Kansas Graziers’ Winter Conference Scheduled for January 15 in Junction City

Whiting, Ks. - The Kansas Grazier's Association (KGA) will hold its Winter Conference on Saturday January 15, 2011 at the Geary County 4H-Senior Citizen's Center at 1025 South Spring Valley Road in Junction City, Ks. from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. The primary topic of the day will be Mob Grazing, and the keynote speaker will be Greg Judy of Clark, Missouri. Greg and Jan Judy run a grazing operation on 1400 acres of leased land using Holistic High Density Planned Grazing to graze cows, cow/calf pairs, bred heifers, horses, and stockers.

The Judys have developed a successful system to get into the grazing business by leasing land, employing high density grazing, and grazing other people's livestock. In 2001, Judy wrote a book titled, No Risk Ranching: Custom Grazing on Leased Land, which gives a complete breakdown of the methods they used to build their own operation from scratch. In 2008, he wrote a second book, Comeback Farms: Rejuvenating Soils, Pastures, and Profits with Livestock Grazing Management. In addition to “Introduction to Mob Grazing", Judy will discuss animal performance and multi-species grazing with cattle and sheep.

The morning sessions will cover the important steps of implementing Holistic High Density Mob Grazing on your farm. It is crucial to understand the important steps when you start off with mob grazing. Subjects to be covered will include:

• How to double your stocking rate in four years.
• How to graze profitably with no inputs.
• How to using the mob to heal your soils.How to build a good litter bank.
• How to get a full recovery period on your grass before grazing.
• How to feed microbes and earthworms to their maximum potential.
• Fencing and watering techniques for mob grazing.
• Eliminating hay from your operation
• Plus many more mob grazing topics.

After lunch, Judy will will cover what he believes is the most important element of grazing,  animal performance. Animal performance is the number one priority when starting any grazing system and this is the area where most people fail by focusing on the land and forgetting about the animals. According to Judy, this is a recipe for failure; the animals do not perform because we are accidently limiting daily intake. We must save ourselves before we can save the world. We need to stay 100 percent focused on getting as much energy into the livestock every day as possible.

This talk will explain how to do that. Greg will also cover what to look for daily in your animals and the land to ensure that your animals are performing to their peak potential. Our animals can heal our land, but we must stay alert to our animals needs in the process of building our soils.

Following the afternoon break, Judy will cover multiple species grazing with sheep and cattle. Multi-species grazing is a great way to capture more energy and profit from any grazing operation.

Judy says, "We are in the business of harvesting sun light, the more diiverse species of animals that you have grazing on your farm, the more efficient machine you have to capture the sun’s energy."

Nature is about diversity, notmonocultures. Single species of any livestock is not as efficient at capturing energy. Every species that you can have on your farm helps support eightadditional ones. Your operation is much more sustainable. They actually eat different types of forages and make the grazing better for the other species. They also give you an additional income source for your farm.

Registration begins at 8:30 a.m.; and costs $35 for the day and includes lunch. The conference flier, a mail-in registration form can be downloaded and printed from the Kansas Rural Center website at www.kansasruralcenter.org

Driving directions: From I-70 Exit 295 Turn north onto Highway 77, and go to Sapp Brothers Truck Stop Highway entrance; Turn west onto Lacy Drive. Follow Lacy Drive around to stop sign at Spring Valley Road 1/2 mile. Turn north onto Spring Valley Road and proceed to the Geay County 4-H/Senior Center, 1025 South Spring Valley Road, about .7mile. From the north, go to the Sapp Brothers Entrance and follow the above directions.

For more information contact:
Mary Howell at 785-292-4955, or (cell)785-562-8726;
or the KRC office at785-873-3431 can help with registration questions.

Sponsors include the Kansas Rural Center, Kansas Farmers Union, Kansas Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Alternative Crops, and Kansas Grazing Lands Coalition.