A Spring Morning in the Life of an Arkansas Humane Livestock Farmer

By James Maginot with Beyond Organics Farm in Winslow, Arkansas

No need to set an alarm here. We just wake up when it’s time to begin our day. With day light savings time, (we have no dog in the current legislative battle over this – other than to say that it affects farmers more so than any other subsection of the American population,) this means we are up before the sun shows its face on the eastern horizon of the Boston Mountains. My six year old, Patrick, is up and ready to follow and help with morning chores.

Our first stop is to let the spring batch of broilers out onto fresh pasture for the day. We use Salatin style moveable pens. But like all things on our farm, we have modified it to complement our holistic farm plan. We have solid floors in our pens, so that we can harvest the litter to use in our vegetable production. It’s all part of our mission to keep our farm in a closed loop system with minimal off farm inputs.

Our farm labor consists of 3 adults and 2 children – therefore requiring systems and processes that are efficient and methodical. We have developed these structured routines to maximize production and minimize chaos and emergencies. Patrick fills the feed pans with our non-GMO broiler ration and I fill the water pans, ensuring that their placement will not be in the afternoon sun.

Once the broilers are out chasing the morning bugs and pecking the dew off the tips of the forage, Patrick and I head up to the egg mobile. We fill our feed and water pans, let the laying hens out for the day, and make sure to spend a little time loving on Rusty, our 12 year old livestock guardian dog (LGD). Good LGD’s are hard to come by, and Rusty is the most loyal and diligent keeper of the flock that you’ll find.

After letting the laying hens out for the day, Patrick and I continue our trek up the red dirt road to the Watson pasture (all of our pastures are numbered or named to assist in our grazing planning as well as to be able to communicate freely with everyone involved). There we meet our herd of 25 or so South Poll grass cattle. They are already up for the day and ready for their daily move to a fresh salad bar. Patrick and I walk amongst the cows and do our daily observation. Observation is critically important in terms of animal husbandry, and something that is oftentimes overlooked or cast aside in our hustle to get to the next project. We check for cud chewing, udder issues, and overall animal contentment. We also do our daily discovery in the manure piles. Texture, shape, contents, biological activity; All very important to give us indicators of overall animal health as well as pasture health. Patrick could give us all an entire lesson in shitology; but we’ll save that for another blog post!

This walking amongst the herd before their daily move provides another added benefit. The animals are much more likely to spread their fertilizer on the existing paddock before moving to fresh grass, instead of souring their breakfast when they move. Patrick takes down the polywire and watches the animals pass through joyously to their newest ration. He knows to check the ear tag of the last one through the gate, as the last one through could possibly not be feeling as well as the rest of the herd. Once they are through, he re-hooks the reel to close the herd in their new paddock. We then go to the back wire, unhook it, and pull up the step in posts. These posts and reel are then carried ahead to set up tomorrows paddock. The whole process takes less than ten minutes and is accomplished with one adult and one child.

Oftentimes, we hear that management intensive grazing takes too much time or too much labor. Patrick will tell you that if you have time to drive your pickup out to your herd, you have time to walk amongst them and put in some step in posts. Our grazing consists of daily moves. That’s what works for us and our animals. And just like that, morning chores are complete. We head back to the house, to mom, grandpa, and big brother to map out our day. All before 8am…….

Join us tomorrow as we travel west and north to Bellingham Washington to visit Lydia Strand with Lydia’s Flock.