my name is ben bartlett
i'm a livestock producer from northern
michigan
i used to work with michigan state
university and extension service
and currently working with people on
holistic planned grazing low stress
cattle handling
and doing a little farming on the side
holistic plant grazing is when you
consider
that the needs of the plants
in the plant community the needs of the
animals with what people want
now when we take those three factors the
plant community
the animals and the people and we put it
all together that's
holistic we were thinking about all the
factors at one time
and making a plan out of it means we're
just not going at it accidentally we
have
specific outcomes and we know what we
have to work with so we're building a
plan so holistic plan grazing
looking at the needs of the plant
community the needs of the animals
the desires of the people the goal and
putting it together
for each operation and specifically for
each area so
your posit your planned grazing program
is not going to be the same as mine
well plant grazing worked in alaska you
know you think of it all the challenges
you have up here with short seasons
really tough weather soil conditions
you know it is is this the place to do
plant grazing and really this is
the best place to do it because you have
all these challenges
if it was real easy if it was year-long
grazing season you can do it any way you
want
but alaska has lots of challenges and to
you do have a lot of potential resources
that you can put into a grazing program
and a successful livestock operation
but you have such a short seasonal
window and you have so many other
challenges you just
really need a plan so holistic planned
grazing
is most appropriate for alaska and
really will
enhance the potential that you have here
and take advantage of it
it is a learned technique where you
really have to sit down and what you do
is you
you look at what you got to work with
you know what labor what land
how many livestock you got you look what
you want to accomplish our young
producer trying to build an operation
are you
an older person that's uh trying to
enjoy retirement
what is it you want out of your grazing
operation and then you combine those two
and that's where holistic planned
grazing comes in and we learn how to
manage the animals
harvesting of the plants for the good of
the animals for the good of the plants
and good of the people so there's some
inspiration you gotta wanna do different
there's gotta be some information you
to learn some things and then you got to
take action it isn't just enough to
learn about it you actually got to go
put it to work for you so it's
holistic plan grazing some inspiration
some information
and some action low stress animal
handling is when we
ask animals to do what we want rather
than try to force animals to do what we
want
traditionally we even our terminologies
we go out and work
cattle we make them do what we want
and really low stress animal handling is
learning how to ask animals to do what
we want which is low stress for them
and low stress for us it's much safer
and besides that uh the public wants us
to be good
caretakers of our animals and they're
really the bottom line
as being responsible for the animals
that are in our
our possession it's just the right thing
to do so low stress cattle handling is
uh
and livestock handling whether it's
muskox cows sheep
goats reindeer it's just good all the
way around
you