Grazing Grass Podcast | Rotational Grazing, Soil Health & Profitable Livestock Farming 208 | Glenn McCaig, Ontario | Stop Trying to Fix Everything: Simplified Systems for Pigs, Cattle, Sheep, and Sanity
Glenn McCaig of Perry's Corners Farm returns to the Grazing Grass Podcast to talk through livestock systems that stay practical when you stop trying to perfect everything. Farming with his wife Megan and their three young children just outside Kitchener, Ontario, Glenn shares what is working on their sandy, rocky ground with Lynch Lineback cattle, English Large Black pigs, Clun Forest type sheep, and pastured poultry.
In This Episode, We Explore:
- What Lynch Lineback cattle are and why Glenn values a closed herd approach
- Calf-sharing milk cows and feeding milk to pigs as part of a whole-farm system
- A gilt-only farrowing system that simplifies pig management and tightens farrowing windows
- Selecting boars early using practical traits like teat count and mothering ability
- Farrowing in pens vs pasture, and what changed with labor, predator pressure, and piglet losses
- Using simple ear notching to make culling decisions faster and more consistent in sheep
- Closed-flock sheep management, prolific genetics, and handling triplets and quads
- The realities of wool marketing and why some wool is not worth saving
- Why Glenn went soy-free (and briefly corn-free) with pigs, and what he learned trying soy-free layers
- What migratory grazing changed for Glenn, and the cattle behavior he notices now
- A calendar-based way Glenn thinks about the summer slump, rest periods, and how hay decisions affect grazing
Why This Episode Matters
If you have ever felt like your livestock enterprise got harder the more you tried to fine-tune it, this episode gives a grounded look at simplifying without backing away from good management. Glenn lays out practical systems for pigs, sheep, and cattle that reduce moving parts, tighten decision making, and keep the farm working in real conditions like predator pressure, winter feeding, and limited labor.
Resources Mentioned
- Acres U.S.A. Podcast
- Barefoot Biodynamics by Jeff Poppen
- Steve Campbell (mentioned in context of clean minerals)
- Burke Teichert (quote referenced)
Find Out More
- Perry's Corners Farm | https://perryscornersfarm.ca
- Grazing Grass Community
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