any ideas for converting to rotational grazing?

I am moving cattle daily and have come to like the results. The cattle need to be check on daily and the move only adds a few minutes. I am not mob grazing as to my understanding of the mob approach. There is a lot of forage remaining after the 24 hours of grazing. What I observe is the there is a faster regrowth where little regrowth would be expected. The trampling and manuring of the forage is reduced and manure is more uniformly distributed. The cattle seem more content and seem to sense that they can graze and digest at leisure. My herd has been culled of difficult cattle but they are calmer with the frequent moves. I also see that I am creating a lot more forage for future consumption. Our rains come in the Spring and Fall and we also have dry July and August months. These two months are the most difficult for me to get through as there is no irrigation and it is hard to stockpile anything with any nutrient value during these months. Fortunately, the energy needs are low at this time of year. My entire on hand amount of hay is 50 bales so I get concerned. Having a questionable period for feed is what has prompted me to plant the Red River Crabgrass. I have also tried pearl millet. The best success has thus far been with the fescue which is difficult to believe if one is familiar with fescue which is known as a cool season grass. We do get a lot of dew at night. I have learned that I can benefit from the dew in early Summer if I keep the fescue from reaching maturity. I also use the dew in late August provided I can get enough moisture off a hurricane going up the east coast to sprout seed. I try to jumpstart the Fall growth and that is something you may try to get some grazing before corn is harvested. I read now that a round bale has $46 worth of fertilizer in one. I have ceased to do any land prep to speak of and I am overseeding 100%. I can overseed quickly and cheaply so I use part of the savings to apply a higher seed rate. My best overseeding results come from broadcasting the seed and then clipping the grass and thus mulching the seed. That is how I got those stands of clover. I am now letting the cattle consume the clover and distribute the seed through their digestive system. I often try to have something working for me when I am not working! I think the previous sentence is why I like rotational grazing. Did you get a good grasp on the parallel layout of the paddock fencing and the use of the polywire and step in pigtail posts? I am the only one I know of doing this and it has merit. For example, today when I went to move the cattle I observed that they had not consumed the forage adequately that was allocated yesterday. Today I only gave them 2/3rds as much but allowed them to back graze yesterdays forage if they wanted to. Being flexible with the amount of area allocated can work wonders in conserving forage or in meeting the cattles needs. I never want cattle on a single paddock for more than 3 days. I believe that you would pick up enough benefit to do the variable paddock sizing to justify the effort. In so doing you would have the benefits of doubling the paddocks also. Think this proposal through and if you have any questions just ask. I do not like small paddocks and they are inefficient when it come time to run trucks and tractors across the pastures. I have taken a lot of wire down as I started making smaller paddocks early on replicating what I read. Ideally in my mind, the best system would be two parallel fences 300 to 500 feet apart running for miles with a lane on one side and water every 1600 feet in the lane.

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

bruce2288,
I cannot give you a good answer on the days to 550 with the frame 3 and 4 cows. To do year around grazing the cows have to be moderate milkers in order not to lose body condition and to breed back timely. Different areas produce livestock that grow at different rates. For example, deer here do not get the size they do in colder climates. The same for cattle. As you may have read I calve year around and I am a poor record keeper when it comes to the gain. I market calves around 4 times per year to avoid the flooded seasonal lows usually associated with the sales of either Spring or Fall calves. 550# is my target but if grass is getting scarce I may send 450# with the shipment. All the calves leave here and with the price of fuel I get a higher price for the light weights because they can get more on the trucks. If I don't have a good load but have a surplus of grass I may postpone shipping for 4 to 6 weeks and let them gain more. I do monitor what my calves bring at the sale and I can say that they always sell in the top 10% or better. If I have a calf that gets discounted, I send the mother the next trip. I do cull rather hard IMO. Regardless of what I paid for the bull(s) if the offspring is not up to expectation I send the bulls
also.

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

You all should check out the article by Greg Judy in this months stockman grass farmer. It's very interesting and at odds with a few things posted here on Saturday.

By the way, I use parallel high tensile with polywire and pigail posts. It's true that the ease of paddock size changes is invaluable!

__________________
www.franciscanfamilyfarms.com
Chaffee, Mo

Agmantoo,
A few questions for you, particularly about grass going to seed. We have just purchased nearly 16 acres of pasture land adjacent to our current 11; this land has not been grazed since November and some of it is literally near shoulder height, most I'd say is mid-calf to waist high. It has coastal bermuda, some bahia, with the rest a mix of native grasses with a fair amount of little bluestem (still working on identification of others), unfortunately it has no clover on it. We have seep springs on parts of this land, so some of it is still green. However, we are in the midst of a terrible drought (East-Central Texas)...we haven't had decent rainfall since early June (3/4"), and temps for the last few weeks have been at or over 100.

Much of the grass has seed heads. Should we cut the seed heads and perhaps the grass? I'm concerned about pink-eye, on one hand, but also the quality of the pastures if it's that high and we turn our cattle out into it uncut. I'm also pretty sure this grass is going dormant due to the drought, but if cutting the seed heads would delay that we really need the graze. Even with just a small herd of Dexters (12) our 11 acres is getting pretty run down, and only the areas near creeks (dry now) or our stock tank are somewhat green. We're pumping water from our well into our stock tank to fight evaporation. We're holding our own, but gaining no ground. I want to manage that 16 acres as best we can to get us through this drought, and give the 11 acres a rest.

I also have a question about wild persimmons. The new 16 acres has scores of the darn things, most about 2-3 feet high. We've battled them on our 11 acres (previous owners mowed them, so we're always searching for the "stumps" as you mentioned above - they're dangerous). Our neighbor suggested Remedy; I'd like to go a more natural route, though. Would just cutting them to the ground kill them, or are we pretty much stuck with chemicals?

Thank you!

wstevenl
I do not subscribe to Stockman Grass Farmer and can only read the headlines for this month. Any chance you could post the article? Thanks

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

SusyTX,
Forage plants that I am familiar with exhibit one characteristic in that their sole purpose is to maintain the existence of the species by reproduction. Once the plants go to seed they either go dormant or die. My main forgage is endophyte infected fescue which is considered a cool or cold season grass. Few people realize that with water this fescue will remain green in zone 7 year around. It will actually grow at a reduced rate but it will grow. The bulk of the lawns here are sown with fescue. Those lawns that are on sprinkler systems exhibit significant growth at times when unirrigated pastures are parched. As far as your question on how to deal with your grasses I am not familiar enough with Bermuda grass to reply. My thoughts are that you are too far into the season and that with all the top residue you could do more harm than good. My concern is what will happen to the stalks, stems, blades that would be cut. With the weather dry the residue is not going to rot timely. The underlying plants are going to be choked out by the buildup. At this time I think you will get more use by letting the cattle harvest what they can and take the risk of contributing to pinkeye. Once the cattle have salvaged what they can I would start running the bushhog. I would cut the area several times starting high so the clippings would be short and thus contributing to their decomposing. There is another solution. I have not fed it but there is a liquid protein that can be lick tank provided that the cattle will consume and it makes them want to eat roughage. This process could aid you in getting through the drought and at the same time get the roughage consumed. As for the persimmons, the best practice I have used to get rid of sprouts is to put the dullest blades you can find on the Bushhog and then beat the sapling low causing the bark to burst loose below the impact spot of the blade. Don't concern yourself it the sapling is not sheared as the top will further stress the plant as it tries to survive. This process will literally sap the root to death. It may take more than one cutting/bashing but it works. This is best done in late spring as the plant is trying to grow its greatest. I would start now even though the timing isn't optimum. You certainly do not want them getting larger. If you have a problem with cedars cut them below the bottom limb and they will die.

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

Yes, I have 2 horses, an adult milk cow, her heifer and now 4 Holstein steer calves (2 that are in the rotation and 2 that are not) in about 2 1/2 acres of pasture (property is 3 acres in all, but not all is in pasture). For now, each class has to stay separated. So, I rotated the milk cow through several of the paddocks first, followed by either the horses or the 2 steer calves. The heifer has 2 larger paddocks that she stays in. Until she is back with her mother (she is a bottle fed future milk cow and needs to be totally weaned from Mom), it was going to be too much of a challenge to get her well into the rotation. I put the cow on a fresh paddock every other day, since the paddocks are way more than enough for one cow (about 30'x70' +/-). I kept a sacrifice area for the horses to stay in at night. I rotated them through behind the cow. I found that if I left the cow on a paddock more than 2 days her milk production would drop, and now that the grass is gone it has dropped more permanently even though I have increased her hay a great deal. Fresh grass just makes more milk.
I was able to cut the horse hay by at least half during the best part of the grass growth and the cow was cut completely off of the grass hay and only give a very small amount of alfalfa (she also gets a small amount of grain at milking time). I would say during the 8-10 weeks that I had good grazing and was rotating, I saved a couple hundred dollars in hay and I didn't spend more than that to buy my extra fencing that I will use many many years.
As I said, we will be moving in a couple of months. I am taking all my temporary fencing with me, so I won't have that part of the investment to make again. I only wish I had started this process years ago. I would be so much farther along in the learning curve. But at least I have a start, and I know this is the way to go...even with horses in the mix. On a larger property, I would probably put 5 acres aside for the horses, but I would still divide it up and move them to fresh each day. Just the amount of money it has saved me in the very short time this spring was amazing. The way I used to do things, I got MAYBE 2 weeks of time that I didn't have to feed the horses full feed.
Agman, thank you very much for sharing your experiences with all of us. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it. It really gave me that last little push to make it happen here.
Blessings,
Trisha

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Trisha in WA
Visit my blog @
Diamond Belle Ranch

What else does a man have to do in his short time here on earth than build soil and feed people~Forerunner

SusyTX
I wouldn't recommend mowing. In a drought situation you want to utilize what you have. With timely rain all of your grasses should grow some yet. Protein supplement and rotational grazing will help to better utilize the mature forage on the new pasture.

I have three links here from Oklahoma State Extension about protein supplementation that may help you. http://pods.dasnr.okstate.edu/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-1924/ANSI-3010web.pdf, Supplementing Beef Cows, http://pods.dasnr.okstate.edu/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-2014/ANSI-3017.pdf, Feeding High Protein Range Cubes http://pods.dasnr.okstate.edu/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-2042/ANSI-3032web.pdf, Oklahoma Gold Q&A

Here is the link to the Oklahoma Beef Extention web site I got the links from, http://beefextension.com/index.html

Thanks Agmantoo and Allen W., you've both pretty much said what my gut was telling me. If we did cut the grass it would most likely go to waste and weigh heavy on the pasture, but as long as it's upright it's available to our cattle as badly needed graze as they need it. I do appreciate your guidance.

We'll keep fighting the persimmons by cutting, thanks. I've been out there with loppers doing it one at a time, we had one heifer get a nasty 4" scratch above her hoof from contact with a leftover stump from mowing done by previous owners.

We've been supplementing with protein cubes mostly as a treat, square bales as needed, and have put out a protein tub, thanks. This is our normal winter method, it's amazing we need to do this now. Our forecast is for 100 plus all this week with a minimal chance of rain. Our livestock auctions have been full of people sending stock off early, hay is becoming scarce, and stock tanks are drying up. I'm so grateful we have that 16 acres of pasture. We're hoping El Nino gives us a bit of rain.

Thanks again for your guidance!!!!!

[QUOTE=agmantoo;3911079]. The same thing will happen if the cattle are allowed to spoil the tall grass by trampling. The stems will be slow to rot and will shade the ground creating bare spots later.

This is a little of my problem. I got a late start by getting my cattle in late May. Grass was tall and coarse. They ate it down and I mowed it after. Lots of residue was laying on top and the coarser material (that probably wasn't their favorite) is what grew back faster. It greened up pretty well so I sent them on another trip after about 30 days. I'm hoping the second trimming will encourage a little more clover and tender grasses. I think it's risky because I should be stockpiling something now but I want to be stockpiling the good stuff. Hopefully when I have them right from April next year and I'm smarter I'll get the proper moves in at the proper time. The bright side is that where their urine and dung fell last things are looking much better. Hopefully the pasture improves in time and increase carrying capacity.

Ed K,

Where are you located?

There are some rotational grazing "experts" that will disagree with the statement you quoted of mine. My hands on real world findings just do not agree with theirs which state that it is great to let the cattle soil the grass and to waste forage as it creates a better environment for regrowth,etc. My findings are that it wastes good forage and weakens the stands of desirable plants. I prefer for the recycled material to be available as manure and some added weight in the form of meat. Your comments substantiate what I observe. To remedy the situation, I would leave things as they are until the weather in your area is suitable for planting some forages. I would obtain the seed in advance and when conditions are suitable I would broadcast sow a clover and a grass by overseeding, do not disturb the soil, then I would cut short (6 to 8 inches high) the residue from what exists of the coarse material that is growing now. This will somewhat mulch the seed creating a seedbed. I plan on sowing some crimson clover at the end of next month and possibly some Marshall ryegrass, the ryegrass only if the fescue has bare spots from being smothered and I will blend some fescue in with the ryegrass.

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

I'm in western PA. It has been unseasonably cool here for July only reaching the high 70's in the daytime. Up until about two weeks ago it has been more wet than usual for June and July. That's what I think is saving me from the grass going dormant. Some of my property is in a narrow strip of creek bottom sheltered by two steep treelined hills which will probably make my best August pasture once my forage improves unfortunately I had to run the cowa through there in the last two weeks just to harvest what was there before the weeds grew away from it. I've been scything the previous days paddocks to knochk the weeds back and hopefully encourage desirable forage. When I used to mow this area several times a year it looked pretty good so I feel confident I can improve things in time. The herd consists of a mom and her Sepetember calf so far so I can be flexible and feed hay if I have to or wait for things to improve. I plan to overseed with grass and clover in September

Thanks

Ed K
If you have access to a rotary cutter I want to change my mind based on your location and the weather. I suggest that ASAP to clip the grass at the top of the leaves. If the grass is waist high possibly clip it twice to get down to the leaves and to have a better distribution of the residue. This will get rid of or prevent a lot of weeds problems and still give the grass a few weeks to recover. With rain this will get you some August growth and will prepare for September regrowth for the start of saving grass for stockpiling as well as Fall grazing.

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

Ed K, I realized when I moved the cattle today I was at the location where the cattle were grazing when godsgapeach visited the beef farm. It has been 4 weeks plus since we had rain. We were fortunate enough to get some rain in the wee hours of this morning. I used my usual procedures to try to maximize the forage. I am attaching two pics, one of the just grazed paddock (last 24 hours) and another of the adjacent allocation with the cattle just given access. If you get started and maintain a clipping schedule your pastures should look the same next season.

Just grazed over the last 24 hours, part of the new paddock can be seen on the left side of the pic.


New adjacent paddock to be grazed over the next 24 hours

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

Agmantoo, To answer your ? I do have the concepts of the lanes down. Your flat pastures are very different from my grazing. Rough hills and draws. The local fertilizer dealer will not run equipment on most pastures in my area. Shredding pasture is very hit and miss just too rough and steep. So truck, tractor traffic is a nonissue for me. Bruce

Agmantoo,
I could not find Greg Judy's most recent article in the SGF, nor do I know if it would be legal for me to type it up for you. I did find a little older article that has the same subject matter.
http://www.acresusa.com/toolbox/reprints/May09_Judy.pdf

You're right (on the top of this page) that some of the "experts" have a different opinion on the effect of litter. In the most recent article my Judy it's pretty clear that you must have an environment that encourages soil microbes other tiny bugs or you will have a mulch instead of new soil. Judy wrote that wormer, pesticides, and many fertilizers would kill off these soil builders. He also said that it takes his pastures about 4 weeks for the grasses to start shooting up through the litter. He's rotating every 120-150 days though.

For a long time I didn't know what to tell people when they said "you can't not fertilize. You need NPK because it's being taken away and something has to put it back." Well, building soil through manure and grass litter, being broken down by microbes seems like the missing link to me. This seems like the explanation of why you can in fact make it without industrial fertilizer.

We have had varying success with our attempt at mob grazing so far. For the most part, the areas that were very tall and beautiful, and grazed/trampled very evenly are bouncing back wonderfully. There are however "dead" spots that I can't explain. They don't seem to be where there was excess forage litter. Many of the spots look like the size of a cow and made me wonder if it could be where they laid and the body heat killed the forage. (That sounds pretty stupid though) These spots are slowly filling it with volunteer warm grasses and the clover is creeping back into them so in the end it will all work out.

So, after reading Judy's article I'd like to hear your thoughts. He sounds like all of his advice is coming from real world experience, for what it's worth.

Oh... one more thing. When I saw Joel Salatin last year he said that he had just been to Greg Judy's farm the day before and while they are both now doing "MOB" grazing he was shocked by the amount of litter that Judy's cows were leaving on the ground. We asked him what he thought of it and he said that he hadn't had time to process it yet. It made his eyes bug out though. lol :-)

__________________
www.franciscanfamilyfarms.com
Chaffee, Mo

Wstevenl, Thanks for the link to the article by Greg Judy. Here where I reside I have 161 acres of pasture for forage production. I do not have any hired or intern help. I do not charge for seminars nor visits to my farm. I do not have to promote any new ideas nor come up with a gimmick to get publicity/exposure. Cattle are not the side line and income from speeches and articles do not exist. If I make any money from rotational grazing it is income from the cattle and them alone. Having said that I feel that I am as in touch with what works as well or better than most because I am in there every day. I do consider myself open to new or different approaches and ideas or I would not be doing the rotational grazing. I am running the herd 365 days /year on the forage produced on these pastures, there is no hay. From what I read Judy is not going through the Winter on stockpiled feed. Obviously he has more acres per cow/calf available to him than I have and most of the other persons I speak with. This acreage I have is bought by me and not leased at a low price from others. I do not have the luxury of spanning 150 days between grazing an area. I cannot let paddocks grow up in cockleburs as in the photo in the article. If letting a pasture revert to nature and then demolishing the volunteer trash of said pasture would build ground every farmer in the nation would be fighting over abandoned waste land. What Judy promotes will not stand over the test of time. His best forages will be eaten to the ground and stressed. Then those stressed plants will have to compete with the trash plants that were just trampled in order to reemerge. In 3 to 5 years there will be nothing but saplings and weeds. The strongest of the plants will dominate and it will not be the desired forage plants. I tried to caution you on letting the plants build excessive thatch and I suggested for you to distribute the manure pats. I think you were displeased by my suggestions and to offend was not my intent. Having read the same article that you did I can understand your position. Free advice is often perceived to be inferior to paid for or published advice and I do not charge.

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

So, in a round about way, are you trying to say that because Judy makes so much money from sales of books and classes he needs to do something different than all the others and that is why he's mob grazing?
He does have some (sarcasm) interest in it actually working because it would increase book sales, plus the rest of his income in grass fed beef/lamb/ pastured pork sales.

You said that you don't have as many acres/cow. All the numbers I've ever read suggest improved cows/acre with mob grazing not the opposite.

Greg Judy is grazing year round on stockpiled forage.. He said that he was still grazing stockpiled tall forage halfway into March this year and on this, his 4th year of high density grazing he will be adding about 20% to his cow herd because there was so much extra forage this winter. He doesn't hay his cows or sheep at all. You believe his pastures will fall apart in 3/5 years? I guess his book sales and on farm grazing schools will loose their demand. lol

On spreading our manure piles.... we just don't have the capital to invest in a tractor and borrowing a tractor can only be done so often before you run out of friends. :-) The cow pats don't seem to be a problem so far.

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www.franciscanfamilyfarms.com
Chaffee, Mo

Wstevenl, Judy has a seminar at his farm that 'only' costs $800 in September, what earth shattering information do you think you would learn there that you won't learn from Agmantoo's suggestions?

Will Judy answer your questions without some sort of payment?

Many people in the country don't know about this thread... some will actually pay $800 to learn I guess. More power to him. I've not tried to reach him. Only seen him speak once on grazing sheep year round and read his articles. I've not actually given him money directly. Just went to a conference and I get the SGF in the mail. I know..... I am paying him indirectly.

Why are we starting to argue about another guy that rotates cattle every day to new pasture, year round? We all agree on 90% of this stuff.

__________________
www.franciscanfamilyfarms.com
Chaffee, Mo