First Post of the New Season

I will keep this post relatively short. I will be posting much more often in the coming weeks/months as we start mob grazing a large group of thin open cows that we are in the process of purchasing. Spring arrived about a month early this year. After last years drought, the cheat has just exploded this spring. Our pastures are lush with cheat and hop clover...it's just been perfect conditions for those plants to flourish. We've done a small amount of spraying for musk thistle and will likely need to do more next year...it appears to have survived the drought very well. I'm disappointed in the fescue. What remains is doing well but it appears that we may have lost some plant density in the drought. I will be anxious to see what our pastures look like when the cheat and hop clover go away. This years plan is to calve out our cows at the goat ranch (they should start calving in a week or so) using a 3 day rotation. There should be enough grass east of the creek to hold them thru calving when we will move them to Mickeys. The thin cows we are buying will be mob grazed west of the creek. We hope to put together 400-500 head. Our plan is to run bull with them, put some weight on them, and sell them in August. The longer term plan is to have the Goat Ranch empty come September, stockpile grass and run stockers Jan-July.