Permaculture Test Plot Part 3 - Cattle Catastrophe

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If you have been following along on the Test Plot series, you know that I have had continuous issues with deer eating my small trees. I am sad to report that pesky deer are not the worst of my problems though. One morning I woke up to find a herd of young cattle in the yard next to the tiny house. I went outside to spook them out of my parents yard because cattle have wandered into their yard before, leaving a wake of destruction, and I didn't want that to happen again.

After spooking them off into an alfalfa field I noticed that the test plot had been ransacked. The cattle must have found their way into it during the night and they cleaned me out! In this video, I cover the damage they caused and how they ate me completely out of comfrey, most of the radishes and roughed up my baby trees.

Right: Some areas were flattened. Left: I was able to salvage a few of these precious radish pods but most of them were either eaten or trampled.

While seeing this as a total disaster would be easy, I choose to learn from this experience instead. Firstly, having proper fencing and barriers to keep animals off your property is important. My parents don't have a cattle gate and this isn't the first time that cattle have found their way into the yard and caused damage. Having cattle gates or standard gates that stay closed when you are sleeping or away are a first step to prevention. Secondly, I learned that cattle love a variety of greens, not just grass and other standard pasture fair. I had read about feeding them mangles (also in the brassica family along with radishes) or other greens but to see it in action was an interesting observation.

As you may know, we are going to be moving to our homestead property next year and one thing we will need to do is protect our property from the neighbors potentially rampaging cattle. If you have any experience or suggestions you would like to share about fencing or cattle gates I would like to hear from you in the comments section below.

The offending baby steers.

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