Pasture Raised

Grazing livestock has proved to be a great match for Dan and Cara Miller. After purchasing their 120-acre farm near Spring Valley, Minnesota seven years ago, they now custom graze heifers and raise their own herd of registered Angus beef cattle. Dan and Cara’s farm was originally marked as Conservation Reserve Program land, and in 1993 Dan and Cara began the process of conversion to pasture.

Both Dan and Cara work off of the farm. Dan is a farm business instructor at Riverland Community College and works out of the college’s Farm Management Education Center in Spring Valley. Cara works as a nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital in Rochester. The move to pasture farming fits well with their schedules and their plans for raising their family. “Generally, I think more people will be doing what I am doing,” said Dan. “It is good for the land, good for the cattle, and good for the people on the land.”

Designing A Special System

Dan and Cara are involved in seasonal heifer rearing, which means that they custom graze, during the summer months, in paddocks specially designed for their land. Originally there were 16 acres used for grazing. Now all 120 acres are managed under an intensive rotational grazing and haying system. Using a system of easily movable fences and water tanks, they shift the cattle every three days. The forages on their farm are a highly regulated mixture.

In 1997, Dan and Cara received a $10,000 grant from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture for a three-year study to evaluate grass and legume mixes in pastures. Besides comparing forages, Dan and Cara are also evaluating forage establishment methods and keeping detailed financial records to determine the profitability of grazing dairy heifers. As part of the evaluation, they periodically submitsamples for testing. Among these forages that they have seeded are:

• alfalfa
• bromegrass
• Palaton reed
• canarygrass
• orchardgrass
• birdsfoot trefoil
• ladino
• alsike
• red clover

A Family Affair

One of the keys to their farming methods is reducing machinery and building costs. The most essential piece of machinery on the farm is an All-Terrain Vehicle which enables Dan and Cara to move the cows from one paddock to the next, set up the portable fence posts, fill the water tank, often times in less than an hour. The ATV also has the added benefit of carrying more than the single passenger of a tractor. “I love it when I can put my two kids in a car seat in the back of our Gator and my husband and I can check the cattle,” Cara said.

Farming is becoming a family affair for the Miller’s. Their two children, although now confined by their ages of 2 and 1 to a “supervisory” role, will soon have their own chores to complete. “They’ll be made to feel they are a part of this farm and that there is a place for them here. When you live on a farm, you can usually find something for kids to do and I think that’s a good thing,” said Cara. Both Dan and Cara share in the labor on the farm, and rotational grazing allows them a lot more time with their children.

A Rewarding Life

With the trends in agriculture continuing toward large-scale dairy operations, Dan sees a niche opening up in grazing. Grazing is experiencing a rebirth as many people forgot how to do it when the emphasis shifted to machinery and chemical use in the 1940’s, Dan said. “I think that grazing can fit. The grazing and the custom grazing of heifers can fit nicely,” added Cara.

Grazing also fits the lifestyle of Dan, Cara and their two children. Dan teaches in the winter and during the summer works with more than 60 farmers on and off site, in an effort to spread the word about sustainable farming methods. Dan and Cara are able to manage their land, monitor the quality of the soil and the forages that are planted, and enjoy time with their family. The cattle that graze their land are healthier, leaner, and gain more weight during a grazing season than cattle that are confined to feed lots.

Rotational grazing has allowed Dan and Cara to realize a greater profit per acre for their land. It has also allowed them to live a life that is rewarding in many ways. In recognition of their efforts to practice soil and water conservation through rotational grazing practices, they were honored as the 1998 Fillmore Soil and Water Conservation District outstanding conservationists.

Whether it is outside recognition, or through their own contentment with their choice of farming methods, they are pioneers in the revival of the lost skill of custom grazing. By using innovative methods of paddock rotation, Dan and Cara Miller are finding time to spend with their children and in the things they enjoy. As the cattle meander over the gently rolling hills and as Spring Valley Creek wanders through the northern section of their farm, they can stake their claim to enhancing their own lives and the lives of the animals and land which they tend.