Jeffrey Island's Mob Grazing

Two weeks ago my dad and uncle and I went to Nebraska to attend a University of Nebraska sponsored Hollistic Management grazing demonstration on Jeffrey Island. This island is about 4000 acres in size and sits at the junction of the north and south Platte rivers. The island is being hollistically managed by Chad Peterson who practices Ultra High Density Mob grazing to simulate what the buffalo use to do to the great plains. He concentrates about 1 million pounds of animals per acre for short durations (about 2 hours) then moves the animals to the next section where they stay another 2 hours. Using this grazing method he never grazes the same spot twice in the same year. The reason this is impressive is because of the possitive impact it has had on the islands grasslands. Prior to Chad applying his unique grazing techniques, the island was full of Musk Thistle. After several years of mob grazing the island is virtually thistle free and the traditional native grasses have taken over. We are applying this technique on a much smaller scale here at Aquilla Hill Angus Farm to work on some of the trouble spots where we have some weeds. I hope to report back with good results.

Double Barrel The Bull

This spring we acquired a new bull. His name is Double Barrel. We got him from Pharo Cattle Company in Burlington Colorado. He is a Red Angus bull. This is a new direction for us since we have historically raised Black Angus cattle. We want to go to Red Angus since they tend to handle the Texas heat better. We plan to start shifting the herd to Red Angus over time as we need to buy replacement heifers.
We are excited about Double Barrel. He comes from the premier breeder of grass fed cattle genetics in the U.S. He has been ultra sounded and found to have some of the highest scores for marbling, tenderness, rib eye area and back fat. His offspring should carry these traits as well. His ability to finish on grass should help us finish cattle faster in the future. It will still be about 3 years before we know how his offspring will do in our environment but we are pretty confident that he will be a great addition to our enterprise.