I have been interested in the idea of tree fodder for decades. Years ago I found an old book on the topic and it intrigued me. But many of the species mentioned in the book were tropical or sub-tropical species, which won’t grow here. So I never got started growing trees for animal feed.

Recently, I happened upon an ad in a grazing magazine, promoting “Trees For Graziers”. I ordered their book and have been actively researching the topic.

I realized we already have some trees that could be fed as cattle fodder. The pasture farm we are renting has young trees coming up too thickly in many areas. These are stands of red maple, white and grey birch, and white pine. In the low, wet areas there are many small willows and alders. All of these except for the pines are edible to livestock.

I have often watched the cattle eating tree leaves. Last summer the cattle on the rented pasture seemed to prefer a nice salad mix of grass, clover, broadleaf plants like dandelions and plantain, and lots of tree leaves. They actually kept the dogwood shrubs grazed down all summer, which seemed to suggest that dogwoods are a preferred food for them. When I began reading about tree fodder, I realized that we have already been practising tree grazing on a small scale. We just need to develop it more.

I am now planning to regularly go to the rented pasture with a cordless chainsaw, and cut down many of the less desirable trees in the thickets, thinning it out substantially. The cattle will then eat the leaves off these trees that I cut down every day. The very best trees will continue to grow into a beautiful, shady savanna. Gradually, the trees I cut down will re-sprout and produce shoots for grazing after a few years, if I manage them carefully.

From the information I have gleaned from farmers who are still practising tree fodder feeding, I think we will have plenty of leaves for them on the rented farm all summer. Of course, as soon as the leaves turn color in the fall, the cows will not prefer them anymore since they’re losing their feed value. But if we harvest tree leaves during the dry parts of the summer, the grass gets a breather, giving it a better chance to re-grow for grazing in late fall.

We will be weeding out the lower quality trees, feeding the cows, and developing a coppice pasture all at the same time.

But what is coppice?

Coppicing and pollarding

Coppicing is the ancient practice of cutting trees at the base, to promote regrowth of multiple sprouts around the trunk. These smaller tree stems are used for various purposes, such as firewood, poles for building, and even for animal fodder.

Pollarding is similar but the cut is higher, usually at head height or higher, to prevent animals from over-grazing the tree. A pollarded tree also sends up sprouts from the cut trunk, which quickly grow into small trees because of the good root reserve that a large tree will have.

We plan to take advantage of coppicing and pollarding on both our rented pasture and also on our home farm.

At the home farm, we want to plant rows of fast-growing varieties of willow and polar for a quick start. Then we plan to gradually add honey locusts, mulberry and other species. These do also grow quite fast but will take a little more time to get started. I understand honey locust can produce over one hundred pounds of pods per tree, a food which is very high in nutrients. This will be perfect cattle feed for late fall and into early winter. These honey locust trees, once established, will allow us to cut back the amount of hay we have to feed, and keep the cattle in good shape going into winter.

Shade trees also make a more pleasant place for cows to relax during the hot days of summer. We plan to leave some trees to grow tall for more shade. But coppiced trees and pollarded trees do provide some shade as well.

If we use coppicing for our trees, we’ll have to fence the cattle off those trees while they regrow, since the cattle can reach the new shoots. We would then let them access the regrowth every five years or so. Farmers in New Zealand who use the pollarding method, would cut the regrowth with a small chainsaw. We may try both methods until we find out which works best for us.

Our plan is to start planting several rows of trees every year to begin building a perennial feed bank for the future. Once the trees get off to a good start, we will be able to grow just as much grass as before and also a lot of leaves and seeds from the trees. It’s possible to almost double the amount an acre of land can produce just by adding carefully spaced trees. This means the soil’s fertility will also be increasing twice as fast. Higher fertility means better water holding capacity and more nutrients made available for the cows.

We can’t plant a large number all in one year, because it will take some effort to get the trees started off well. They will need to be protected from the cattle for several years, probably with electric fence wires. We’ll have to add mulch around them to preserve moisture in the dry summer months and to help keep down the grass until the small trees are well established.

The future bounty woods

Our plan always has been to have a landscape dominated by trees. Trees stabilize the soil, slow down damaging winds, and help create a favourable micro-climate for people and animals. Trees add another “solar panel” layer to the sunlight harvesting system, which means we can gain more free energy from the sun and more valuable carbon from the air. If we plant the right trees, we can also harvest fruit or nuts off them, or feed our livestock with their leaves.

That’s why we named our farm “Bountywoods”. Trees can be a great way to add to the bounty if we choose the species carefully.

In a decade or two, our pastures might look like a savanna. As I mentioned in the article I wrote entitled “Shaping the Bounty Woods”, we are opening up the woodland as well, for better sunlight harvesting there. Eventually it may be hard to tell where the pasture ends and the woodlot starts.

I recently read in a forest handbook that a forest is much more healthy and productive when the landowner is working to improve it. When we leave a natural ecosystem to itself, it will gradually change, for better or worse. Sometimes the change is not so gradual, such as when “ladder fuels” are not cut out and a fire runs through a forest. When we manage a forest to be more open, we set it up to function at its best. There will be more fertility stabilized in the soil, more carbon harvested from the air, more water kept from running off, and more food and habitat for livestock and wildlife.

I think a managed forest is also more scenic.

That’s the picture we’re working towards on all the land we manage.

Stay tuned for tree-pasture-raised beef!