Pastures and Land Management
Laurel Mountain Family Farms considers the land as our main asset. With this in mind, we have embarked on management practices that work to heal the land, which in turn takes care of our animals. We do this in several ways and are constantly researching and looking for improved and additional practices in order to meet our goals:
1. We rotate our animals into fresh paddocks, fields and forest areas in order to rest the land.
2. Rotating the animals accomplishes many things for the land and animals; it breaks the parasite cycle, allows reconstitution of plant life, (adding carbon and nitrogen to the soil) allowing the farm to run multiple species on the same ground, there by building the soil at a tremendous rate.
3. The soil building aspects are vital to our management goals. With good soil, comes improved water retention allowing the farm to expand the plant diversity, (poly culture) allowing the animals access to something green all year long.
4. With Poly Culture comes, brassicas, legumes and grasses, creating many forms of food for pigs, goats, cows, chickens and wild life. Flowering plants encourage bees and other pollinators.
5. The farms puts forth efforts to attract wild life, by creating food plots and encouraging habitat for many forms of wild life. Currently we are blessed with an abundance of deer, rabbit, squirrel, owls, hawks, Bald Eagles and more...
