Training Cows to be Foragers

When we purchased our ranch we knew we were diving head first into a soil renovation project. The land had been overstocked and continuously grazed for many years. Timbers were harvested, branches left, and thorny thickets thrived. We quickly realized that stockpiling forages and keeping enough stock for our livelihood would be a delicate balance. The ultimate goal is feeding as little hay as possible during the winter months but until our soils are flourishing we have chosen to use our dry hay unrolling feeding as a fertilizer program as well. This past spring was an unusually cold season, grasses had a slow start, and we had a late spring frost. We were running out of hay and needed to utilize areas of our property that had not been grazed the year before, which included the flat woodlands along the creek. It is a difficult area to fence because of the occasional flooding and our desire to maintain the riparian area, so we had not tackled the available forages.

April 2020, the unique "social situation" was in full swing, and we had 700 pound heifers that were barely worth what we paid for them in the Fall of 2019. We had not planned on the "social situation" when purchasing hay the previous summer nor had we planned on keeping all the heifers until spring lush so our stored forages were dwindling rapidly. Thankfully we had been advised to invest in heifers because of the various opportunities they provide; heifers can be sold as stockers, bred, or finished. The options though didn't solve our feed dilemma. Since retaining and breeding them was the best decision at the time, it also meant seriously evaluating our property and utilizing areas that had not previously been pastured, which had stockpiled forage.

Since the risk of flooding was low, we fenced the timber area alongside the creek. It was dense with underbrush, multi flora rose, blackberry brambles, other small shrubs, and toppled over dead trees. We could barely drive through it with our ATV. We fenced the creek off and turned them loose. Please note, it is key to keep minimal access to "easy" grazing open flat lands. The heifers were so hungry for greens after the long winter of dry hay; they attacked the area despite its jungle like terrain. They ate under bushes, around fallen trees, and new leaves off of bushes. They grazed and foraged full length of our property getting a new paddock every day for about two weeks.

Timing was essential; their appetite for green after winter prompted the voracious foraging skills we needed.

Now those heifers are rotational grazing with the cows and guess what? Their early spring training is still with them. We turned them into a timber area recently, which Eli has been working on rejuvenating, and guess where the heifers went? Into the woods scavenging the greens like they had learned to do earlier in the spring. This foraging skill became valuable when our summer turned dry and we fenced off new paddocks in the timbers.

I had read of others who had trained their cows to eat thistles and other less appetizing but still nutritional weeds. The concept has always interested me to make our animals do the work we had done previously with shovels, clippers, or equipment. Circumstances allowed us to come upon a similar training in the wild areas that needed grazed. Now, we have animals that will train their young to do the same as well as utilize more of our property without diversifying into other livestock until we are ready.

This experience is proof that struggles or problems open your mind to possibilities with a little bit of work. What a blessing we have discovered!