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RE: Clearing Land for agriculture

Drawbar — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 00:41:38 GMT

As a side note, I talked to the contractor putting up my sheep fence this week and he claims his excavator can remove stumps pretty fast. He figures it would $200 dollars per acre to remove stumps after logging (No trees or brush to move). I dispute this as his excavator is not that big...but I am sure willing to let him try!! :-)

I have that one acre piece that I was going to put the pigs into, so this will be a good test of his equipment and stump removal costs. I mean it is one acre in size and the stumps are typical...a mix of softwood and hardwood, a few big trees but mostly trees around 1 foot in diameter with a few big boulders tossed in for good measure.

I'll keep you posted on how this turns out.

RE: Clearing Land for agriculture

Drawbar — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 00:32:04 GMT

Norseman, you are right, Cherry is deadly, and it does not take much to kill animals. The worst thing is, (at least in Maine), Cherry trees tend to like lots of light and so the margins of most fields contain cherry trees. If you are expanding fields into bigger fields like I have been doing, it inevitably means cherry trees are in the trees I want cleared. I separate these cherry trees out before letting the sheep in there, so you should know what kind of trees you are cutting before you start.

As for toxic weeds and such, that is much harder to figure out, because what bothers one type of animal, might not be an issue with another kind. For instance I have a lot of issues with Smooth Bedstraw, which irritates the throat of grazing cows, but the sheep are not bothered by it. But then again the cows get irritated by poison ivy and that is a sheep most favorite food!

Overall I would not get too concerned about toxic weeds, because our animals are smarter then we are in that regard; if its toxic, they won't eat it unless forced too. It is different with cherry trees because sheep and goats love leaves so much, they really can't tell the difference until its too late.

RE: Clearing Land for agriculture

Gallus — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 08:49:52 GMT

Norsemn (4/1/2010)

Drawbar, again you amaze me! I love the ideas you put up about clearing woods/shrubs. If anyone wonders if they're growing a cyanide-producing plant like cherries, it's relatively simple to figure it out. Wait for fruit, remove the pit and crack it to get to the kernal. If it smells like an almond but with a slight bitter smell, that's cyanide. Peaches, apricots and even apples are some of the stone-fruits that have kernals that smell of bitter almond. And if it's in the kernal, it's in the foliage to some extent and can kill animals sensitive to it. Remember, cyanide was the gas used in our Gas Chamber executions and the Jonestown Mass Suicide.

Another way to tell if you have toxic plants on your property is to just learn which species you have. A good field guide comes in handy for this, and is less subjective. I don't know exactly what slightly bitter almond smells like, but I know a choke cherry when I see one.

RE: Clearing Land for agriculture

Drawbar — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 01:04:53 GMT

I've been thinking about this thread as well. I have actually started the process Johnnyad...

I got two areas going. The first is one acre piece that will be an extension of some crop ground. Basically to get the field to be square instead of an L shape, I am clearing trees. I did that all day yesterday and hope to finish up today. The plan is to use some heavy equipment (excavator) to remove the brush and just leave the stumps. After that I could fence the area in and toss some pigs in there. I have some electronet fencing that would contain the pigs I'm sure.

The other area is about 5 acres in size and is just woods. I want to clear it back to the field it was 100 years ago as evidenced by rockwalls, but I just have not had time. I have some perimeter fence going in the next few weeks and don't want to constantly move it as my fields expand, so I am putting fence right through the woods. I'll let the sheep go in there and forage and see how well they do at the end of the summer.

RE: Clearing Land for agriculture

Norsemn — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 19:54:18 GMT

RE: Clearing Land for agriculture

JohnnyAd — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 11:04:25 GMT

OK the last post in this was 6 months ago, has anyone tried it and if so whats the prognosis?

I am thinking about trying vs waiting to drop $6k on a back hoe which I cant do till next year some time. I have an area of trees and grass which I will drop the trees and start the pigs on the stumps and another area that needs goats on the brush first.

But I figured before loading up on the critters I would see if anyone had some results yet :)

RE: Clearing Land for agriculture

3tmd — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:02:36 GMT

I really like the way that you talked about clearing ypur land. I have put up a electric fence around an area and getting ready to put my dairy goats in to clean up the sapplings and other things.I have been thinking of getting some pigs because of all the acrons that we have this year and they would also rout out the stumps. Thank you for the information and keep up the good work of inform all of us small hobby farmers.garry

RE: Clearing Land for agriculture

ihenigman2 — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:46:35 GMT

ive been dreaming of getting goats for more than a year now i went to a local livestock auction today just to see the goats but ill have to say the sheep caught my interest a great deal ill have to study up on them maybe i will have both someday thanks

RE: Clearing Land for agriculture

Drawbar — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 05:28:42 GMT

ihenigman2, sheep tend to LOVE the leaves of trees and saplings, and will eat a small amount of browse...that is the stemmy parts of the trees, but they won't eat that much of it. Goats do a far better job and take out bigger pieces too. So you put the sheep in there to help clean up the leaves and twigs first. The goats, they will eat all of it, but they will continue to browse long after the sheep have lost interest. The sheep will gobble up the weeds far better then the goats ever would however.

In some respects you could forgo either the sheep or the goats, but using them together you would get even better clean up of the cleared area.

RE: Clearing Land for agriculture

NEAlaMADhouse — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:25:34 GMT

this is a great idea! We have lots of wooded areas that we'd like to have cleared. We purchased part of our land from a logging company and they left a huge mess - lots of stumps and brush. Is there any specific kind of pig that works best? I have given thought to the Large Black Hog idea, but they are really expensive in our area.

I'm curious about the fencing as well...

thanks!

RE: Clearing Land for agriculture

ihenigman2 — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:47:17 GMT

the pig idea interests me ive been hoping to get goats to do some clearing and have been concerned about the stump situation because i had planned to use a chainsaw on the bigger stuff i was gonna ask what type of fence to plan on for pigs i worked on a large hog farm for a couple years most of the pigs were on concrete and/or in barns except one lot that was used for quarentine that was outside on the ground all we had was a 4 foot tall mesh fence with a hot wire about a foot up and one at the top of the fence. i dont remember ever having trouble keeping them in that way. i like the salt idea ive also heard of driving a pipe in the ground to make holes around the stump and filling them with cracked corn just wandering drawbar what advantage do you think there would be in running sheep before the goats

RE: Clearing Land for agriculture

Drawbar — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 15:35:06 GMT

Anysize...it just takes longer for them to root it out of course. My suggestion is to dump salt on the stump and they will burro and burro to get all the salt out.

RE: Clearing Land for agriculture

valhallaboergoats — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:26:09 GMT

I never thought of using pigs to root stumps. How big stump have you seen them tackle?

RE: Clearing Land for agriculture

jenn — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 07:29:47 GMT

Turkeys are also great at clearing land and underbrush. They are very easy to keep and do not require the room that cattle or sheep require. We recenlty purchased 4 week old chicks and kept them in a very brushy wooded area and they cleaned it wonderfully. After all of the brush and grass are gone, they scratch the ground with their sharp nails and smooth up alot of the small rough humps. Best of all there is no expensive long term investment. One summer and they are big enough for market.

RE: Clearing Land for agriculture

Drawbar — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 04:56:29 GMT

WOS...I guess I have not had enough coffee this morning because I read your reply twice and have no idea what you are talking about. Can you explain your line of thinking a bit more?

For me, I pay taxes on every acre on the farm here so when I refer to my farm being "productive", it is not necessarily in regards to making the most money per acre. It simple means that the farm is productive overall and contributing to society...either via food, or via wood to feed the paper and saw mills.

In my case, I had a 12 acre tree plantation that got hit by a bark beetle infestation so the trees are dying. This means a vibrant tree farm is now dying off and unproductive. I'll harvest this wood and make room for sheep. This means the farm is far more productive on these acres now then before.

The same goes for other areas of the farm. I work in conjunction with the Maine Forest Service and the USDA and try to keep the rest of the farm productive. Parts of the woodlot have reached maturity without a lot of regrowth. Since I need more land for sheep, these are the areas I need to harvest and clear. I'm not going to go out and clear healthy parts of my forest just to increase farmland, but as my sheep farm grows, I have to decide what are my best areas to clear, and what are best used in farmland.

I am sure the majority of farmers/hobby farmers/homesteaders are in the same boat.

RE: Clearing Land for agriculture

wallsostone — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:02:18 GMT

so why is it that some understand this, and then others act like every last flower and mouse in the field is there PVT property? I've never understood the idea that a landowner needed to be

A. a worry wort
B. some kind of king over his every growing tract of land.

Sure I don't need people doing things on my land that harm the place, but please.. ya catch more flies with honey.

RE: Clearing Land for agriculture

Drawbar — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 01:41:01 GMT

As for your land Valerie Jean, good for you. I got more land then I know what to do with, but every year the towns remind me of this when they send me their tax bills. It really is silly for people to think they need large acreages when so many people have land that they are not using and they are paying property taxes on it.

I always was impressed by people like yourself who go out and approach these people and get permission to use their land and expand their operation without costing you in increased taxes. That is truly a win-win situation.

Of course it is even better if you can apply sustainable small farm techniques and show them the potential for what their land can do. If nothing else it brings them on board with farming. At the same time, tenants that really take care of other peoples land, also often get a chance to buy it sooner then later once the landowners realize these people have a large stake in that land and that they are using it far more resourcefully then they did.

Take good care of it, and realize that it truly is a better gift then owning it out right...property taxes can really be problematic for me some years! :(

RE: Clearing Land for agriculture

Drawbar — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 01:32:43 GMT

You can root out that stuff Valerie Jean by simply using pigs...no real need to even cut them or use goats or sheep...pigs alone will do it. Just fence them in really strongly because a pig is pretty smart and can get out of some pretty good pens.

As for the Cherry and sheep...its actually any a livestock but sheep really love eating leaves. Recently when I cut my apple trees down, I fenced in the area and let the sheep eat all the leaves so that the only thing left was the branches and trunks. Since this was apple wood, and worth 300 bucks a cord in firewood, just about every branch was worth money, but it was hard to see when the leaves are on the trees. The sheep ended up being happy, and so was I. I could see what I was cutting after a few days time.

The cherry however is a natural cyanide. Yep no joke. As the leaves wilt, the tannins in the cherry tree turn to cyanide and just a few leaves can kill a sheep. I won't say sheep are dumb, but they don't know what they are eating until its too late.

RE: Clearing Land for agriculture

ValerieJean — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:13:27 GMT

by the way - what's with sheep and cherry trees?

RE: Clearing Land for agriculture

ValerieJean — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:12:41 GMT

thanks for that.

I've gotten permission to use my neighbours land for just about anything I want. He doesn't want to sell but will sell to me when he decides. In the meantime I would like to use the space. A lot of alders and willows have grown up and I was wondering how to get rid of them. They provide shelter for lots of birds however, simply cutting them means more just come up.

When I get to that point, I'll remember what you said.

RE: Clearing Land for agriculture

Drawbar — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:04:59 GMT

I was thinking about this today and there was two major benefits of using livestock over heavy equipment to remove stumps...

1. The root ball would be left in the ground which would slowly rot over time. This would add an incredible amount of nutrients into the ground, the most being nitrogen which is hard to deal with on an organic farm.

2. You would not have a piece of ground tied up for a year as you try to reestablish grass from the pulled up roots and disturbed soil. The livestock simply graze around the stumps until the pigs get pastured there.

Clearing Land for agriculture

Drawbar — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 04:39:41 GMT

For those that have plenty of woodlot and would like to clear it for agricultural activities, but find the expense of bulldozers and excavators prohibitively expensive, there are ways to clear land that my forefathers used that was highly effective. It may or may not come as a surprise, but by putting livestock on the area you want to be cleared...in the right order...can clear the area in a rather short time depending on how long you consider "short time" and how many animals you can add.

First cut the trees down with a chainsaw. Remove the bigger stems and either burn them for firewood or sell the wood for pulp to a papermill. Then fence in the area and add then add sheep as quickly as you can. As long as there are no cherry trees in the area you want cleared, the sheep will eat those leaves and brush right down.

Next add goats. The longer they are in there, they will eat the remaining brush and browse right down to next to nothing. This will take a year or so though. You can pile up and burn anything they leave behind at this point.

After the brush is pretty much cleaned up, the area will have plenty of stumps. Fence the area in and then add pigs. The pigs will help root out the stumps. For particularly troublesome stumps, toss salt onto the stumps and the pigs will root and root after the salt until the stump is gone.

Now you should have an area that starts coming up in weeds. Sheep love weeds, and they will soon graze this out. By grazing the weeds out, and from all the manure the goats, sheep and pigs have added, the soil should start to take root in grasses and legumes. Now you can add cows as you see fit and they will graze the grass.

You will be surprised how well and how fast this system works. It does take a year or so, but in the meantime you are making progress, not spending money on diesel fuel, and have some nice animals that you can consume for your own nourishment as they improve your farm. Some may scoff, but adding the right kind of livestock, at the right time, can get a lot of hard work done for you. The only down side is, bulldozers and heavy equipment can remove the rocks which animals will leave behind, but even if you chose to remove these via heavy equipment, the hours they will spend on farm, will be vastly lower then what you would have paid them to do for the entire job.

Give it a try!