Supplementing pasture

[partsRheavy]

As everyone knows feed prices have been going up related to the drought in the Midwest.

I am located in Texas and am working with a degraded pasture. It is degraded because of last year's drought plus some ruminant (cow + a few llamas and sheep) overgrazing. This is a small property and the number of cows is small.... but even 5 cows eat a LOT in a drought!

Cows and chickens free-range. Cows and chickens get supplemental feed but it's expensive!!!!! Chickens are let out of henhouse shortly after dawn and locked up at dusk. No electronet - they roam wherever they want.

Last week, I mowed down a whole lot of sage. Am trying to make pasture better for grasses to grow.

Fortunately, we had over an inch of rain shortly after this.

With a goal in mind of maximizing ruminant + chicken foraging.....

I am considering planting one or two of the following possibilities sometime between mid-September and mid-October.

1) Annual ryegrass. Feed dealer said this is good for cows and should be planted around October after any hot droughty weather has passed. Indicated it's good forage for cows but not so much for the chickies.

2) Wheat-rye mixture that's sold around here for deer plots. Feed dealer indicated chickens will eat some of this.

3) Clover mixture that is sold around here for deer plots. I'm sure the results are lush and pretty but I am questioning this as some peeps here have indicated that too much clover can be toxic to chickens?! ****Tell me more plz.**** Also, the clover mixture is rather expensive and if I can just do with the ryegrass for the cows and the rye/wheat for chickens this will be more cost-effective..

I'm aware that this pasture seed needs to be planted during or right before a good strong rain.

What do peeps here recommend for optimizing chickie forage while also assuring that the few cows have something to munch.....??!!

 

[sumi]

That's a very interesting question. I just looked at John Seymour's book The Complete Book Of Self-Sufficiency. He said to graze cows and chickens on grass and you "can add some clover". We kept cows and free ranged chickens on pasture with a 50/50 mix of grass and alfalfa (Lusern). Both cows and chickens did very well on that. We did supplement the chickens' food with some cracked corn and the cows needed extra food in winter only. We had 5 cows on 1.9ha (± 4.7 acres) Hope this helps!

 

[trifecta]

I have been thinking about doing the same thing for my birds. I ended up buying some deer plot clover mix and planting it in trays to supplement my broilers. I also sprouted it indoors for them when they were younger. they LOVED it and I haven't had any health problems.

FYI, not sure if you've ever used the deer plot mixes before, but the seeds are coated with this gross stuff that takes FOREVER to soak off, I'm sure its some kind of fertilizer but I didn't want my chickens to eat it. Next time I will buy forage mixes from Johnny's selected seeds. They have a large selection of pasture forages in their catalog, including things like forage turnips, etc.