Customer Reviews

Greener Pasture on Your Side of the Fence: Better Farming Voisin Management-Intensive Grazing (4th Edition) (Volume 4)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm reading this book for the third time - there's just too much info to digest in one reading. We are just starting with cattle and are using this book as our bible. It not only explains the many advantages of raising animals using managment intensive grazing (more profit, environmentally friendly, humane, better nutrition, ease of animal handling), it goes into great detail on HOW to do it. My husband used the chapter on fencing to select products that have received many positive comments from visitors to the farm. I especially enjoyed reading about pasture plant diversity and how cattle "harvest" it. Our cattle look (and taste) great, much to the shock of long-time cattle farmers in our community who are surprised that two greenhorns like us can do so well. We attribute our success to this book and highly recommend it.

This is a really good overview if you are interested in pasture based livestock farming. With a lot of interesting facts about pasture ecology and euqlly fascinating detials about livestock production on pasture, I think Mr Murphy has put together a good book for livestock producers to use to become acquainted with pasture-based farming.

Loved this book - although I have only one horse and can not do some of the intensive grazing techniques, I do have a better understanding about maintaining the pastures. This has been very useful and will enable me to get together with the neigbors and do several horses on the pastures in rotation. We will all have more edible forage for the horses.

This book is extremely well researched and organized, but I agree with the reviewer about the poor binding. One of the first pages fell out when I first started reading it! I am a book lover and treat them carefully, not having problems with this normally. I headed the problem off by being more careful after that, but it is definitely poor quality. Too bad, it gives the author a bad rap when he probably had nothing to do with it---the writing and info was COMPLETE. This book is not for the faint-of-heart or beginner. It is extremely thorough and deep reading. It was just what I was looking for, but not for everyone.

PASTURE MANAGEMENT IS A HECK OF ALOT MORE COMPLICATED THAN THROWING SOME SEED ON THE GROUND. THERE IS A WHOLE DYNAMIC THAT YOU HAVE TO BE AWARE OF AND I THOUGHT THIS BOOK HELPED ME UNDERSTAND THE PROPER STEPS TO TAKE TO START AND MAINTAIN MY OWN PASTURE. VERY GOOD INFORMATION.

I am a small scale sheep rancher (less than 120 breed ewes). Much of this book is geared towards cattle. Sheep are covered and the practice of rotational grazing and pasture building seem to be somewhat universal in approach and scope when it comes to all ruminates or grazing livestock. I was anxious to receive this book as some think of Voisin as one of the forefathers of management intensive grazing. I was not disappointed as the books information exceeded my expectations. The information on cover crops for pasture was a welcome surprise to mention one. Regardless, after reading the book over the course of three nights; I realized this would be a go to reference book and therein lies the rub. I doubt this copy will hold together for another two readings, much less a weekly or so thumbing to confirm implemented pasture practices. The paperback edition (4th printing) arrived in a bubble protected paper envelope. This is the first of over 60 books purchased from Amazon that did not arrive in a box. The covers were somewhat curled when I unpacked the book. I thought about sending it back based on condition, but I could not resist starting the read. After the three night read in my climate controlled home the clear outer wrapper of the cover seems to be separating from the color underlay and several of the pages are coming loose from the glue binder. I love all my books paper or not and as such, treat them well regardless of construction. I don't own a Kindle, but this books publisher needs to think about making in available for Kindle or upgrading their printing process. I have seen art books in paper for half the price of this book constructed ten times better. Pitiful. As one who use to trade in out of print books I know condition is key to many buyers and for those who are condition sensitive I write this review. Again on content for many this will be a 5 star book. I only gave it four because I would have liked to have seen more in depth coverage of small ruminates and most of the pasture planning was based on Vermont seasons. I am in the mid-Atlantic area and think most farmers or ranchers can make time adjustments on Vermont times based on their local environment and weather conditions. That said, some types of pasture that do well in the northeast would not have a prayer in other regions of the country. However, just about all known pasture grasses, legumes, brassicas, forbes etc. are covered. Know your turf. Now if I can only find a hardback to buy..

Murphy's book is a comprehensive review of Voisin Grass Productivity book complemented with his own experience in Vermont.
I read it and found it very helpful in my search for milk production productivity and profits in my dairy farm in the Coffee area of Colombia.
I am still looking for books or experiences with Voisin rational grazing in the Tropics, where we use mainly grass to feed our cows outside and have followed feed companies advise on supplementing grains and feedstuffs, without questioning prices of grass, milk, corn silage and supplemental feeds.
If Murphy worked with the Voisin system in Brasil it would be great to have his experience written in a second book for Latin America.

If you are interested in seriously implementing rotational grazing (management intensive grazing) on your farm this is a very good resource.

Una muy completa y acertada visión del ecosistema pastizal y su profunda relación con una alta y sustentable productividad, contiene mucho conocimiento practico de como son las cosas en el campo.