, I call it in the sweet spot, it doesn't matter. Some products you're going to be there for one day. Some days you're going to be there for one day. Some days you're going to be two days, some days, three days, but you don't go past the period. There's the grace period. Do you remember me talking?

about that in the book oh I do, yeah, okay, there's two things Don't violate the rest period and don't violate the grace period. And you can violate the rest period by being too short or too long and you get the basically same result in my experience, and it's very easy to go have your rest period too long, like just right now I'm seeing lots of pictures of people showing these pictures of their beautiful grass. It's five feet tall and it's just like I just shudder when I see that, oh yeah.

Like Andre Vosin, docs talked about that His masters and PhD students were sitting up in the tower calculating how long it took a cow to take a bite those tall grasses. They have to ball that up. It takes a long time for them to ball that up and then your nutrition decreases as you get there. So I see all those pictures right now and I just, oh shit, they're way too late. But I'm not sure if I answered your question or not. But again, it's not the size, it's the timing.

0:29:10 - Cal
And you mentioned two sets of times there, your grazing period and your rest period. So how do you know what those are?

0:29:19 - Tom
Okay, but really to get there, to get to that level, you have to have your labor down.

0:29:28 - Cal
One thing, just on the labor part. In the back of your book you have your ranching hacks, just a couple pages of them, and one of them is one that we do that I love that. I don't know why more people don't. I tell people I'm an efficient farmer and you understand, efficient farmer is a lazy farmer with good PR. So I'm an efficient farmer.

So if I like if we have some calves not doing very good, I love your suggestion in the book that you just sort those off and leave them pinned up and the next morning you go out there and their moms will be across the fence from them and you get their moms in.

0:30:07 - Tom
Yeah that's simple.

0:30:09 - Cal
Yeah, I love those types of things that reduce the labor. You're not trying to sort all your cows and introduce more stress. You're doing something very simple sorting out those particular calves. Then you're letting nature take over and those moms come up there and you just get them back in the next day.

0:30:28 - Tom
You bet it's just like in the spring when you're calving. There's a system called the Sandhills method of where you sort off pears. Oh yeah, yeah, I don't agree with that. Like I've been to, I think, three places that do that. The amount of stress when they're sorting off pears is crazy. Oh yeah, why not just move the whole bunch? Then they're all onto fresh ground? I've been doing that since 2005 because I've been scared of scours, like when I went this spring and I saw the calves are starting to scour, I just like, holy shit, what am I got myself into? But I just got them on fresh ground and every three or four days I just move the whole works onto fresh ground and the cool thing about it is they learn how to move.

0:31:19 - Cal
So you don't have.

0:31:19 - Tom
You don't have abandoned calves. You have these little calves that, oh, it's time to go, and the mama goes and picks them up, and so you get you're able to do that. You get them trained right off the bat. You get to manage your grass, because you get on there, clip it and get going, and then you, you're on clean ground for health purposes. Oh, yeah, yeah. So I better answer this question quick about the graze period and the rest, okay, okay. Quick about the Graves period and the rest of the period Okay. So what I discovered by luck, just trial and error, was that in the latitude of Athabasca, okay, in Alberta, at that latitude, but and this is just an example, and it's just for that latitude at that, at the first rotation, the Graves period is about 36 days. Okay, and that has been consistent for since my first time in in, just it's. I figured that out and that's just an example. That's not going to be your area, but then I so what that means is the way, and then I found out the graze period.

I was doing a strip grazing. Okay, cause that's what I was. I started out doing, I went, we went to holistic management and that's what we're supposed to do is strip graze to get animal impact. So that's what I started out doing. And then I was on this paddock and I figured, oh they, this herd. I know 250 cow or cow-calf pairs there and I figured they should be there for five days. So I was stripping them up along this long, narrow paddock. Well, day four I moved them into the next strip and then they had to walk back for water. As they came back they stopped at where that first strip was and they never went back. And so that told me that the new growth there was enough new growth by day three at that time of year, at that latitude, by day four, there's enough growth. So I enough new growth by day three, at that time of year, at that latitude, by day four, there's enough growth. So I cannot be there longer than three days. I have to be moving on day four, otherwise there's going to be overgrazing.

0:33:21 - Cal
So you're keeping them in that paddock for that graze period and then you're moving on and you calculate that grazing period in your example to be three days, because on day four they're going back and grazing new growth.

0:33:33 - Tom
Exactly yeah, and again, I've had a few people ask me about well, 35 days is another. No, this was just an example, like what I put in my book. I thought I made it clear, but obviously I didn't. It's just an example of that latitude at that time of year. So in 2021, we had I was grazing at this area as well, and we had extreme heat and extreme dry. Well, our graze period went to six days. Oh yes, I thought the grass had gone dormant, but I did that strip test and by day six, they stopped in the first strip. So the grass did stop growing, it just slowed right down. And so then that's what I did I just changed my. I was able to change my recovery period, or my graze period, and that adjusted my recovery period. Oh, yes, because each time you stay an extra day in that paddock, you have what? 13 paddocks. Well then, that's 13 extra days.

0:34:41 - Cal
One more question on that graze period Before we go back and talk a little bit more about your mob grazing. You said there grass had slowed down. So you did another test to find out how long the graze period should be, and that's six days. How? Often are you checking to see how long that graze period is? Do you just do it when you see a change?

0:35:05 - Tom
Yes, or how do you?

determine that Just when there's a big change. Yeah, Just when there's a big change. Yeah, just when there's a big change. Now, a part of that is because I have, so I know, over the course of 24 years, I know what the recovery period is. But if, like in 2000 or in 21,. That was a huge change and it was something I hadn't experienced before. So now I had to go and check my reference, something I hadn't experienced before, so now I had to go and check my reference. And then the other thing that goes along with that is I stumbled on this idea of 13 paddocks, and it was just by luck.

I took over property and there were 13 paddocks, so I did my grazing chart for the first rotation, Then we're getting close to the second rotation. I go do my grazing chart again and it all worked out. And I was just like huh. So I started looking at this and, oh my gosh, 13 is the magic number. If I use the graze period and I just assume that we have 13 paddocks, then I can figure out what our recovery period is.

Because in holistic management you start out with the recovery period but we don't necessarily know what the recovery period is. We're guessing on the recovery period. Here what I'm doing is I'm starting out with the graze period. I can the cattle tell me what the graze period is? And then I have this formula based on 13 paddocks. Now I can figure out my recovery period. So I've tested that out about probably seven different times with the 13 paddocks and it works every time. It works every time. It doesn't work, Like if you had 20 paddocks. It doesn't work. I don't know Somehow it works with 13. Because if you have 20 paddocks and your graze period is three days, well then the next thing you know you're almost at 60 days and that's too long, right, yeah, yeah.

So I'm not sure if I make that, explaining that well, but somehow it just works. And that way you don't get a recovery period. That's too long. And that way you don't get a recovery period. That's too long Because once you let grass go into that stage three, it has done its job for the year. Oh, yeah, and my experience is that you lose at least 50% of possible production on the like of the regrow. Oh yeah, yeah, because it's done its job already.

0:37:28 - Cal
One thing you mentioned. There is talking're talking about 13 paddocks and the graze period, rest period. You mentioned your grazing chart. Does that help save time at all? How do you feel about the grazing chart?

0:37:41 - Tom
If you're going to do a good job, it's a must. That's how I feel about it. I still do it today. I did my first one in 2000 and I've never. If I'm grazing, I'm using a grazing chart because you can't keep track, particularly if you have multiple herds. You can't keep track and it's very easy to get fooled by our graziers eye. Oh yes, because you think, oh yeah, that looks good While you go to your grazer's chart. Oh, we're already might be already at 40 days recovery. We have to get moving and get that grass clipped because it's not going to grow anymore. It's done its job, it's just going to. It's just going to flower.

0:38:23 - Cal
Now you mentioned there your grazer's eye. You're growing out there looking, but then you're checking that with the chart. Are you following the chart pretty religiously?

0:38:33 - Tom
I'm following my recovery pretty religiously. How's that? Oh, okay, okay, so my grazing chart is done in pencil and, yeah, I do not violate the graze period or the recovery period.

0:38:49 - Cal
Oh, okay, yeah, so those are your.

0:38:51 - Tom
Yeah, but it doesn't matter if I say that I'm going to be on this day at this paddock. It's not a big day. As long as I'm in, I'm not violating the graze period or the rest period, oh okay.

0:39:01 - Cal
Yeah, and are you constructing that grazing chart with estimations of when you'll be grazing somewhere for the whole year? Are you just in transparency, tom? I've not used a grazing chart. I've seen some. I've thought I should use them. I go out there and look at the pasture and think, okay, here's where we're going. But reading your book and thinking about my herd and what I'm doing with my herd, it's a little bit easier because the way I rotate them and then that's a whole discussion whether or not you should change it each time and whatever. But for my dad's herd we have these paddocks in place and I'm moving them and I've got to. In fact, I need to move cattle tomorrow and I'm like, where am I going to take them? I thought, well, I'm taking them this way because that looks good. And then I'm like, oh wait, I was just there not too long ago. It's grown back really nicely. And as I thought about that I thought, right, there is where I need a grazing chart.

0:40:03 - Tom
I'm not even going to tell you that you need it, because I've told so many people and it just goes off deaf ears and no people aren't using it and that's the reason that they have the results?

0:40:14 - Cal
they do, do you? Do you find having a paper copy is better than electronic version, or how do you do it?

0:40:21 - Tom
You know what? I want it to go electronic, and so I've tried out some, and for some reason I't know if it's because I've I started out with paper because it's a pain in the ass having to go and erase all these little marks, right, yes, but I couldn't find a computer one on the screen that I can see the whole season. Oh, yes, so for me, sometimes I need to see that whole season, and I don't know why. I messed around with it one summer with the electronic and I wasn't able to get it, so I just used the paper one.

0:40:56 - Cal
And I know I've downloaded. I have electronic version of a grazing chart, but my problem is using it on the screen, I can only see a portion of it, and and so I was like, no, I'm not doing it and that's what I was doing, like I, I downloaded some from oh, I forget that guy's name.

0:41:14 - Tom
He he gives a the on pasture magazine each spring. He gives the you can order free yeah, it's from troy bishop. Yeah, you bet good charts, but I couldn't see the what I need, all of it that I need to see on my screen. So, anyways, they're good charts and they're exactly like my paper charts. Just I don't know.

0:41:36 - Cal
Anyways, move on relate to any of this, but we mentioned Troy Bishop and we mentioned on pastor. Even if you don't get anything from your book, but you just go through and pick all the resources you mention in the book, that would be tremendous right there? Walt Higbart how do you say his last name, higbert? Oh?

0:42:06 - Tom
yeah, walt, I can't remember.

0:42:08 - Cal
Yeah, him and some others. I have some. No Witt Hippard, oh, witt yeah.

0:42:13 - Tom
He's from.

0:42:14 - Cal
Montana. Yeah, I have those pulled up in tasks because I wasn't familiar with him and I pulled it pulled or did a search so I can look it up. But you list a tremendous amount of resources in your book that if someone were to just go through it and go through and get those resources, that would be an education in itself.

0:42:33 - Tom
Well, that's where I got my education.

0:42:34 - Cal
I've heard you know.

0:42:36 - Tom
I talk about it. I think you might've remembered in the forward there or wherever I wrote it, Hardly any of these ideas are mine. Sure, yeah, there's a few, but there's very few that are mine. And I just I feel I I've been plagiarized before and I don't like it, so I make a point of this wasn't my idea, this is who I got it from and so I make a point of doing that and uh, but yeah, I, I read a lot, a lot of the. I've read a lot of a pile of research in the last 20 plus years. Yeah, it's interesting to me.

0:43:12 - Cal
Yeah, it's tremendous amount of resources in there. Besides, what information you're giving that's valuable, I think, a big thing.

0:43:20 - Tom
I'm proud of the book, and a big part of the reason that I'm proud of the book is a lot of the stuff that I do is based on research things that I've heard. So I went, tested it out and I kept going. I'll give you an example. So you had, you had my buddy, steve Kenyon, on here a while ago. Yes, I did, steve, okay. So Steve and I have been pretty close on the same journey. He is two years ahead of me, but we've been pretty close on the same journey doing the same thing custom grazing on leased land, and so so we've gone out, shared a lot of stuff together and one thing that we did was we bail grazing. That's what you were talking to him about.

0:43:57 - Cal
Oh yes.

0:43:58 - Tom
Yeah, and I just want to mention so, Steve and I bail graze the same way, in that intense way, intense way, and we figured out a few years ago that if you grazed a hundred cows for a hundred days you could improve. I think it was 13 or 14 acres of land of pasture you could rejuvenate.

0:44:20 - Cal
Oh yes.

0:44:21 - Tom
Yeah, and then, and when we're talking rejuvenate, we're talking like a four to 600 fold increase in grass production. Yeah, so I read this article by Jim Gare she wrote it in On Pasture and it was about all the nutrients that a bale of hay has when you roll it out, and I was just like, oh, you should try it. Read that article. It is fascinating how many nutrients you're putting in the soil. And I thought, oh, but my experience with rolling out bales has not been that great for rejuvenation and I was just wondering. So, anyways, what I did was I tracked down a guy that Jim had worked with and the guy was raving about this rolling out bales and I said, well, so how much? Well, he improved the soil or the grass production about 70%. So 70%. Now there's something I like results. And so I was a bit surprised that 70%, because if you have bugger all and you double bugger all, you still have bugger all.

0:45:28 - Cal
Yes.

0:45:29 - Tom
Okay, yeah, when we, when our pastures, get down to a certain level, they need a kickstart, and so that's where you need a four to six fold increase. Now, that's the difference between rolling out bales and bale grazing. For some reason, the bale grazing, you get that 400 to 600% increase in one year. I documented, where I kept good records, and bale grazed. One year we had 46. I might've used that example in the book too, I'm not sure. Yeah, we had 46 stock days per acre that we grazed the year before. Oh yes, we bale grazed that winter, and the next winter we had 200 stock days per acre. That's pretty significant.

0:46:19 - Cal
Now, one thing you mentioned, that is a tremendous increase and one thing you mentioned there that when we b bell graze sometimes we get that area where stuff doesn't grow real good that first year. And you mentioned doing grazing with your high density or your mob or putting your mineral feeder in that area. So hooves are stirring up that ground a little bit so you get growth sooner are stirring up that ground a little bit so you get growth sooner.

0:46:53 - Tom
The only time that I've seen that you get these big patches where the grass isn't growing is when you don't have your grazing under control. Oh yeah, when you don't have your, the animals don't even have to be super mobbed up, they just have to be a little bit contained and you have to just go through your rotation. And I remember there was one place we had real shitty hay for the winter, so then we had more of this piled forest from the winter. I just put the mineral tub out there each time we went through and just that hoof action of walking through, just loosen things up and there you go. Yeah, it will get growth sooner. Yeah, but if you have that big ring where there's no growth, that's a reflection of your grazing management.

Oh yeah, yeah.

0:47:43 - Cal
Tom, it is time we transition just a little bit and move on to our overgrazing section, and we're carrying on the same thing. We're talking about bale grazing. But in converse to bale grazing, what if you stockpile some forages? And that's our topic today for our overgrazing section? So when we talk about stockpiling forage, what are you talking about?

0:48:06 - Tom
Well, the end goal is high volume, high quality, okay. So in terms of quality, I want at least 13% protein and high 60%. So that's for quality, yes, okay. And then for volume, I want 100, at least 150 to 200 stock days per acre in that paddock. That's for the high volume, the way that you get there, you have to start with that goal in mind right as soon as your first day of grazing. And that's the way I start and I want to get around, I want to get to get around, I want to get everything clipped and I want to keep everything clipped.

Don't slow down. Yes, you're going to have some forage that's going to go into stage three, into reproductive phase, but as long as you can keep it under 20% that has gone to stage three, you're going to have fantastic quality feed. Oh, yeah, for stockpile. And now again, this is going to be an example specific to the latitude of Athabasca. My experience, the fords that where the general killing frost is, there won't be enough time for that forage to grow. You'll have good quality, but you won't have high volume before killing frost.

0:49:43 - Cal
How far is that in advance of your first frost or your killing frost? I want to say six weeks.

0:49:50 - Tom
Oh okay, yeah, Okay, Because there's two things At that time of year the forage is growing slower yes, Very noticeable difference after that first week of August because the daylight hours are getting shorter here. So then your growth slows down. So then you know your recovery period lengthens. So are you happy with that explanation? Then your growth slows down, so then you know your recovery period lengthens. So are you happy with that explanation?

0:50:12 - Cal
I think that's a great explanation. One thing I'm curious about in your area, what are you stockpiling? What varieties of?

0:50:24 - Tom
grass, is it? Whatever's there, man, whatever's there? Yeah, and the the thing that I find once you get this type of grazing, the varieties like it changes. All those plants are like seeds or whatever in the soil and once you set up the environment so that they can express themselves, they just pop out and here they are and you don't know where the hell they came from.

0:50:50 - Cal
And do you? Are you stockpiling that? And when you say stockpiling that's, you're leaving it on the plant, You're not going through cutting it or anything.

0:51:00 - Tom
Correct, correct. I have. In the past I have had pretty much straight alfalfa like 80% alfalfa field.

0:51:09 - Cal
Oh yes.

0:51:10 - Tom
Yeah, and I knew what was going to happen if I left it. So I did swath that. But like clovers and grass, I don't bother. Oh yeah, I just let it stand. But if it's alfalfa? Because if you let it stand the leaves are going to freeze and fall off. Oh okay, so I just hired someone to come swath it and we basically swath grazed hay and it worked great.

0:51:37 - Cal
Now one thing when you're that far north and you're grazing stockpile, you're going to have to deal with some snow. How does that affect your grazing of stockpile?

0:51:45 - Tom
Well, I'll tell you the biggest thing you need to have quality thing, you need to have quality and you have to need to have volume. Okay, once you have that, I'm actually not sure what the limit is for what cows can go through 2006,. That was before I had my iPhone. I did not take a picture and I'm. I think we had four, close to four feet of snow, oh wow, and that the cattle were digging through. Now, this was swap grazing, it was a, it was oats cereal, okay, okay, but there was a volume there and there was a quality there. So they just went and trucked through and it was like a grader came and furrowed those rows and, in fact, like it was. So the banks between the rows were so deep that the cattle just went all the way down to the end and then came around and worked back up. They wouldn't go, you know, jump across, um, but it's hard to envision, uh, that cattle could go through that much snow.

And then I did get myself into a predicament. I bought some salvage crop, salvage oats, and the swath was very thin and beginning of January I had about 1800 days of swath grazing is what I figured. Beginning of January it warmed up and the deer came and busted my fence my temporary fence and the cattle walked a mile and a half down the swaths and froze them down. And I panicked because at that time I had no neighbors that I could lean on and say, hey, what should I do? All I needed to do was throw about 20 horses in there, and I would have been fine. To do was throw about 20 horses in there, and I would have been fine. But, like I said, I panicked and I went and spent $16,000 that I didn't have on buying hay for these cattle when I had all this feed sitting there. So it's good to have a group of people that you can bounce ideas off of for those times when you don't know what the hell to do.

0:53:43 - Cal
You mentioned, if you'd had some horses in there, you could put them in there. Why horses in there?

0:53:50 - Tom
Poth through the snow. That's an old. I had heard about it and then I oh I know what I when I first heard about it, I read it. I was reading a book. It was a guy from actually I think he was from Wyoming and he was up in British Columbia named Pan Phillips, and he wrote about that's how they had these dried out meadows in the winter and that's what they wintered their cattle on, but they ran the horses with them.

The horses opened it up for the cattle yeah, one of my little dreams before I die I want to train cattle to paw through stole. They certainly have the physiology. Oh yes, when you think about it like a cow pawing at you if she's mad, that's the same physiology that she would need to paw snow. So one day I will get that figured out. I'll get a herd of cows that know how to do that.

0:54:39 - Cal
There you go. Yes, you know, for me snow's not that big a worry, but I know a lot of people north of me snow's a big problem, you bet.

0:54:47 - Tom
Well, and you know what I of the ranch that I was on, I was watching these cows and what the heck. Oh, and I was doing stockpile, grazing stockpile, and I saw these cows walking and they were just all in a tight mob and I was wondering what the hell. I just could have the tail end of what they were doing. But I went down there. They had walked on that snow and there was like these they broke up these blocks about four inches by four inches of snow and the only way they could do that they had to all walk together and they walked about two or three acres and then they spread out and they started grazing. It was just, it was very cool. Anyways, I have that on it's on one of my videos on my YouTube channel Not the greatest video, but it's. You want to pay attention and you find that interesting. It's pretty freaking interesting that animals could work together to figure that sort of thing out. Oh yeah.

0:55:38 - Cal
Yeah, that is interesting. And one thing in your book you have a lot of links to videos. That's available to go with your book. Yeah, did you check those QR codes? I have not yet. Oh my gosh, like I said, that's just rude. I had to hurry and read it before this, so I will check them out, though you should, because you know what?

0:55:58 - Tom
I have a couple I was going to mention. I have a couple of videos in there about how to save time. You were talking about moving. Oh yeah, so I've trained. I started out training animals with a bell. I had two bells and now I just use a whistle different type of whistle and so I have a video on there. And I knew that we're going to be later in the season, we're going to be going into some bush paddocks, so I train the. There's 300 finishing heifers there. I train them to this whistle and so the video that I took was me calling them 300 out of a bush. So from the time that I crawl over the fence till the time the last heifer walks through the old creek bank is five minutes and 30 seconds. Oh, yes, okay, normally that would be three or four cowboys with a couple of dogs and another cowboy on a quad. A minimum of an hour and a half. I know that because I've seen it.

0:56:57 - Cal
Yeah, and that's if things go well.

0:56:59 - Tom
Yes. So there there was a little, just a little snippet of save some time, oh yeah, and just take long to train them. Another thing I have another video. It's the wave video. It's how to move these newborn animals. Okay, and like earlier in this interview I said, this idea of can a 12-year-old do this? It's just always in my head on everything and if I have to do labor I want to really evaluate whether it's worth it or not. So have you ever been where you have a calf that's a newborn calf that's sleeping and it doesn't want to get up? So have you ever been where you have a calf that's a newborn calf that's sleeping and it doesn't want to get up? So if you're on your horse, you have to get off your horse and you have to go and kick it a little bit. Come on, get up. And I just thought, fuck, I just wore. Sorry, I used to ride this great big horse 16.3.

And she's a pain in the ass when you're calving because up and down. And so then I started thinking about energy and I thought I wonder if I could just bring this big energy to this calf that's laying down and I could get him up, and then I wouldn't have to get off my horse, and I call it flashing, and so, anyways, in that video there's a shot of me doing that exact thing and I just come up with my energy and as soon as that calf starts to get up, I back my horse up and that calf just pops up and went like three steps away. It didn't take off. All I needed to do was and I didn't have to get off my horse- oh yeah.

When, when. So there you go.

0:58:34 - Cal
Very good, tom, tom. It is time for us to do our famous four questions, sponsored by Ken Cove, farm Fence.

0:58:42 - Tom
I really like Ken Cove. They have a lot of good products. Yeah, we don't do a lot Like I don't know many people up here that use Ken Cove but I tell you, those products that they have in there are good products. Oh, they are, I agree, and I'm not getting paid by them for anything, I tell you that. But I just wanted to let you know that I really like their products.

0:59:02 - Cal
Well, very good. Ken Cove Farm Fence is a proud supporter of the Grazing Grass Podcast and grazers everywhere. At Ken Cove Farm Fence they believe there's true value within the community of grazers and land stewards. The results that follow, proper management and monitoring can change the very world around us. That's why Ken Cove is dedicated to providing an ever-expanding line of grazing products to make your chores easier and your land more abundant.

Whether you're growing your own food on the homestead or grazing on thousands of acres, ken Cove has everything you need to do it well, from reels to tumbleweels, polytwine to electric nets, water valves to water troughs, you'll find what you're looking for at Ken Cove. They carry brands like Speedrite O'Briens, kiwi Tech, strainrite, jobe and more. Ken Cove is proud to be part of your regenerative journey. Call them today or visit KenCovecom, and be sure to follow them on social media and subscribe to the Ken Cove YouTube channel at Ken Cove Farm Fence for helpful how-to videos and new product releases. Our famous four questions are the same four questions we ask of all of our guests. So our first question what is your favorite grazing grass-related book or resource?

1:00:24 - Tom
Well, what I call the Bible Grass Productivity by André Vossin, that's where it all started. Everybody who has anything to do with it. That's where it started.

1:00:36 - Cal
Excellent resource there. I knew it was a toss-up. I didn't know if you were going to say your book or his book. That's funny. Our second question what's your favorite tool for the farm Horse?

1:00:53 - Tom
The versatility is unsurpassed and you have a well-trained horse and the things that you can do with them. I've used my horse in the winter. I have a little chore cutter that I put my salt on and stuff and you can go. Just go through so many things. I had an interesting thing with the Wen Ranch. I was trying to get away from owning bulls and we leased some bulls. So I don't know, there's 11 or 12 bulls that come and so I'm going to put them out on the turnout day and two bulls go and bugger off into the dugout you bastards. And I just went right in behind them with my horse and they both looked at me what the heck just happened. And then I was thinking well, they came from an operation. They use quads. A quad can't go into the dugout. Oh yeah, yeah, you know. And the neat thing about a horse is, the more you use it, its value increases.

1:01:48 - Cal
Oh, the better it is, yeah.

1:01:50 - Tom
Yeah and a quad or side-by-side. The yeah, yeah and a quad or side-by-side. The more you use it, the value decreases, Decreases, it's just a win all around.

1:01:58 - Cal
That's a very interesting way to look at it, because the horse's value appreciates, while a quad or side-by-side they're going to depreciate in value. Great way to look at that. You bet yeah. Our third question, Tom. What would you tell someone just getting started?

1:02:16 - Tom
I don't know how to word this. Don't read so much, because it's. We get too caught up and I was there too. We get too caught up in all these things that we're supposed to do. Make sure you keep your labor down yeah I think, what you're speaking.

1:02:35 - Cal
There is analysis, paralysis, to borrow a real estate term. Exactly you just get there. You're getting all this information, but you really got to go do it.

1:02:46 - Tom
Yeah, and don't spend too much money doing it. I know what that's like. I spent a lot of money on things that I didn't need to do and I think we missed the real point of it, like just this moving every day or four times a day. What are we really trying to accomplish there, and can we accomplish it differently?

1:03:07 - Cal
Yeah, very good. And Tom, where can others find out more about you? And Tom, where can?

1:03:13 - Tom
others find out more about you. Well, you can go. My website still isn't perfect, but it's simply ranchingca. But you can Google ranching like a 12-year-old and you can find my book. I was planning on getting more social media to promote my book, oh yeah. However, I realized that's not really what I want to be doing, man. I want to be ranching. There's still quite a few things that I haven't accomplished yet, and I need to get back ranching to do it, and so that's really where my focus is going to be really for the next 18 months, but I'm still going to do a few things like I'm talking to you today, right, and this hasn't been too excruciating so for me. So I'll just try and do a few more things like this, and then that'll be good.

1:04:00 - Cal
There you go. I'm glad it's not been too much of a problem for you, Tom. We appreciate you coming on and sharing with us today. You know what I really enjoy your podcast, I have to tell you that.

1:04:13 - Tom
Yeah, I don't enjoy all of them, but I enjoy the way that you have it structured and you have some really good guests, interesting guests.

1:04:21 - Cal
Well, thank you. I appreciate that, you bet. I really hope you enjoyed today's conversation. I know I did. Thank you for listening and if you found something useful, please share it. Share it on your social media. Tell your friends, Get the word out about the podcast.

Helps us grow. If you happen to be a grass farmer and you'd like to share about your journey, go to grazinggrasscom and click on Be Our Guest. Fill out the form and I'll be in touch. We appreciate your support by sharing our episodes and telling your friends about it. You can also support our show by buying our merch. We get a little bit back from that. Another way to support the show is by becoming a Grazing Grass Insider. Grazing Grass Insiders enjoy bonus content, monthly Zooms and discounts. You can visit the website grazinggrasscom, click on support and they'll have the links there. Also, if you haven't left us a review, please do. It really helps us, as people are searching for podcasts and I was just checking them and we do not have very many reviews for 2024. So if you haven't left us a review, please do. Until next time, keep on grazing grass.

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