​Our Story:

Wennesheimer LLC

Wennesheimer LLC  Fence Post Pounding for Rotational Grazing Systems.

We are the Wennesheimers - Emma, Lee, Ray, Lynelle and Paul. 

     Here is part of our story. Paul has lived off-grid since 1988 utilizing mostly just solar with a back up generator. In 2005 we added a wind generator that we have nick named "Buddy" when Lynelle and Paul got married. Emma was born in 2007, Lee is a 2011 model and Ray is a 2016 model year. 

     Since 2003 we have installed anchor posts for rotational grazing systems with our own equipment. We have done this along with raising our children. Emma went to work at 4 months of age and Lee started working at 7 weeks of age. They have never been to a daycare. We didn't have children for other people to raise them. We adore our children. Emma  is in the 8th grade and is excelling very well at school. She has interest in Science and Reading and is thinking she might be a librarian some day. This summer she is will be our post pounder earning money for her future.  Lee is doing great in 4thd grade. She is our farm girl but she is now our school girl. She gets off the bus in the front door and out the back door with her barn coat and boots heading out to see the cows. She also keeps Paul on his toes about shutting the gates. She is excelling at reading and math. We visit the McMillian Library at least once a week and she always has a armful of books to read. Ray is Daddy's little helper this year. You rarely see Paul without his little sidekick. He is a digger boy. He loves Pawpatrol. Lynelle after 18 years working road construction ended up leaving because of the price of health insurance premiums skyrocketing and because she was a woman working in a man's world but not getting paid a man's wage and could no longer afford working there anymore so as of the first of 2016 she started a new career. She is now taking care of her 3 children and a small beef herd that we started in 2005. And working along with Paul in the post pounding business helping with billing, website management, and keeping everyone's schedules working together. Which is not always easy. This fall I will be focusing more on myself finding a career that I will love as we focus more on the farm and taking care of our cows. It was too much for me to take on taking care of the kids and cows and all the added work. I still will be answering the phone and helping Paul where needed but I get to catch up and do things I enjoy: my kids, quilting, gardening and volunteering at school and church. Paul is and will always be Wennesheimer LLC and I am proud of how we can help people. 

     Never has there been or ever will there be a free lunch. It has and always will be the benefit of some kind of good will or misfortune. A EQIP fence seems to be what is the governments answer to a biggest bang for a buck fence there is. They obviously have the money, after that it is a matter of opinion. We don't control the money so people tell us the truth about what they do and don't like about it. It has become clear the general public and farmers alike like grass-fed animals. It then becomes misleading. The general public is misled. The farmer is looking to finish a 3 to 5 year contract to get a new free fence under an EQIP program. The NRCS EQIP fence grazing program is the same as animal confinement housing just outside. The animals are confined where ever you put them. They then use dividing wires and temporary wires with water lines run everywhere necessary to support this kind of confinement grazing. Not everyone does this and more and more are waiting for their contract to end so they can handle their animals in a manner of their choosing.

     Go to https://efotg.scegov.usda.gov then click on your state then click on your county and look for EQIP

There are 3 ways to look at NRCS EQIP fence.

• The first option is to hire out the whole job and learn to deal with what you get accepting cost over runs to get a better fence. EQIP money only pays so much a foot. It doesn't pay for corners and gates and other additional stuff. Just so much a foot.
  
• The second option is you can have someone come in and install all the anchor posts and help you get started making it possible for you to do the job paying yourself.
  
• The third option is to have someone come in and install the anchor posts then you build the fence yourself. Then taking it a step further by installing more posts to make it more functional and animal handling friendly. Doing this will help making your life easier. This is the one we recommend the most.
  

This is an issue we always see in a year of NRCS contracts ending that we end up having to fix. If you did not quit rotational grazing all together.

     We have been installing rotational grazing systems since 2003. In 2005 we started to purchase calves for ourselves. In 2007 we started to rotationally graze cattle. This turned out to be a big fight as you want to be in. From the beginning we refused to confinement graze our animals. We refused to run water lines out on the property. Instead two frost free water hydrants were installed. One close to the barn and one 300 ft. out from the barn so we could handle multiple sets of animals. We also have a multiple lane system so we can easily mob graze with multiple sets of animals at various different locations on the property. The lane system is also benificial so that we can easily sort and handle individual animals if need. This is a system that Paul has set up that he feels confident that he can own and work with cattle when he is 80 years old.

     Our animals are never confined. We want them moving all the time. Exercise = More Muscle = More weight = More $$. In the winter we try to keep hay and water as far apart as possible to keep them moving. We only want to calve in the fall. The calves stay on the mothers til spring. We sell the steers in early May. We enjoy selling at the sale barn. We always sell in the top 90%. We don't feed any grain at all. The past 3 years we have had problems getting our animals to the sale barn. People have been paying a premium to get them before we can take them to the sale barn. We feel the most important animal in the herd is the bull. A high quality cow has never been able to make up the difference for a low quality bull but a high quality bull can make up the difference for a low quality cow. The bull is always kept with the herd. He is never kept alone except for 30 to 45 days in the fall. We currently have a red hereford bull that we purchased from Pharo Cattle Company he came from their Texas herd Shirley was purchased because of his ultrasound for a better meat product. We have exceptional moms our cows are Red Hereford, Black Hereford, and Composites of Angus, Murray Gray and Hereford. We are working to grow to a 50 cow/calf pair herd and raising our kids. We love grazing! 

  We have personally found professionals and experts misleading. Honesty, responsibility and respect are important to us. We are dedicated to teaching these three things to our children. We hope we live long enough to teach them to believe in themselves, and to help them seek out honest responsible and respectful people. 2016 was a very hard year. But we have learned a lot and we will be stronger than ever. We love farming and raising our kids on the farm. We work to make less work for ourselves and we like to share what we have learned with others. We also like to learn new things from others. 

We believe that if you choose life money will follow but if you choose money failure will follow, you just don't know the date and time. 

​If we can be of service to you let us know we just love grazing.