By LORI COPE | East Texas Edition

Eight-year-old McKayla Dickey cuddles with one of the newest llama babies on the farm. The llamas are utilized on the farm to control brush and weeds, according to Jimmy Dickey who noted many people are unsure of how a llama will react to them. But he’s found them to be very docile and great herd mates with the cattle. — Courtesy photo

May 18, 2006 - A combination of ideas has worked out well for Jimmy Dickey. The rural-raised, college-educated Hunt County resident has implemented production methods that generate supplemental income, and provide a getaway from city life and work.

In 1996, Dickey and wife Pam purchased a 127-acre “worn-out cotton farm that had not even been shredded in six years. It was full of brush and weeds,” he recalled. “It had no water and was only fenced on three sides.”

But Dickey had ideas for the eastern Hunt County site that involved raising stocker calves on a rotational grazing system.

First, though, plenty of hands-on work was done to remove brush from the pasture area, and herbicide was applied to kill the weeds, he explained. 

Then, 11 paddocks were established, using about eight miles of 12.5-gauge wire and fence posts devised from UV-insulated PVC pipes. “The 12-and-a-half gauge, high-tensile wire is the only way to go,” Dickey said. “As far as the posts, that’s something I came up with. Holes are drilled to run the wire through instead of using connectors. ... They cost me 80 cents each.” He utilizes three strands of wire through the posts, and then runs one wire (second from the top) as a ground.

Jimmy Dickey and wife Pam wait for all the heifers to come through the central pen on their way to a fresh-grass paddock. — Staff photo by Cope

While cost of the wire has increased along with the price of steel over the past few years, Dickey said the electric fencing is still a third of the cost of traditional, barbed-wire fencing. The farm has a barbed-wire fence around the perimeter.

Dickey had nothing but good things to say about the Gallagher fence charger he uses to electrify the wire. “I’ve been real happy with my charger. I’ve had it five or six years and it’s never failed. It feeds all eight miles of fence.” Initially the fence was charged to about 7,800 volts, but with some grass grown under the wires, which can disrupt the circuit, it’s now about 2,500 volts, Dickey said.

The paddocks all come to meet at a central 80-foot by 200-foot steel, paneled pen. Each time the livestock are moved to another paddock, they always come through the central pen. That way, whether it’s time to work them, or haul them, they can easily be caught.

To supply water for the paddocks, a water well was drilled and 1,400 feet of pipe was laid. Water tanks were made from halved, big plastic barrels, or from used syrup tubs. Each tank and water spigot is protected by a small, steel fence.

“I got a lot of the ideas (for rotational grazing operation set-up) from the Noble Foundation,” Dickey said. “I toured the research facility (in Ardmore, Okla.) one day, all day, and saw what they’d done. Plus, there’s a lot of information on the web, and through (Texas Cooperative) Extension. ... I incorporated all what I had learned into my farm.”

Plus, Dickey has a bachelor’s degree in ag-business from Texas A&M-Commerce. “But we never talked much about a rotational grazing system ... that was back in the ‘80s. And growing up (near Bogata), we had a 57-acre farm and one crossfence.”

After getting the system in place, Dickey brought the stocker calves in. The operation’s beef production system, to best match grass production, is to purchase 30 to 50 400-pound Angus or Angus-cross heifers from the sale barn at Emory in early December; and sell the 675-pound heifers in mid-September at the special NETBIO sale in Sulphur Springs. When the newly-purchased calves are hauled in, they are placed in the central pen to be vaccinated, and kept there a day to calm them down.

“I go with heifers for two reasons,” he said. “One, is I don’t have the set up to castrate a 400-pound calf; and two, if the market bottoms out, I can get a bull to put in with the heifers and just hold them.”

The variety of native grasses in the various-sized paddocks keep the heifers well fed. Plus, there’s a 28-acre meadow with Johnson grass (utilized in the winter, seven days after the first frost), and recently, B. Dahl Bluestem was planted in a 20-acre section.

The bluestem was planted with assistance from Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) funds, which Dickey had applied for at the Hunt County Natural Resource Conservation Service. EQIP funds also assisted in the construction of a quarter-acre pond, which Dickey calls “good insurance” in case of well or pump failure.

The operation, though, was still lacking an adequate brush and weed control method. Goats and sheep were initially used, but stray dogs kept depleting the herd. An alternative came to Dickey when a couple of llamas came into the Emory sale barn ring. “I thought they’d be like exotics, and go for a lot of money; but they sold for about $100,” he said. “So I went home and searched on the Internet for more information about them.”

Dickey learned llamas had just as good of a reputation for clearing brush and weeds as goats. Plus, the taller animal can keep the trees trimmed higher for a cleaner-looking place.

“I went back to the Emory barn and bought two males,” he said. Males generally sell for $100, and females, $200. “I got another four or five males, which was okay until I got some females.” Now, he has nine females and one male ... and, as of May 1, two babies.

“Ten is plenty,” he said about the number of llamas needed to maintain the 127-acre operation. “And, llamas and cattle co-exist well together. They’re a natural fit on our grazing operation.”

The creatures are low maintenance, too. Once a year, Dickey shears them “just to help them out with the heat” and applies a pour-on dewormer. The minerals and salt that are supplied free-choice for the stocker calves can also be used by the llamas.

“The llamas are kind of like a cat,” he explained. “They are curious, but independent. ... When it comes to the fencing, cattle will test it every two or three months, but llamas and horses, once they know about the electric fence, will respect it.”

Since the paddocks are not changed, unless they are halved (by using a string-wrapped-wire between two adjacent sides of the charged, high-tensile wire), the labor is not intensive at Dickey’s farm. “It’s certainly not hard to move the cattle,” he said. “With just two calls to them, they come running to the center pen knowing they are going to fresh grass.”

So when does Dickey decide a paddock’s grass is ready for relief? “It’s hard to describe and explain; it’s mostly a gut reaction, based on experience,” he said about moving the herd.

He doesn’t mind coming out to the farm to check the grass, calves, llamas, and a few pet goats and horses. As the consumer services manager for GEUS, Greenville’s municipally-owned provider of electric, cable TV, and Internet services, Dickey likes to spend time, with this wife and young daughter, in the quiet, peaceful setting.