Hood Family Farms Overview

Basics

We started with the grazing unit. Twenty-five acres divided into ten paddocks were setup to make it easy to move the cattle around with a minimum of effort. A 2600 ft. pipeline and 10 300 gallon water troughs make sure that water is always available in every paddock. The fencing is a combination of barbed wire and solar-powered electric fencing. We will use polywire to subdivide the paddocks after I retire in order to increase stocking density and enable more frequent moves.

Groceries

There are many good grasses available to producers. We chose to convert our bahiagrass=grazing to Tifton-85 for its higher digestibility, higher protein, and faster growth. Bahiagrass is still part of our system in the pasture surrounding the grazing unit. We use it primarily as a safety store for our winter.

Winter forage is a skill under development. Our goal is to feed NO hay, but to rely on “standing hay” and winter annuals. Our current blend is cereal rye, crimson clover, and ryegrass. This worked well enough for 2018-2019 that we fed only three round bales, but we can do better.

Regeneration

Grasslands and herbivores are an ecological unit. One does not do as well as it could without the other. Regenerative ranching utilizes livestock to simulate the natural grassland ecosystem as much as possible. Properly executed, livestock and forages can produce protein to feed the human population while simultaneously adding nutrients and biology into the soil.

Biology is emerging as even more important than adding nutrients to the soil. Ruminants and grasslands go together. The bacteria in the rumen these species form a system with the plants and fungi in the soil that transfers nutrients from the air through photosynthesis, transport and distribution into the soil. The sugars and starches thus transferred form the cornerstone of this healthy community of life. And that life is holding carbon - lots of it.