Most permanent pasture plants are small-seeded and rather slow in becoming established. Use of these pastures during the year of seeding should be delayed until the plants are firmly rooted and growing vigorously. Turning birds into a perennial pasture too soon after seeding may result in poor stands as many plants will be killed by trampling and others will be pulled out by the grazing birds. Late fall grazing of new seedings should be avoided. It usually is necessary to mow new perennial pastures once or twice during the first year to control weeds. This mowing should be done when the weeds are flowering or before seeds develop. The cutter-bar of the mower should be set three or four inches above the ground to cut the weeds with a minimum of injury to the young forage plants.

Many vegetarians have chosen meat free diets as a way to avoid the environmental degradation and gross misallocation of resources, such as grain and water, associated with the CAFO’s. Not only do those problems fall away in grass based systems, but many become benefits. For instance, pollution from manure runoff in massive feedlots threatens water quality and ecological biodiversity. On pasture, however, manure serves to fertilize, creating a more resilient and diverse plant and soil ecosystem.

This material was originally authored during WW II by our government, please make adjustments for costs, values and philosophies accordingly. Typical of much of the USDA’s early propagandistic “ag welfare” outreach, this material is not only condescending and overly simplistic, it also encouraged plantation of varieties generally considered today as nuisance weeds or worse (i.e. Kudzu). There is some good information buried here and we feel it makes a muted official counterpoint to Anne and Eric Nordell’s superior research and writings on the subject. We have to trust that you, our readers, will use your best common sense and critical eye when you sift through this material. LRM

Pastured poultry does not have to be limited to chickens. Ducks and geese do well using the same production models. The chicken tractor or the simple “turn-the-birds-out-on-free-range” method can be used to produce waterfowl. The goal of a range produced waterfowl enterprise should be meat production. On range, certain breeds of waterfowl are better and faster growers than others. Begin this project only after the threat of cold winter weather and frost is over and young, tender grass is growing. Time the start and conclusion of your waterfowl venture accordingly.

Meadows can look very different, depending on what is growing in them, but the key feature is that the vegetation is left during the growing and flowering season, and then cut. This system provides an ideal habitat for many wildflowers as it gives them time to flower and set seed before the grass is removed. The process of cutting decreases the fertility of the soil and allows plants other than the normally dominant grasses to take their place in the sward. The advantage of the hay meadow to pollinators has to be seen to be believed, the land teems with them, and with crickets, beetles, and bugs of every type imaginable.