Effectively Fencing Leased Pasture
Shaye Koester 00:00
Hey, hey, it’s Shaye Koester and I’m your host for the Casual Cattle Conversations podcast where we connect you to ranchers and beef industry enthusiasts who can help you build a more profitable operation and improve your lifestyle. Are you looking for a community of ranchers who support and challenge you to be more profitable and proactive? Then sign-up for our monthly RancherMind events. RancherMinds are mastermind events for ranchers to come together once a month and find solutions for their own and the industry's challenges. Stay connected by following @cattleconvos on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and never miss an episode or event update by signing up for our newsletter on casualcattleconversations.com/newsletter. If you get value out of this episode or any episode drop a comment or tip me by using the link in the show notes. With that let’s see who our guest is today and connect you to a new resource to improve your own operation and lifestyle.
Shaye Koester 00:05
All right, well, good morning. I guess not everyone listening is going to be listening in the morning. But it's morning for us and I would just want to take a time to thank you guys both for being on the show today, I'm pretty excited to talk about some reels and portable wire and talk about what both you individuals are doing in the beef industry. So thank you for that.
Liam Shaw 00:23
Thank you.
Kyler Beard 00:24
Thanks for having us.
Shaye Koester 00:26
So to start off, let's have each of you explain and just talk briefly about what you do in the industry. Liam, let's start with you and then we'll have Kyler can go after that.
Liam Shaw 00:38
My name is Liam Shaw. I am the sales representative for Gallagher electric fence in the Pacific Northwest. So I cover Washington, northern Idaho and Eastern Oregon. I've been with Gallagher for 12 years now. And just travel around helping producers and Farm Stores with electric fence needs. Kyler and I've known each other for quite a while. He is a good buddy and a good customer. So I thought it was a perfect opportunity for a producer to talk about some of the products that we use. I've got a small little hobby herd of cows myself. So I dabble around in my own intensive grazing and rotational management.
Shaye Koester 01:18
Well, absolutely and rotational grazing and management has been a pretty hot topic on the show that the audience really likes. So I'm excited to bring in yours and Kyler's perspectives. So Kyler, would you share kind of your background and really what you're doing on your operation on the grazing side?
Kyler Beard 01:37
So my name is Kyler Beard. I'm a rancher in Ellensburg, Washington. A lot of my background, I didn't get into cattle till I was in my late 20s and started leasing property. And the area that we're in is really has a lot of people and is being developed. So my opportunity has really come from getting places that are broke up or places that weren't grazed. And with lease ground it's hard to spend a lot of money. So that's where the temporary wire comes in not only for intensive grazing, but also just to keep cattle in when there's no fences. So I started running my own cattle probably in about 2010. And since then, have kind of kept going and am starting to put in a little bit more permanent fence. But a lot of what I have is all single-strand hotwire that we're running out and starting to learn a little bit more about hot ground when we get into the drier weather in the drought years, like we've had the last couple of years. But yeah, Liam's Liam has been a huge help. We're college buddies and then he went to work for Gallagher about the same time I started running cattle. So I've had a little bit of experience deviating away from Gallagher trying to save some money. And in the end it really didn't, some products don't last as long and keeping cattle is the most important part.
Shaye Koester 02:58
Well, absolutely. So, you know, I think we what you brought to light with about how in your area, you know, it's it's being developed people are moving in, so you have to kind of break up where you're able to run your cows. And that's something that isn't only being seen in your area of the country. I mean, that's happening all over. So I'm kind of excited to really bring that in and talk about that a little more. So can you explain a little more about what your grazing strategies look like? I mean, you said you've used the temporary wire, but are you running on any specific protocols? I mean, most ranchers kind of adapt to their own systems as to what works for their timing and frequencies. But can you talk a little bit about the grazing strategy you are using in itself?
Kyler Beard 03:45
I've got two different types of ground that I'm running on. So in our valley, we have a lot of irrigation water. So everything on the valley floor is good, irrigated grass. And I've done a couple of different strategies. And I'm still trying to find out what works with keeping cattle content and my schedule having to go from I've got pastures that are about 40 minutes away from each other. So when I started, it was kind of fast growth, fast moves. So if for instance, I had eight pastures on a 32-day cycle, there are seven pastures resting so I would just divide the rest of the pastures by what I thought the grass cycle was. And when you do that, you end up having kind of an uneven graze, but as you slow the cattle down and stay there longer, you get a more even graze and then I kind of went into looking at just residual height. And naturally, the pastures that are resting ended up getting taller and more rank. So when you get into it or not taller rank, necessarily but there's more feed so as the other pastures need more rest you are slowing down to graze those off to a certain residual height. And the irrigated ground was kind of fun to play with because it recovers really fast and you can mess up and still catch back up later. The other ground that I have is dry range ground. So it's got some native forages, there's a lot of intermediate wheatgrass that's been planted on it. And pretty much graze it off once a year. So when I'm grazing that, I'm purely looking at residual height and managing my impact, and then I'll switch what time of the year I go on those pastures. So most of the time, it gets at least a year rest. Sometimes it'll get more than that. And the hot wire in that situation, you know, it's in an area where there's a lot of wildlife. And then there's also some predators, and there's a lot of people. And every land owner has different goals. But fire danger has been one thing everyone's really worried about. And I can't get to all the grass fast enough, especially when I'm starting on, you know, there's about a six-mile distance from one side to the other. And I'm on one hand, and there's a landowner on the other that is worried about fire danger and wants their place grazed off. So last year, I kind of put together this little track down the sides of the highway where I went up one side and down the other and grazed off a little 200-foot buffer along the edge of the road everywhere, using the hot wire, and we're doing about one to two-day pasture moves to get to the other side of the place. So everybody would be happy with me. But the dry range ground has probably been the most fun for me to try to figure out how to improve it and monitor and see the changes. And the biggest difference I've seen is the amount of head days that I'm getting off of it or the number of days I can keep animals there, but the plant diversity is really changing. And so it's not necessarily that I'm growing more of the same plant, but you know, the soil starting to cover up with more plants and more diverse plants. So seeing a lot more, especially the last couple of years. mule's ear here in balsamroot have really started coming back, those are both the yellow flower plants. And just seeing, you know, some of the places have been farmed, and the seed bank that's there and seeing all the different rooms and eat and alfalfa with no rain that pops up once cattle go across. That's really been pretty neat. But a lot of those places in that area I'm telling you about, there's no fences, and there's no stock water, so a lot of room to expand and run cows on it with no infrastructure. So for someone like me, I mean, for a few 100 bucks, I can go fence a section, that's probably a stretch, probably more like $1000, but fence a section with temporary wire, put a pile of cows on it and just be out of there, roll up my fence and go to the next spot without spending, you know, $20,000 trying to fence something.
Liam Shaw 07:40
And that's the main thing is he's, he's able to bunch up his cattle pretty tight, make an impact on the ground, pick it up and move on and do it somewhere else, especially where he's at. With the fire danger, we can concentrate grazing, if we needed to get into some trees and bunch of cows there to hit the brush and get that understory taken care of, we're able to do it with reels and a temporary fence.
Shaye Koester 08:09
Well, that's awesome. Now, you really, you brought up a point earlier about how the past few years you've been learning with hot ground, and fencing. Do you want to expand a little bit more on that if you haven't already kind of what you mean there and if that's changed anything in your strategies?
Kyler Beard 08:25
Yeah, and this is something Liam has been telling me since 2010. If there's a problem with your electric fence, it's one of two things. Almost always it's a short or it's a ground problem, one of the two. So if your fence isn't testing high in KV, you are shorted out somewhere regardless of what your fault finder is saying. And if it's hot, and cattle are going through it, your ground field sucks. So the last few years on the range ground it has been so dry. With single strand turbo wire, it's almost impossible to shock a baby calf. And so they don't have the same body mass and the water to start with that a cow does so the cows will stay in and you've got calves running pretty much wherever I want. So when we get to the areas where you don't want calves out, run one ground the bottom, run a two wire setup. And I make my bottom wire the ground because I don't want to I want the cows to touch the hot wire on the top. And then also if there is a grass load on the fence, it doesn't short the fence out. So the bottom wire is the ground hooked right to the fencer and I still put in ground rods and have a ground field. And then the top wire is a hot wire hooked right to the fencer, obviously. So when the cattle stick calves stick their head through it, they short themselves out essentially and and go back to the fencer, and it's really the only way to stop them and it doesn't stop all of them. I mean we'll run groups of about 300 pair and you know, you show up and there's 10 to 15 calves out even with a hot ground and I mean it'll just make you bite your lip and kind of be upset. And it seems like it's a lot. But really, I mean, it's 5% of them that that get out running that kind of a system. So that's probably one of the biggest downfalls to what I'm doing with the single strand hotwire. It's just getting next to highways and you know, having little, little baby calves running around up there.
Shaye Koester 10:21
Liam, do you have anything to add on to that?
Liam Shaw 10:23
Yeah, hot ground system. It doesn't. It's not always applicable in every condition. But where we are at or in really snowy environments, the hot ground system on a permanent or temporary fence is kind of necessary depending on your snow load, freeze and thaw and you get that ice layer built up. And that'll help insulate the animals. So sometimes you need that. And we can do it with permanent high tensile wire, or we do it a lot with temporary fence, especially weaning calves or just keeping calves and especially along the highways. We got to have ground so that hot ground even on temporary fence is a good option. Especially being next one freeway.
Shaye Koester 11:02
Yeah, no grounding is something that's been talked a lot about on the show the past few months, with your team. So thanks for adding to that. Yeah. So you know, you've really talked about how these portable systems have really been beneficial for you from an economic standpoint, and especially in the areas that you are grazing. So what specific tools within that are really making this easy for you? You know, which reels? Are there specific posts? What types of wire? Do you want to talk about? What tools or equipment are making this successful for you?
Kyler Beard 11:40
Um, mainly everything that I started using this, just the three eighths fiberglass posts, and they've got the little I use the spring clips on them. And actually, even this morning our local feed store ran out of spring clips, and I needed some new ones and called Liam to see if he could find some for me. And he said, Well, can you just go by the other little cheap ones that you use? And I said, Yeah, I could, I don't want to. So the bigger spring clip, it's easier to get the wire and you can pull it through if you've got a wire tight and you're not. And I started out with kind of my own homemade reel that I run with a drill, which works pretty good, but I have to cut my wire quite a bit. And then it's really heavy. When you get it loaded. It probably holds about five miles of wire.
Liam Shaw 12:28
We are talking about poly-wire.
Kyler Beard 12:30
Sorry, but yeah. And so now that I've been doing this a little bit longer, I'm starting to get more infrastructure, and I'm building more high tensile fencing. And a lot of what I'm doing is just into your fences to make paddocks. And so now I'm starting to buy more reels, and definitely, the one that I liked the most is probably the half-mile reel. That's the three to one. It's a decent amount of wire when you're on it. So your arm doesn't kill you too much if you're walking trying to roll it up. But I've got a few Maxi reels, which are nice just because they hold so much wire. And then I've got some of the little cheap black reels that I use more like a gate handle if I have to do an extra 30 feet off the other side of a line or something like that. But definitely that half-mile three-to-one reels is my go-to now.
Shaye Koester 13:19
Well, that's awesome. So the three to one reel half mile and then you said you like the spring clips on the posts that you're using, right?
Kyler Beard 13:26
The Gallagher spring clips specifically.
Liam Shaw 13:28
Okay, they've got a larger loop on them than others on the market. And they hold that wire in. Like you said, it's big enough loop that you can run wire through it even had a knot in it if you have to splice. Okay. And then also, I think there's people that have had injuries on when you get that shorter hook. I've heard multiple stories of fences not being grounded, right, and cows rubbing on a post and getting a hook in their eye. So this hook is a lot better designed to not snag up on anything.
Shaye Koester 14:03
Well, that's awesome. Do you have anything else you want to add about starting to implement reels into your operation or talking about those reels Liam? Is there anything else you'd like to share?
Liam Shaw 14:14
So geared reels is key, especially if you're going to be doing any kind of movement. We do have non geared reels and they're fine, especially if you're doing short runs and like you said if you're gonna fence off a haystack or a weird waterway or something, you don't need to spend the money on a big geared reel. But if you're doing any kind of intensive management, or you've got a long stretch of wire going out, the geared in the long term is gonna save you three to one, you can put a pile of them on your side by side or four wheeler they got a cool locking mechanism on them and where he's at. There's a bunch of elk and deer. If you've been locked that reel on any perimeter fence with that same locking mechanism. The key to have your drill is a good guy too. Would probably beat him up more than we need to but when that why wires coming in as fast as it is the guide on that keeps it all that wire concentrated on that hub. Okay, there's a, there's a bunch of cool things you want to think about a reel. Nobody really thinks about all the details, but our product design team has put a lot of energy into trying to make it as convenient for producers that can.
Shaye Koester 15:22
Well, awesome. Yeah, reels for fencing not reels for social media, right? So, you know, Liam, you're in this area, and you've obviously helps Kyler are there other like, you know, management strategies you see, or, you know, maybe let's shift this and what mistakes you see people frequently making when they're implementing the reels and portable wires. And those systems like What are common mistakes you see producers make that you kind of like to see them avoid when they start out.
Liam Shaw 15:54
When it comes to like the hobby type people, they use the temporary fencing as their permanent fence, and I see it everywhere. And it just makes me shake my head. Usually, they haven't had a lot of experience in building fence. And so they just think it's hot wire and they put it up. It's a cross fence, temporary fencing, and reels are cross fencing. And it's not your perimeter. Everyone talks about poly wire. But then there's turbo wire. There's more conductive products on the market. You got to make sure that you're buying the right wire for what you're doing. If you went and bought four rolls of poly wire, I know you're gonna go home and fail because even if it's the biggest Energizer, that wires not conductive enough, it can't handle more than a quarter mile. Everyone in electric fence business sells a quarter mile poly wire, but nothing bigger for a reason. Conductivity just can't do it. So you got to step it up to the turbo in order to have that conductivity. And I mean, you run a couple five miles at a time. Yeah. Because it can pass that energy down the line. Now you need a big power energizer to do it.
Kyler Beard 17:05
That's that was one of the biggest mistakes that I made in the beginning when I was saying I went away from Gallagher products. Turbo wire when I started especially around here was the best fence fencing wire that we could get. But it's really expensive comparatively when you're looking at it on the shelf. And the other you know, even if it's a braided wire from somebody else, I mean, after one year in the sun, you go to pull your fence up tight and stretch it and it breaks. And pretty soon the whole thing is breaking. And I have turbo wire. I don't remember what I was saying 2010 is when I started buying turbo wire. This is the first year I started throwing some away. And a lot of the reason I'm throwing it away is mainly just because there's so many knots in it, you know, on roll it, I've cut it in spliced it so much with that big reel that I have, which is why I like the little reels too, you don't have to cut your wire. I mean, I'll roll it out. And there's 20 knots within 10 feet. And I'm thinking okay, I can I can probably get rid of this wire now. But the one of the biggest mistakes that you can make when you're running turbo wire is your fence not being hot. If it's laying on the ground, I mean, the cattle are going to chew on it, and then you'll have a dead spot in your wire that you don't know about. And you can't figure out why the other side of your fence is hot. So if you are going to run a hot fence, you better make sure it's hot. And don't leave your wire laying out, which I am guilty of all the time.
Liam Shaw 18:23
Sometimes. I don't know why. But there's something in that plastic that calves love to chew on. So you're usually cutting out 10 feet because it's all munched up and there's something that they love.
Shaye Koester 18:37
Well, thank you for sharing that. And you know, talking about some of those beginning mistakes or mistakes that you see other ranchers make on this front. When we look at the fencing side of things, you know, you've really hit a lot of great areas. As far as how you're managing and what other producers need to know. Is there anything else you would like to share with other ranchers out there who are interested in either improving are starting this process?
Kyler Beard 19:07
Alright. Yeah, I mean, just a little bit of difference. You know, if you you don't have to go invest enough to be doing one day pasture moves. But if right now you're doing a two week pasture moves buy enough fencing to make one more cross fence and do one week pasture moves, and it is amazing how much difference you'll see. And in how much grass you grow. It's more about the recovery of the grass ahead of you or behind you that you have to worry about more so than the pasture that you're in. But, yeah, I mean, that's all I would say. You don't have to get crazy about it. And that's one of those things when I was telling you kind of figuring out what works for me. I personally like three to four day pasture moves now. So I don't have to be right back there at three o'clock every day to be able to take the a fence down or the cattle are gonna be mad at me. And then I kind of like to place my mineral tubs and I like to ride horses. So I'll kind of place cattle within that pasture. If there's a spot, I need more animal impact. But I've also done as much as you know, moving them three times a day. And yeah, I guess just do what is going to actually fit in your schedule. But even even going from a two week pasture move to a one week pasture move will make a huge difference.
Liam Shaw 20:25
In this crazy ag world that we're living in with the price of hay and fuel, and just everything in life. Yeah, cross fencing and getting those head days. I mean, even just cross fencing once more that like he was saying, will save and you'll start seeing a difference in your drought, which is key. We need it for future generations. So every time you are cross fencing it or doing anything to that land that's going to improve the quality of grass, that's less you are feeding and it's less. Anytime you can cross fence at least cut it in half.
Shaye Koester 21:03
Yeah, I mean, I think that's great. And like I said, you know, the rotational grazing and regenerative practices, I've been talking a lot more about that on the show. And that's something a lot of people have said in the grass recovery period. Kyler, I have another question, since you kind of brought it up. So you said you like to ride horses. So what's the main way you've implemented still continuing to use your horses on your cattle while you know still having these fences? What does that look like?
Kyler Beard 21:31
Well, if you want to train a set of cattle or border collies, and you're moving cattle, if you do it correctly, I mean, cattle figure out they want to go to fresh grass, I mean, you see it all the time, where everybody's calling them, you go to the gate, you get the cattle, I'm looking at you, I want the cattle to look at me and I want to be able to drive them. And I want to be able to draw them to me. So typically, if I'm going to make a move with pairs, and this is the other part where your cattle need to be content when you're moving them. So if you show up and they're out of feed, and they're mad, you might as well just move them and let them get full and then worried. But if you get it right, I'll go right through everything, I'll get them up, I'll get the cows and the calves together, I'll let the calves start to suck. And I'll leave the gate closed. And then I'll start to send them to the gate. And when they're all at the gate, I draw their heads to me open the gate, they know they're going to fresh grass, and then I send them through the gate. And so if you do that enough, and you get your cattle trained to that, when you go into a set of curls, it's no different than going to a fresh pasture, they understand how to move. Now, if you were to take the cues off you, yeah. And so it's an opportunity to train them when you already know where they're going. And the same with Border Collie dog. I mean, if you want to make some good Border Collies, all they want to do is go bring cattle to you. So if your cattle are already coming to you, it's pretty simple. All you have to do is send them and all the cattle are coming in, and they show up and look like a bunch of rockstars. So really, you know, the frequent pasture moves done correctly. I mean, you can get a set of cows really trained to handle and a set of dogs that are bringing cows to you. And the two of them aren't worried about each other. I mean, every time they see the dogs, they go, Okay, where's Kyler at, we got fresh grass coming. So it's not a threatening thing to them, or, you know, talking about the predators. That's one big thing. I haven't had any problems with predators where I'm at and there have been some wolf predations and there's cougars. And there's bears. And I mean, one of the pastures I have, it's a neighborhood now, but it is a thoroughfare for wildlife. And that's why everybody's building up there because it's so beautiful. But I've had wolves in my cow pastures and around them. And really, I've had hot wires get knocked down once in a while. But really, if it's up and hot, the elk don't bother it. I mean, the biggest problem I'll have is they'll hook the wire and drag it into an old down fence and it'll shorted out. But having the cattles bunched up like that in one big one big group with dogs that, that the cows don't see as a threat, when they see dogs, they stand up, they get their calves and they get in a group rather than sticking their head in the air and running off. And that would I would imagine trigger response and a wolf that would be like a cat running from a house dog. So I think with the constant moving of the hot wire and the scenario changing and cows that understand to get into a group and stand up, it's really kind of mitigating my risk with preditors or at least giving me a little better chance than, you know the guy that's kicking 400 out on 30,000 acres and hoping that he's going to be okay.
Shaye Koester 24:44
Well, thank you for sharing that. I really appreciate hearing that. So, and that's that's really interesting for me because we don't have the same amount of predators where I'm at so that's really neat to hear actually. Haven't had a lot of people from the west on the show. So I like hearing the perspective there. Do you have anything else you want to add before we wrap up?
Liam Shaw 25:08
Electric fencing in general and Kyler alluded to it. You can never buy enough power out of your Energizer because you could never complain about more horsepower in your pickup. So same thing with your charger buy the most conductive fence for your situation, and grounding. Those are the three key things on temporary and permanent fence to keep in mind.
Shaye Koester 25:29
Well, awesome, thank you very much for joining me on the show today. I look forward to sharing this with my audience.
