A couple weeks ago, Don and I completed an arduous task we'd meant to do last year: Fencing a sacrifice pasture.
A sacrifice pasture, essentially, is a section of land on which livestock can be housed during times they can't or shouldn't be on the regular pastures. This includes winter months and/or months in early spring to prevent regular pastures from being overgrazed while still in the young-growth stage. In our case, since we have much less acreage than our old homestead, we have to be careful not to let the cows eat too much early grass before the pastures have a chance to grow lush and thick.
It's called a "sacrifice" pasture because, let's face it, it's going to get trashed. In our case, we have about half an acre that's too steep and wooded for any other purpose, so we wanted to fence it for a sacrifice pasture. (You can see the barn at the top of the hill. The fenced-in corral is to the left of the barn.)
This section of land had never been properly fenced (just three raggedy strands of barbed wire by past owners), so we needed to make sure it was secure for the cows. Nor was it a convenient rectangle, but an odd shape with five uneven sides. The trouble is, the grade is so steep that it's incredibly difficult to get anything heavy up and down the slope, such as the fencing itself. Using the tractor was out of the question. In short, it promised to be a very arduous task.
We started by assembling the tools and materials we needed, including T-posts. Groan, carrying T-posts all the way down that slope wasn't something we were looking forward to.
We gathered the rest of the tools we needed and put them in a wheelbarrow. To get the wheelbarrow down that slope, we ended up going downhill switch-back style. Near the bottom, where we were starting the fencing process, we had to brace the wheelbarrow against tree trunks to keep it from tipping sideways.
The next difficulty was transporting the field fencing itself. A 330-foot roll of field fence is heavy, on the order of 190 lbs. What we did was roll it out and measure off 100 feet, which brought the weight down to a bit under 60 lbs., then re-rolled it. Still heavy, but with two of us carrying it, at least manageable.
And, of course, for the fencing we needed at the bottom of the slope, we simply carried the fencing rolls into the section and let 'em go. Whee! They bounced downward at faster and faster speed until they crashed into a tree, at which point we climbed down behind them, repositioned the rolls, and let them go again. In this manner, at least getting the fencing to the bottom was fairly easy. (For those wondering why we didn't simply drag the entire 330-ft. roll into the field and do this, it's because a 190-lb. roll could easily crash through the fragile fencing already in place at the bottom of the pasture, cross the road, go into our neighbor's field, and keep going. That would be the stuff of cartoons, wouldn't it?)
We started the fencing process by locating the boundary pins between ours and our absentee neighbor's property. Then we ran a string along the boundary.
Then we dropped T-posts at 12-foot intervals along the string.
While carrying the T-posts downhill was a hassle, actually pounding them into the ground was one of the easier tasks. The ground is beautifully soft this time of year, and it took just a few whacks to get the posts properly installed.
Then we stretched out the field fence, loosely draping it over the T-posts to hold it in place until we could tighten it.
Once the fencing was tightened, we wired it to the T-posts in three spots: top, center, and bottom.
It took a couple of days of hard work, but at least we had two sides of the pasture properly fenced. The third side was the boundary fence with one of our grazing pastures, so it was already done.
What remained was the fourth and fifth sides, over a small ridge and on an even steeper slope. We didn't need to install T-posts on this side, merely to reinforce it with field fencing, but it was a daunting task on so steep an incline.
Once again we unrolled stretches of fencing, but this time in 50-foot sections rather than 100-foot, for easier carrying. We wouldn't be able to just let the fencing roll to the bottom.
This time, however, we had one advantage: We could load the tools and equipment onto the tractor and drive it to a flat spot behind the barn at the top of the slope. While we still had to carry what we needed down the slope, at least it was a shorter distance.
Last year, Don had built a utility box for the back of the tractor, and we loaded it up with everything we needed for the project, then drove it to the flat spot.
Fencing this fairly short section took another two days of work, but we finally got it done.
At last we could move the cows from the nice lush pasture where they had been happily grazing, and into the sacrifice pasture. This pasture doesn't have much by way of grass, but of course that's the point. By allowing our two pastures (one larger, one smaller) to grow the grass tall enough to support summer grazing, we needed to remove the grazing pressure from the cows long enough to allow the grass to grow.
We got the animals into the corral...
...and opened the gate into the newly fenced sacrifice pasture.
It didn't take them long to make their way into the new territory. Filet, as the dominant animal in our little herd, was the first one through.
It didn't take long for the rest of the animals to follow suit. What happened next was hilarious: The three younger animals (Mignon, Maggie, Romeo) began racing back and forth across the slope, kicking up their heels in high spirits.
While the others capered, Filet, meanwhile, got right down to work eating.
Now, of course, we're back to feeding the cows twice a day, just as we did during the winter. They're not overly thrilled to be taken off the green grass, but that's the way it goes. We'll keep them in the sacrifice pasture a few more weeks until the grazing pastures are more mature. We'll also provide them with a bloat block when they transition to the greener grass.
Another project, done.
