any ideas for converting to rotational grazing?

On my poorest stands of fescue I sow 6 to 8 lbs of rye grass and roughly 10 lbs of fescue Ky 31 per acre. If I drill I sow the lower rate and if broadcasting I sow the higher rate. The amount of existing fescue and the quality of the soil impact the rates sown also. Rye grass seed is cheap and I find it comforting to know that I will have additional grazing in the Spring. The rye grass will out perform the fescue in the early Spring but the fescue will be producing when the heat has stressed rye grass as Summer arrives. I find that annual rye grass will often reestablish itself on my place. I am uncertain if as to whether it is from seed or root survival. This volunteer rye grass will become apparent before what I sow.

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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!

Agmantoo,I'm sure I learned from you how to calculate this, somewhere in here

I think that would put your pasture in a death spiral. If you overgraze it's not terrible, if you're aware of it and remove the animals so that it has time to recover. If you let them keep going back to graze the plants before they recover, regrowth will be delayed significantly. The growth in my pastures starts 3 weeks ahead of my neighbors. I think I can continue to improve that head start as the soil quality increases.

What I was saying about letting them have the whole field was a negative thing I meant to imply that I USED to do.
I have stockpiled winter pasture for years but still not seen any real improvement in the pasture, I believe simply for that reason. I finally realized you can overgraze in the winter same as other times of year.

Oh. Good. My mistake!

So y'all saw the worst part of my place. Here's the better part.

ok, November here in NC, now what?...we have over seeded whatever we could...we still have some grass and the cows are looking very good, we will continue to rotate...no rain for awhile so I am not sure how long the good grass will be there...well I mean until it is eaten off....then what???

I would like to only feed hay when we have nothing else...or should I hold them up now in a paddock that needs work and feed some hay?
when feeding hay should they just be confined to one area?...
I think sowing anything else now would not be good?....I have some clover to sow in with fescue for early spring...maybe some frost seeding...we have weed work to be done in the spring as well.....I think we are beating back some of the 'stickweed'....some....

I would love a winter review of good practices...for improving soil/pastures even during the 'down' season...and for when the stockpiled grasses are eaten..and if someone can send some rain that would be wonderful....

Make sure you don't let them eat it off lower than 4".

If the grass is shorter than optimum, I'd feed the hay now to let it grow. Remember, the longer the grass is, the faster it grows - up to a point. I'm basing this on the assumption that you will still have some growth before it gets too cold.

I'm feeding hay on some of the paddocks now, the end with no shade. This is the end where horses use to run up and down, so it's hard packed and almost devoid of good grass anyway. I'm timing it so they spend the nights there and really drop lots of paddies on it. Yes, they scalp it and I won't do that elsewhere for that reason. When the grass is gone for the year, they'll go to an area that I want to grow a garden in next year.

gwithrow

I am still in a very dry situation. My normally flowing all season streams remain dry ditches. However, I am managing to get some growth on fescue and sown annual rye grass. For November the weather is starting off colder than normal but we should get some growth on the cool season grasses until at least mid December. If I had grass that is 4 inches tall or taller I would hold the cattle off that grass and feed hay. If you feed this grass now it will be finished till Spring. IMO hay needs to be fed on sacrificial ground, ground that has little potential to provide any grazing until renovated. gwithrow, attempt to get an inventory of what grass you will have in January and February if you feed hay now, holding the grass till then. Expect the dormancy of the cool season grasses to break within the first 15 days of March so you may need to have some hay again for a short time. You will not want to stress the March starting to grow forage by grazing it too short.

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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!

Joel Salatin years ago started feeding hay on exposed rock shelves in his fields. I've walked his fields and today you can't find those shelves, the fields are lush unending grass.

You will not want to stress the March starting to grow forage by grazing it too short.
Agmantoo;
About the above sentence.....do you mean don't start grazing while it is too short...in other words wait untill it gets tall enough?

ycanchu2

Your interpretation is what I meant. IMO while the grass is attempting to get reestablished following the stress of Winter you will use up a lot of the root stored reserves and grazing to soon will further stress the plant causing a setback in growth and future potential.

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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!

agman,

I don't get to spend the time very often to read through this large thread. I've kept up with it through the years off and on though. I'm wondering if you've had to cut back on your stocking rate or find new innovative ways to do an "no grain, no hay" regimen now with the drought.

I've almost totally adapted to grass based but this continual, (three years below normal rainfall with last year being extreme) drought.

If I wasn't feeding hay now my very low stocking rate of bovine would be starving to death.
As well, without the multi species grazing with hairsheep and goats, my cattle would be looking at a bunch of noxious, unpallatable weeds.

I'm wondering if rotational grazing is working well for you now.

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Francismilker

"The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" James 5:16

I am still getting along OK. No hay or grain is being fed but the weather has tested my skills with rotational grazing and I still have Winter to contend with regarding feed. I have not reduced the headcount and I have sold a good number of calves this year and the prices have been the best ever. Fortunately we have been getting some heavy dews and the plants are getting some moisture through the foliage. My cows are in reasonable decent body condition and they are breeding and settling fine. Rye grass that I sowed recently is emerging and I remain optimistic going forth. My neighbors are liquidating their herd and another nearby producer has been feeding hay since August. I have given a lot of thought about the reoccurring droughts and I am now thinking that as producers we may need to have a stored reserve of hay to see us through the trying times. With the reserve of hay I also think I could increase my headcount by 20% and only feed a limited amount of hay. I have a surplus of forage in the Spring and into early Summer. I remain uncertain if this 20% in calves would offset the expense of the purchased hay but I am certain there would be merit in seeing the main herd through trying times. In 2007/2008 I cut the herd size and it took too long to recover. The monetary loss from the culling exceeded the value of the high priced hay that I should have purchased. This was a lesson that I did not want to learn! My outlook remains positive and I expect feeder calves to remain profitable.

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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!

On the flipside of keeping herd numbers up, I know a very wise, seasoned cattleman that has a herd of 200-225 mama cows at any one time. He is a good keeper of his land and you can tell by the way things look he works at it very diligently. He's not sitting around the coffee shop all day, he's making hay while the sun shines so to speak.

When I drive by his pastures I see cows standing in belly deep forage and have asked him many times why he doesn't stock up on numbers as he has the land to handle many more. His viewpoint that's been developed over the past few decades is that he never keeps more cattle than he can feed with standing forage during the most extreme drought conditions imaginable.

Now, with our three years worth of dry conditions, he's the one not buying out of state hay for inflated prices and still selling his calves every quarter. He doesn't put all of his eggs in one basket. He sells quarterly and absorbs the highs and lows of the market yet still has steady income.

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Francismilker

"The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" James 5:16

Francismilker, do you receive the Stockman Grass Farmer?

Yes, I get hand-me-down's from a neighbor.

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Francismilker

"The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" James 5:16

I have a question for this group regarding Bull vs AI. I am working on my small operation and expect to have around 12 momma's plus calves when I'm done. I had my mind pretty much set to AI with such a small group. However my uncle who is a lifelong cattle man kindly said I might want to think about that. He said he has had very good luck purchasing a young bull, using it for 4-5 years then selling it. He said he pretty much always gets more for the bull than he paid and it sure makes life easier having a bull running with the cattle rather than AI. He also feels the herd runs together better when led by a bull.

I understand the Bull will eat some grass, and could cost me a momma or two to stay within my carry capacity.

The other thing that comes to my mind is not every young bull is good. I do have my Uncle at my disposal to help pick them out and he does seem to go from one good bull to another. He also said that to his mind one problem with AI is catching the cow at the right time. If you miss a cycle that means every 9 misses is equal to one calf.

Other thoughts? What do you all think about this logic?

Thanks
Ed

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We are suffering from nature deficit disorder!

This month's edition has a good article on dealing with long term drought. It's written by Steven Lukefahr. He's got some similar info' on his site.

I've got a friend who's been wanting to put animals on his place. I'm trying to link a map of the farm, if this works, any input y'all have on set up would be great.

Scribble Maps - Draw on google maps with scribblings and more!

Red is the property line where the fence will be, blue is water. The lines are streams that, to his knowledge, run year 'round. The blue circles are sink holes that also have water year 'round. The sink hole water is clear and appears to be good, although I didn't taste it. There are fish in them. It's too steep to let the cattle drink directly from them though. Power is available at the house on the north side of the property. It's roughly 30-32 acres.

200-225 Cows.........how many acres?