Dung beetles

Shane called me the other morning to tell me what he had found down at the barn....Evidence of dung beetles and other wonderful critters that are helping spread the manure! It may sound totally crazy, but we are excited that we have a "natural" thing going on here. We have been trying to rotate livestock through some of our pastures to create even more "foragability" (if that is even a word). We've been reading the Stockman Grass Farmer for a couple of years and have been working towards growing good grass naturally. I can remember reading that the farmer/rancher ultimately isn't a cow/goat/sheep/horse/etc farmer, they must be a grass farmer first. Without grass; the whole raising livestock would be a definite challenge. (of course, there is sack feed, but I am not going there.) Back to the manure.......Here are two photos; a before and after ...Be prepared...Yes it is photos of a pile of POOP! These photos were taken to show the difference beetles/other critters can make for a pile:

If you would like to learn more about dung beetles and what they can do on your farm click here.

Here is a photo I took before we moved our cows to the back 40. This was at a time when we had them in a pasture with all of our bucks/bucklings. You want to talk about confusing when trying to move the cow herd out while keeping the goat herd in (and the LGD's). When the animals see Davie the border collie, they know they have got to move somewhere, so they all get in a wad and wait for her to move them. Shane said that will be the last time we put the two difference species together. We will just have to run one after the other.

Also I had to include this shot of Rooster reaching to get that tasty morsel of green stuff. I am so amazed how an animal of his size can balance so well on two hind legs and reach that far for one tiny little leaf!