May 14, 2021
I should have known better! No sooner had I bragged about the serenity of our pasture, and waxed eloquent about it's calming influence, than pure unadulterated chaos descend upon us. The bottle-fed lambs we'd penned in broke out, the sheep we'd carefully fenced out broke in – and the pigs having discovered a weak link in our electric fence, decided to go on a walkabout, making a complete mockery of any and all attempts to corral them. After free ranging for 3 hours, they tired of their roaming and came back to the barn of their own accord, settling in for a long nap. Apparently being that obnoxious is very tiring, and as they imbibed in their self contented porcine slumber, we were able to repair the section of fence that had been shorted out by the rain.
As the sun went down on a day spent almost entirely just trying to catch and contain our own animals, I stood in the sheep pasture feeling somewhat content and assured that they were all finally where they were supposed to be. As I lingered, a bear shimmied up a tree in front of me and dropped down on the other side into our pasture. It walked a few hundred feet and climbed out again. There was no harm done and no obvious purpose to its incursion, other than perhaps to prove to me that though that very long day might be done, my fencing work clearly was not.
Beginning farmers often ask about “stocking rates” for pasture raised animals. How many sheep can graze per acre of prime pasture land? How many pigs per acre of forest. It is certainly critical to crunch the numbers and try to calculate profit loss margins and the earning potential for a farm, but it is very hard to calculate it all based on someone else's figures, pastures, animals and farming methods. In reality, there are so many variables that the conversation must always start with, “Well it depends...”
The USDA has helpfully published stocking rate calculations based on “Animal Units” (AU) per acre of forage. A thousand pound cow is 1AU, a sheep is .2AU, a lamb is .15AU and so on. A well established pasture of orchard grass and clover might be determined to have a carrying capacity of 2 Animal Units for a Month (2 AUM) and thus have a stocking rate of 2 cows or 10 sheep. That all sounds good on paper and is an excellent place to start but like many calculations, the devil is in the details. Are the animals healthy or stressed? Has there been enough rainfall? When was the last time the pasture was grazed? Will there be any supplemental feed? How many waterers and mineral feeders will be available? These are all important variables but perhaps the most salient variable is the one no one ever discusses - What is your personal carrying capacity for chaos? Your threshold for stress ? How many animals can you tolerate on the loose at one time? What happens if every single animal on your farm escapes at once? Because sooner or later it will happen, and most likely it will occur immediately after writing a blog post about the pastoral bliss and serenity of your farm....