The cows on Meadowlark ranch provide some income as well as help keep the pastures in check. Since they, like most everything else on the ranch, must pretty much take care of themselves, the breed best suited for that are Bahamas crossed with other breeds. Some are Santa Gertrudice and Brangus and others are just Brahmas crosses. All are just commercial cows.

The cows are an integral part of the system of ponds described herein. They provide pond maintenance around the banks of the ponds by keeping vegetation in check. This helps reduce unwanted vegetation and helps reduce the hiding places for varmints and snakes. No chemicals are required to treat the pond banks on Meadowlark ranch and neither are the expensive weed burners and back breaking weed eaters. Let the cows do the hard work.

In addition, the cows provide natural fertility that has the ponds a nice green color during the growing season. A little known side benefit of the cows as related to ponds is their ability to compact the clay soils in pond dams. During pond construction, cows have been fed range cubes on the dam surface to help compact the soils and during winter bales of hay on the surface provide protective cover to the ground from erosion but also attract the cows to provide further compaction…. does it work? If a sheepsfoot roller works, why wouldn't several 1200 + pound cows work also?

April 14, 2008

Pictured below are a 5 acre field(1) and a 7 acre (2) field which have been prepared as new hay fields containing Tifton 9 Bahiagrass. The intent of these new fields is to make the haying operation much easier (fields much closer to house), cheaper(Tifton uses less fertilizer and produces more forage than common Bahia) and more efficient (fields better drained than bottom land). As the growing season progresses, this experiment will be updated to track the progress of the Tifton hay fields.