Intensive Rotational Grazing with Sheep on Riparian Land to Target Invasive Reed Canary Grass and Common Buckthorn

2015 Annual Report for FNC15-1002

Project Type: Farmer/Rancher
Funds awarded in 2015: $7,477.00
Projected End Date: 02/15/2017
Grant Recipient: Bear Street Ranch
Region: North Central
State: Minnesota
Project Coordinator:
Nancy Lunzer
Farm / Ranch

Intensive Rotational Grazing with Sheep on Riparian Land to Target Invasive Reed Canary Grass and Common Buckthorn

Objectives/Performance Targets

 

Accomplishments/Milestones

In March and April, 2015, Scott Wagner and I upgraded the fences on the perimeter of the south pasture, east of the hayfield. A barbed wire fence and corner posts were already in existence so we added woven wire field fence, to provide a secure outer perimeter. Two thousand feet of four foot tall Electro-web fences from Premier 1, were purchased ($133 per 100 foot roll; $2740) to split off five paddocks. See Pasture Splits.

The plan was to graze each paddocks between 3 to 4 days and move the sheep to a new one, but even the smallest paddocks required grazing of 5 to 8 days, to leave 3-4 inches of grass height before moving. Rains were timely and plentiful all April, May and June and it was clear we had more pasture than 34 sheep needed. So I split each of the paddocks in half, (now ten paddocks) during the second half of the grazing season, and the paddocks were grazed an average of three days, and rested for as many as 3-4 weeks. Next year I will divide the area into smaller paddocks to allow paddocks to rest longer between grazing.

The sheep were moved to the river pastures on May 16. That night we had thunderstorms and 1.17 inches of rain on already saturated ground which caused the Groundhouse River to flood the reed canary grass we had hoped to graze early. It took two weeks for the river to subside leaving the reed canary grass covered in a thick gray silt. Subsequent rains washed off the silt, but not until the grass had grown mature and unpalatable. It was not until September and October that the sheep had an impact on the reed canary grass with some grazing, but more trampling. The normally foot thick thatch was beaten to 3 to 4 inches.

Hair sheep prefer to graze on brush, rather than grass. They grazed off all the leaves within reach and I began cutting the thickets of prickly ash and buckthorn, many which were 20-30 feet tall. At first I used the brush cutter ($55.34, brush cutter blades) and cut a large amount. But though the sheep ate many of the leaves from the crowns of the brush, most of them wilted, curled up and turned brown. So I began cutting 50-60 stems each morning and night and allowing the sheep to feed on the leaves a little at a time. This provided wonderful forage during most of the summer. I stacked the brush to provide wildlife habitat for animals displaced by removing the thickets. The piles will be burned over the winter and grass seed will be frost seeded to establish quality pasture forage.

Once all of the prickly ash and buckthorn brush had been cut, the sheep were rotated through the paddocks to graze off the returning leaves and the continuous lack of vegetation should starve off the brush and allow favorable forages to populate the old thicket areas.

An interior paddock was built with wire cattle panels ($263.85) to provide a secure area for the 34 sheep, in the event predators like coyote and feral dogs posed a menace to the flock. Five Polydome calf huts and a 12 X 8 hoop house were provided for shelters. The shelters doubled as fly traps. A 100 gallon hog water tank was filled once a week using a 4-wheeler and water wagon.

The Poly-dome calf huts are 8 foot round white plastic houses with a vent at the top. A BiteFree sticky fly trap was hung in the peak. The vent was covered with mosquito netting to trap flies inside. The floor of the hut was bedded with two inches of wood shavings ($208.97) and kept clean and dry to keep filth flies (stable flies) from growing in wet bedding. The huts became giant fly traps. When the flies followed the sheep inside, the relative shade caused the flies to move to the lighter areas at the top of the dome. The only place to land was the sticky fly trap.
FLY COUNTS: The types of flies caught was seasonal in the poly-dome fly traps. From June 14-July 25, there were 420 horse flies, zero deer flies and 163 stable flies. From July 25 to October 31, there were 24 horse flies, 2 deer flies and 698 stable flies caught in the poly-dome traps. But half-way through the season I noticed insect-eating birds frequently in the poly-domes hunting the flies that were trapped there. There were many instances when the fly traps had nothing but wings and legs stuck to the trap and I think birds were feeding off the traps as evidence by occasional feathers on the traps. Also, the mosquito netting on top of the vents was buzzing with flies and there was not a good way to count the flies which died, dried up and were pulverized by other flies seeking escape. So while the fly counts were certainly not accurate counts, they indicate a trend and a certain amount of success since horse flies are difficult to trap.

I wondered if the sheep were actually luring the flies into the poly-domes, so when I went to Idaho for a week starting July 26, I cleaned and put in fresh sawdust and replaced the fly traps before I left town. I also moved the sheep to the home pastures for easier chores while I was away. When I came back only a few stable flies and no horse flies were caught in all the traps. So clearly, the poly-domes were successful only when the sheep acted as lures.

The hoop-house was built on a frame 8 X 12 feet and wire cattle panels bent to form a roof. The roof was covered with a recycled plastic billboard. The billboards have a channel on each edge and I ran a rope through the channel and pulled the ends tight like a Conestoga wagon. The inside of the tarp is black, making the interior of the hoop-house extra dark. The sheep enter by pushing under a 30 inch flap across each end. The flies that follow the sheep inside fly toward the lighter ends and are trapped against the screens. Fly tape was hung against the screens to trap the flies. This trap was very successful at catching stable flies, a few horse flies, but also gnats (sometimes called black flies and mosquitoes).

I had good success with using Raid brand fly traps ($0) to catch gnats and mosquitoes in the hoop house. The BiteFree flytraps and fly tape ($217.95) were successful at trapping horse flies when they were in the Poly-domes, but caught only stable flies when hung outside in the paddocks or in the hoop-house. One foot wide fly tape was used in the hoop-house and were always full of stable flies, gnats and mosquitoes, but only a few horse flies were caught.

As the summer progressed I noticed birds were getting trapped in the hoop-house. But after repeated occasions of finding birds in the hoop house I began to notice they were coming and going under the flaps. Their feathers often got caught in the fly tape and I realized they were feeding on the trapped flies inside. So I took down the fly traps and utilized the birds feeding activities to catch the flies instead. Next year I plan to use the hoop-house as a walk-through fly trap. As the sheep enter the paddock to find water and shelter, they must walk through the hoop-house which will catch many flies inside and will probably further thwart entry by predators to the paddock areas.

NZI trap: This trap ($213.29) was set up in June of 2015 to target horse and deer flies. Flies started getting caught in the trap before the trap was fully set up. The trap did not include the necessary bottle to trap the flies at the top of the trap. The bottle had be fit into the reinforced hole at the top of the trap and a syringe capsule was used to keep the flies in the bottle. The trap caught thousands of horse flies, deer flies and stable flies. Counting flies was difficult because storms sometimes ripped the bottle off of the trap, and counting resulted in releasing live flies back into the area. However, one count was done over a ten day period when 471 horse flies, 175 deer flies and over a thousand stable flies were counted. Counting was further hampered because dried out fly bodies were pulverized as live flies fought to get free. This tore up the dead flies and resulted in a mash of body parts at the bottom of the bottle. Also, fly-eating birds often hunted flies caught in the trap.

Though, the fly traps caught thousands of flies, the sheep tended to graze evenings, nights and mornings, and spend more time near the paddocks mid-day on sunny days. Biting fly pressure may have forced them to graze less during mid-day on sunny days.

Hundreds of milkweed plants populate the pasture and many monarchs grow on the milkweed. Unlike horses, sheep eat milkweed. So areas that contained monarch larvae were protected by grazing only with horses and some milkweed areas were fence off from sheep.

Horses and sheep grazed the paddocks to help pick up parasites from other species. The horses had no parasite eggs in their fecal counts and the sheep had a few ($50.00), but the veterinarian who did the fecal check did not do a count, only indicated if worms were present. So, next year it would be better to get an actual count to determine if parasites counts were high enough to warrant worming. This year the veterinarian only indicated that it didn’t appear that egg counts were high at all.

We originally fenced to the edge of the river with electro-web fences but found that wildlife would get caught in the fences and tear them up. Also the river flooded several times this summer, and though the electro-web fence held up well despite flood waters, we began using half a cattle panel to fence to the edge of the river. That way smaller animals like mink, fox, raccoon, and skunks etc, easily passed through and larger animals like deer can jump it or go around.

We used Nite Guard solar lights to scare off predators from the lamb areas. These are solar powered lights that turn on at night and flash a red light. The red flash is a primal warning to predators that another predator is present and to stay away. They are set up to flash in each direction away from the sheep paddocks. This may have kept this flock free of predator attacks this summer.

A solar panel, ($49.95) and twelve volt deep cycle battery were used to charge the electric fence charger. This worked well all summer and the battery kept a charge.

In 2016 we will be lambing 16 ewes and hope for up to 30 lambs, in March and April. Last year we didn’t start grazing the river land until May 16. This year we hope to start grazing the reed canary grass earlier if spring weather and flood stages allow it.

Last year we targeted the south end of the river land. In 2016, we plan to target the north end of the pasture for buckthorn. We will upgrade 1500 ft of existing fences on the north end of the pasture and graze off the lower leaves on buckthorn and prickly ash and cut thickets mid-season to provide sheep access.

In 2015, two articles were written about the research project:

  • Amanda Kueper, wrote an article for the Minnesota Forest Council, Minnesota Landowner Handbook. A copy of the article is attached.
  • Kathleen Preece, editor of Tree Farming for Better Forests wrote the article, “Buckthorn to Bacon,” for the fall 2015 issue. (Copy attached.)

Tom Gervais, the grazing specialist from the NRCS visited on May 1 and November 4 to do forage analysis. Results will be provided in the final report.

Tony Miller, Forestry DNR and Brian Schwingle, DNR, a tree expert, surveyed the site on July 13 to evaluate buckthorn removal progress as well as look over trees dying from Bur Oak Blight. We toured the current research areas as well as the areas where buckthorn was removed from 2010-2014 by hogs and sheep.

In the fall of 2016, we are planning a site inspection tour for the public, spotlighting the results of this project with assistance from the NRCS and DNR project coordinators. A date has not been set.