Grandma and Grandpa Mow the Hay Field - Forage Regenerates

With the wet weather and the high level of forbs in our field, we have abandoned the idea that we're going to do a first cutting of hay and have decided to mow with our DR tow behind brush mower instead. Grandpa Joe has been operating the mower and took Grandma Lynn for a ride in our Kubota X1140 RTV.
I also take a look at some various homemade animal handling equipment and then it's out to the pasture to check on the multi species ruminant flerd of sheep, goats, cows, llama, and livestock guardian dogs where we assess forage recovery on recent regenerative grazing adaptive grazed paddocks.

[@jdrigot]

So great to see Lynell and Joe cutting the hay. It's fun seeing the sheep, goats, cows and Sonata in the wooded area. Wonderful to see Dash with her healthy triplets. I hate feeding hay to my animals when it's full of thistles. Love your videos!

[@wholeviewfarm]

It's been such an adventure to find the animals every day in this big area. I do feel that mowing the field was the best option. Better to return the nutrients to the soil than to make some sub par hay.

[@peterjordan9734]

I'd be making the paddocks much smaller, so the animals do a better job of cleaning each area up. Also I'd move them every day to reduce the parasite load probability, knowing that cow and sheep are a zero sum equation. I love the amount of feed that is left on your pastures as well.

[@wholeviewfarm]

Thanks for the feedback Peter. We normally do much smaller paddocks and move daily. The larger paddocks were just a response to our context having temporarily changed. I was out of town all week on a work trip so wanted to keep things simple for Nikki to manage the farm and the home by herself.