pasture management?

[PATB]

How many acres per animal unit in your area? We are running 1 to 1 for pasture and 2 acres to 1 AUM for hayland. Still trying to improve the hayland since some of it was abused for years before we started haying it. I would like to spread some manure on the hayland if it ever dries out enough. We are lated to get a tropical storm this weekend with another 2 to 3 inches of rain.

 

[Grassfarmer]

How many acres per animal unit in your area? We are running 1 to 1 for pasture and 2 acres to 1 AUM for hayland. Still trying to improve the hayland since some of it was abused for years before we started haying it. I would like to spread some manure on the hayland if it ever dries out enough. We are lated to get a tropical storm this weekend with another 2 to 3 inches of rain.

Sorry, I'm not quite following your figures PATB I count mine in Animal Unit Days per acre (AUDs) rather than acres per AUM. From what you posted do I take it 1 acre of your pasture supports 1 cow for a month but your hay land only produces 50% of that? Those figures seem awfully low or do I misunderstand them?
We get huge variation here across the place because the land varies from good tame to poor tame, good productive bush to heavy bush and also the riparian which we choose to use a lot lighter.
Our best tame does around 100 AUD/acre but it's just touch and go if that is sustainable without depleting the stand. Poorer tame usually does in the 50-80AUD/acre with us but we still have some fields that are in the 30s AUD/acre By contrast the best bush pastures can do close to 60 whereas the heaviest treed areas only manage 12-15AUDs.
I find these rates are a constantly moving target field to field but overall on the place the average has just been creeping up slowly and sat around 60AUDs/acre last year. The drought this year will reduce that quite a bit. I should add that we use unadjusted AUDs (our cow herd averages 1250lb versus the 1000lb of the true AUD)

Like the other posters I just use experience, records and eyeball yield. I've been doing it since I was a kid and prefer to walk everywhere if possible when checking cows as you are in much closer contact with the ground and the grass. I think the measuring sticks turn off a lot of beginner pasture managers because they seem too complicated. I've seen their eyes glaze over when they hand them out at grazing courses!
With our system of banking grass to graze the following spring counting a fields yield becomes a little more complicated and has to be done retrospectively. For example we grazed some fields in 08 and only took 12-20Auds/acre off them and left them to graze in spring 09. This spring we took 150-175Auds/Acre off some of these fields - much of that was grown in 08 but it also included some fresh growth from 09 so I allocate yield to production year as I see fit. See now I'm trying to make it too complicated :roll: I'll quit now before someone beats me with their grazing stick :lol:

 

[andybob]

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.

Why not contact the International Centre for Holistic Management in NM and see who is practising Holistic management near you?
The parts of Texas I visited while living in the USA were similar to where I ranched in Rhodesia, we practised the Savory rotatational grazing system in the 70's and continued to work with Alan as he developed the Holistic program. I was in one of the most challanging ecosystems with a 5 month rainy season and a very fragile Kalahari bushveld environment that needed rapid movement of cattle and game during the summer growing season, and shorter periods on the brittle winter veld where the grass had been 'banked' during the late summer, plus our area is susceptible to grass fires in the dry winter months, so we always had to plan our winter grazing in seperate blocks so as to not lose it all in a single fire. All these factors have been incorperated in Alans' studies.

 

[Ben H]

I have been experimenting with higher density grazing this year and last, I have been doing more frequent moves (1-3 days), I have been trying to bring back fallow land and this year my cow herd is moved daily, a few times they were on a paddock for 1 1/2 to 2 days. The mistake I have made is returing too soon and not allowing the plant to fully re-grow. Part of that is due to the that fact that all my fields aren't together or cattle walking distance between them.