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pasture management?

P

PATB

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 10, 2009
Messages
571
Location
Turner, Maine
Just curious of pasture management in different areas of the north america. Soapweed's pictures and reading Allan Savory's "Holistic Management" book and "Insight newsletter" makes me wounder how others manage their pastures/rangelnad. Has any one tried high density holistic managed grazing in the western range lands?

Our farm is set up for rotational grazing with 1 to 3 days between moves with 50 plus animals units per acre on most of the paddocks. We still are working on improving the fertiliy to increase our carrying capacity. We have a very cheap source of chicken manure the restores and improves the land. Next year we will combine all the animals into 1 herd to have longer rest periods between use. We are blessed with excellent pasture for 5 months out of the year on average and if you are lucky and planned it right you might be able to graze stockpiled forage into december.
 
I'm very keen on pasture management as it is the driving force behind our whole operation. You can check out a few of our pasture management pictures on my website listed below - under "our ranch"

A couple of comments on your post - we like to graze at high density for short periods with long recovery but one thing that precludes that on poor land that you are trying to improve is yield. It's like a chicken and egg situation - you need the animal impact and manure to grow a big yield of grass but if you don't have enough for them to eat you can't stock them heavy in the first place. This is not a question I see addressed very often in grazing articles. Your chicken manure may help but what does that do to heavy metal levels, minerals etc?

The second question is one of curiosity - how much can you utilise banked grass in your climate - are you too wet in the fall/winter or does it dry out like here in the west? We are now grazing 9 months + and are really only stopped from mid January/February through to early April by snow depth, compaction and drifting. Being able to have cattle off mechanically conserved feed in early April eating grass grown the previous summer versus feeding until fresh growth is sufficient (around 20th May here). I think this is the biggest thing a rancher can do to increase profitability yet it is still quite uncommon.
 
We use Holistic Planned Grazing in our operation. We haven't gotten outright artisitic with it or anything, however we do put alot of focus on high stock density and long recovery periods. That's the basis of planned grazing and soil improvement through livestock, so that's where we started. High stock density for us has been anywhere from 150-275 cows on 10-80 acre paddocks from May 1st to August 1st. After that we've historically split cows into breeding groups(my narrow-minded thinking that purebred cows have to be that way), and grazed them on 80-320 pastures.

When we first started rotational grazing, I was disappointed because when we brought cattle back to a paddock for a 2nd grazing, there wasn't much growth there. I didn't realize that in our climate, very sandy soil conditions with low organic matter and pH, we have to give more rest, because it takes our forages 80-120 days to fully recover. Fully recovered constitutes plants that have flowered or even set seed. So now, we graze paddocks or cells once per season, and also bank about 1/3 of our total pasture for fall, winter and spring grazing.

I find that banking or fogging does wonders for a grass stand, mainly because roots get a chance to grow down and out into the soil profile, greatly improving structure and moisture retention. The other large benefit, is natural reseeding. When the species in your stand get to reseed themselves one year in 3 or 4, you maintain a thick healthy stand of forage that will have little to no bare ground. I'm a firm believer that if this was practiced more often, grass managers would have no excuse to rip up land and reseed it mechanically every 5 years. Lots of people around here think they need to do that on legume pastures. All that's really happened, is they cut hay off the fields, and then grazed the regrowth, year after year, mining the nutrients from the soil without putting enough back to replenish it.

I agree with GF 100% about a profit potential in early-spring grazing. We trail cows from our bale or swath grazing paddocks back out to the banked grass in the hills April 1st. We then bring them to smaller pastures mid-May to start calving.
 
I just read an interesting article in RANGE magazine about Allan Savory and his approach to holistic grazing. Pretty hard to do on goverment allotments and the big chunks of country we run cows on though. The system sure seemed to have worked well where it was applied. I'd imagine that extreme climate changes and snow depth would have a huge effect on how things go. We rest/rotate pastures as were are told by the BLM or Forest Service. Someday after i win the lottry and buy a bunch of my own ground I'd love to try it out! :wink:
 
Northern Rancher said:
My youngest stand of seeded pasture is 17-18 years old-I doubt I'll ever be buying grass seed again unless I luck into some more ground.
Click to expand...

Same here... far too expensive mainly. Our seeded pasture is on ridge tops that never should have been cleared. They dry out terribly and become a prime target of grass hoppers. It would have been far better to leave it native and controll the brush by burning. Bush country if burnt well stays parky, and with the shade of the trees holds moisture very well.
 
Grassfarmer said:
Your chicken manure may help but what does that do to heavy metal levels, minerals etc?

The second question is one of curiosity - how much can you utilise banked grass in your climate - are you too wet in the fall/winter or does it dry out like here in the west? quote]

If you apply heavy amounts of chicken manure for long periods of time you can get a excessive amounts of calcium, phosphorus and potassium. I have not seen any indication of heavy metal challenges. The native grass species are not suited for banking for winter use. I am trying to extend my grazing season into December before having to feed stored feed.
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In Michigan we are dependent on weather condtions. Spring to early june brings abundent grass, too much so as to keep it grazed. This year turn out was late because of cold conditions, as with most of everyone else. Our management has changed from rotational grazing on our ground, to rented ground, with stocking at 3 ac/pair, this seems to work. It is cheaper for us to build our ground for hay and silage, this keeps transportation costs low. Typically we feed from Jan 1 to may 1, turnout on rented ground june 1 to nov 1 graze banked grass, rye, turnips and oats, and corn stalks till jan 1. Rye turnips & oats are planted aug or sept, corn stalks are neihbors in exchange for hunting on our ground. Last year 2 feet of snow in early dec screwed the plan up. We keep the pencil sharp and adapt.
 
We use a combination of tight rotational grazing, swath grazing and we graze a lot of native range that has been somewhat subdivided, depending on terrain and use. We use a lot of rest deferred and winter grazing (November, December, January) on our native range as part of our plan since it reduces our costs, prevents overgrazing (a frozen plant is not regrowing), and let's us use the whole pasture more evenly. We don't let anything touch native range until July at the earliest and we try to get into August if we can.
We started rotational grazing with electric fence around 1983 or so and it has been a good way to improve certain types of land and forage. Terrain can be somewhat limiting to ambition at our place.
We use bale grazing and stockpiled tame forage as part of our plan too.
Like several on here, we have not seeded grass in the last 15-20 years or so, we haven't used commercial fertilizer and we have sprayed one crop of swath grazing in the last 10.
It seems like the grass keeps getting better under the plan, and we still think the plan has a long way to go.
For us the biggest thing has been to clearly define what we want our grass and our production to look like. Different strokes for different folks so to speak. Starting with the end in mind solves a lot of problems about what to do.
 
Has anyone experimented with High density stocking on the western range? I as thinking of a one day paddock with the whole herd for animal impact and rest. This need only be one paddock not the whole ranch divided this way.
 
During the "fastest" part of the growing season we keep our stock density up to move 4 to 7 days. I am personally too busy or lazy to move mobs more often than that.
 
per said:
During the "fastest" part of the growing season we keep our stock density up to move 4 to 7 days. I am personally too busy or lazy to move mobs more often than that.
Click to expand...
That to me is the "holistic" part. Balancing land and labour. We move about every three days but this year in drought we shrunk our paddocks down and moved every two. This had the effect of actually lengthening the time it took us to get around the whole pasture and gave more time for regrowth. With a once annual grazing strategy I think once a week or even every two weeks is probably not too bad of a system as long as you hit the paddocks at slightly different times every year.
 
RSL said:
per said:
During the "fastest" part of the growing season we keep our stock density up to move 4 to 7 days. I am personally too busy or lazy to move mobs more often than that.
Click to expand...
That to me is the "holistic" part. Balancing land and labour. We move about every three days but this year in drought we shrunk our paddocks down and moved every two. This had the effect of actually lengthening the time it took us to get around the whole pasture and gave more time for regrowth. With a once annual grazing strategy I think once a week or even every two weeks is probably not too bad of a system as long as you hit the paddocks at slightly different times every year.
Click to expand...
I chose to graze a quarter section of the grain farm instead of shortening the grazing period. Has allowed me to build more banked winter grass and play with the rotation. Desperate time do juice up the creativity.
 
PureCountry said:
... however we do put alot of focus on high stock density and long recovery periods.
Click to expand...

Is there a way to calculate amount of grass in a paddock figuring an average cow might eat about 25/26 lbs a day? From this I could figure how many could be stocked per paddock.
 
Liveoak said:
PureCountry said:
... however we do put alot of focus on high stock density and long recovery periods.
Click to expand...

Is there a way to calculate amount of grass in a paddock figuring an average cow might eat about 25/26 lbs a day? From this I could figure how many could be stocked per paddock.
Click to expand...

You can do lots of fancy things. There are some good height tools available, but the best way is just experience. We record numbers, weights and dates in and out. We use that to calculate animal grazing days per acre, per paddock, per cell, etc. It gives us a pretty good idea of what to expect year to year.
 
RSL said:
Liveoak said:
PureCountry said:
... however we do put alot of focus on high stock density and long recovery periods.
Click to expand...

Is there a way to calculate amount of grass in a paddock figuring an average cow might eat about 25/26 lbs a day? From this I could figure how many could be stocked per paddock.
Click to expand...

You can do lots of fancy things. There are some good height tools available, but the best way is just experience. We record numbers, weights and dates in and out. We use that to calculate animal grazing days per acre, per paddock, per cell, etc. It gives us a pretty good idea of what to expect year to year.
Click to expand...
Go take a Jim Gerrish course. I like using his stick sometimes but there is no replacement for years of experience. Sometimes I will cut a swath and bale it and do the math. That is as accurate as it gets.
 
per said:
RSL said:
Liveoak said:
Is there a way to calculate amount of grass in a paddock figuring an average cow might eat about 25/26 lbs a day? From this I could figure how many could be stocked per paddock.
Click to expand...

You can do lots of fancy things. There are some good height tools available, but the best way is just experience. We record numbers, weights and dates in and out. We use that to calculate animal grazing days per acre, per paddock, per cell, etc. It gives us a pretty good idea of what to expect year to year.
Click to expand...
Go take a Jim Gerrish course. I like using his stick sometimes but there is no replacement for years of experience. Sometimes I will cut a swath and bale it and do the math. That is as accurate as it gets.
Click to expand...
I agree with both of you...no substitute for experience. I think Jim has a new book out.
 
Thanks for the information! I'll check out the stick measurement idea and Jim's new book. Might have to use a little trial and error to figure stocking rate.
 

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