Rotational Grazing/Year in Review
 

i thought it might be helpful, to myself and others, to maybe discuss the things some of us may have learned over the past year. This being my first year doing IRG I've learned a lot and have a lot more to learn.
One of the mistakes I made this year was that I probably mowed/bushogged too much or at least I mowed too low a few times. Looking at the corners of my fields where I wasn't able to get to, the grass is bigger now than the rest of the field. i would like to hear from others what their learning experiences were and even from those who have been doing this along time.

What small bit of IRG I done this year was a horrible failure due to drought. IRG is good as long as there's rain and grass. When it don't rain, grass doesn't grow period.

I use the term MIG in order to put the emphasis on the management that's intensive. The grazing may or may not be. Now I'll get off of the :soap: :o

I was able to increase the herd #'s dramatically this year and wow, what a difference it made. They were so much easier to manage once I got the new cattle trained to the system! Because I'm leasing old hay ground, the only shade is on the edges of the fields, which means I had had to use long, thin strips with the few cattle I had. Now, it's somewhat more square and that makes it easier for the cattle to pass one another and reduces the creation of lanes.

Biggest mistake this year: leaving them in one spot for too long and forcing them to overgraze it.

Biggest success: increasing herd density up to 1,000,000 Lbs per acre briefly, 250,000 Lbs per acre consistently. That put a lot more litter on the soil surface and got excellent manure distribution. The following pic' is not the greatest, but it's the best I've got.

http://i414.photobucket.com/albums/p.../landmines.jpg

"What small bit of IRG I done this year was a horrible failure due to drought. IRG is good as long as there's rain and grass. When it don't rain, grass doesn't grow period."
francismilker
Are you interested in any thoughts or assistance or are you satisfied as is?

Drought has plagued me all Summer also. I posted a number of photos in the sticky above to share my drought experiences on rotational grazing and how my farm was impacted. I know that most of the farmers in my vicinity will be submitting for their insurance claims for crop losses. Whether the drought here was comparable to others will not be debated by me. My efforts are to share what occurred and how through intensive rotational grazing my pastures performed. I am the only farmer in my vicinity that is solely feeding off pasture at this time. We did get a 1/4 inch or so of rain a couple of days back and the response from the near dormant grass has been phenomenal The grass in the attached pic taken this afternoon is not as green as my phone camera indicates but I am proud of the growth regardless.
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...21223-1546.jpg

Things I learned this past years:

1) I need(ed) to start my rotations earlier and get ahead of the spring growth. I waited until it was all growing well to start back on the grazing rotation. It was mid-March when I started my rotations. I fed hay in the winter, because I didn't have sufficient stockpiled grass.

2) I should have grazed the grass I had last winter. I have a lot of annual ryegrass and it shaded out some areas of perennial grass in the late winter and early spring. I should have rotated through those areas in the winter and kept that grass a little shorter. This is similar to item #1, in that I should have been grazing off the extra forage all winter.

3) I need to be more careful when rain is expected. I had an area completely ripped up and it did not come back this year. I put them in the area just before a big rain and when I moved them from it, the area was a slopply muddy mess. I am just now seeing sprouts from some grass I planted there last fall.

Next year will be my first year with one herd all year. In the past I always had a bull and tried to have a breeding season. Now I am doing AI and will not have any bulls. I am hoping 1 herd will save labor and make my grass last longer!

That's interesting. We had a week of rain and the cattle were in a low lying spot, I continued to move every 24 hrs and by the time they came through next (3 months) you could hardly see it unless you were looking straight down. If you don't have established perennials it would probably be worth it to spread seed in those wet times.

this was year two for us, and it was better than year one...

we need to keep more pressure on the paddocks, when the cows are there....more cows per smaller areas...we are redesigning some of the pastures to be able to do this better..

we are breeding for a more moderate sized animal...and keeping only the slickest, best performing animals....gradually increasing the numbers...

we will do soil tests this winter and be ready for spring

we have to be more proactive on getting rid of the noxious weeds, like yellow crownbeard...hopefully we will jump on it earlier next year...

smaller paddocks hopefully will lesson the need for bush hogging following the cows...

so far I really like the spring gates hooked to t posts...easy to open and close off the lanes...we can run our paddock lines easily and close them off when we are finished...I love the slide on t post insulators...the best for t posts so far....

nite guard blinkers and fence flags, the K clips, have really helped with deer damage to semi permanent lines...

keeping a daily journal has been really helpful, we mark any rainfall or other weather, we track our rotation noting anything at all unusual...as well as births or unusual behaviors...or suspected predators...just observing the cows behavior has taught us a lot...we also make notes about any needed repairs to fencing or deer damage...trees down etc....this journaling takes less than a minute a day....the charts are copied in Jan for the year....

I have finally realized that no one else can tell us the 'best' way to do this...we have to jump in there and just do it....then we can revise...and finally the advice here has been worth a great deal...thank you all

This was a thunderstorm that dumped several inches in a very short time on already saturated ground. The cows were on a fairly steep hill (little top soil and a lot of rocks). The stocking density wasn't a problem at any other time. The next morning it was soup muddy - not just the normal trampled and muddy. I got them off it immediately, but the damage was done. You can see the line I moved the cows to the next day still. That paddock was brown all summer and fall. It is just starting to come back now.

Grass has been seeded! I have reseeded several areas last fall that the ryegrass has taken over. I plan to graze these areas short and keep them short this winter and early spring. I will try to get off them early April and May and hope those perennials can come back in between then and a June/July grazing. I find ryegrass to be very competitive in the early spring and late winter. If it is not grazed, it will out compete established perennials that I have. At least that is how it works here. I hope I don't end up overgrazing the paddocks this winter and killing the perennials I have left. Then I will be writing that next year.

I guess that may be true with the ryegrass, however I found with the perennials such as fescue and orchardgrass that letting them go as long as possible or until they started heading out, gives it a bigger root system or more staying power. The perennials are not constantly trying to go to seed like the ryegrass does. Clipping the fescue seedheads a time or two maybe all the clipping that needs to be done other than some weed problem spots.
I thought I needed to mow after every rotation all summer and get every thing evened back up, but I don't think so.

i'm not a cattleperson, just have some rabbits very small scale, but have read some good things the aussies are doing with tree fodder to sustain their herds through prolonged droughts. it might be worth looking in to, for those that own land.

Tree fodder - funny you should mention that - I am feeding my 45 bales of hay now letting my pasture get some growth that it lacked due to drought. The cattle have access to a mostly pine thicket that needs thinning so a couple of times per week I go in and hack down a few pine trees to thin the thicket. The cattle are loving the pine needles and will leave a fresh bale of hay to come eat the pine trees I chop down.

The quantity only amounts to a few mouth fulls per cow.

This is my 4th (I think) winter with MIG. I am still increasing my herd size by retaining all heifers and I have 6 yearling steers still. I don't think I would have had to feed hay had we gotten some rain during the fall but I'm basically in the same zone as Agmantoo so that really hurt. I had purchased the hay after the spring cutting not knowing how the year would turn out so I would have fed them hay anyway but now I'm glad I had it.

I wish I would have sown annual rye grass as I have said I would try for the last 2 years but I simply have not taken the time to do so yet. I grazed too hard on this last rotation hoping that the rain would come but it didn't until a couple of weeks ago. Lucky for me my temp's are mild and the fescue is still growing so once I run out of hay, then stick them in my woods to do clean-up - the pastures should be ready to go back into rotation

I will have fed hay for 45 days then 14 days of woods for a break of roughly 60 days.

I think my big lesson for this year is I should really keep some fescue and annual rye grass seed on hand to over-seed damaged areas immediately after the cows move off.

I think my big lesson for this year is I should really keep some fescue and annual rye grass seed on hand to over-seed damaged areas immediately after the cows move off.
SCRancher
I do exactly that. I have both ryegrass and fescue seed on hand at this time but will be ordering more tomorrow. I use the broadcast seeder mounted on my four wheeler and seed often on damaged areas. Doing this effort works rather decently. The drought we experienced has had a lasting impact and I will also drill some hard hit areas when the timing is right. Fescue seed will be expensive in the Spring if available. Best to get it now!

So doing a little math, that's sounding like 250 to 1000 animals per acre, roughly, which is amazing. I own just one acre and it seems really hard to imagine. Seems like 250 animals on one acre for even a day would turn it into a swamp or a desert, depending on the climate. Are those numbers right? That would be pretty cool to see, I think!

Laura, keep in mind that I said "briefly"! It's dangerous to run that high of a density because as you say, you can destroy that spot quickly unless you move them right on time. It works great to trample in a lot of litter and pound out weeds. The grass recovers from trampling much easier than weeds. This shot of them doesn't look very impressive because of the angle, but it's all I've got at the moment. They were in that spot for 2 hours. 70 animals, ~55,000 Lbs

http://i414.photobucket.com/albums/p...Lbsperacre.jpg

What little bit I attempted, I learned some important lessons about fencing... Don't cheap out on insulators!

A failure for me. We were good spring and most of the summer but we got baked for 2 weeks with over 100 temps and the grass burnt up pretty much. No rain for 30 plus days. So no fall growth at all. I have been feeeding for 60 days already and we have gotten 8 to 10 inch of rain but temps are in the 20s to 40s so no growth. I did over seed all the fields with a no till and have some new grass and clover coming up.
Maybe it was the perfect storm but I am so new to this I missed all the signs. So for the next 60 I see the cows building up the manure on a small piece of a field that had poor growth. And wait for spring
Thoughts and suggestions appreciated
I will try to get a picture for you to see
Steve

agman and SCRancher,

Are there specific times you practice this or is it year round? agman, you mentioned drilling when the time is right. Does that apply to broadcasting as well as drilling? What times? Only fescue and ryegrass?

Are there specific times you practice this or is it year round? agman, you mentioned drilling when the time is right. Does that apply to broadcasting as well as drilling? What times? Only fescue and rye grass?

At my location the optimum times to plant the grasses are, fescue around early September and ryegrass late September and October.

I broadcast when it is too wet to drill or if I am having the cattle to walk the seed into the soil. I drill fescue in the Spring because I want the roots to get established deep before dry weather sets in. I prefer broadcast stands provided I can get them established. Sometimes I may do both methods on the same ground. The small bare areas between drilled rows bother me.

My plan is to wait as long as possible in the spring before I start my rotation, basically letting it grow as if I were going to cut it for hay(but I'm not going to cut it). let your grass get a good root system, don't graze it too short, and it won't take as much moisture. Keep plenty of leaf area for photosynthesis where it won't have to draw or deplete the root reserves.
I am grazing some stockpiled fescue now on a field that I mowed for hay back in June and I noticed the other day that the grass under the single strand HT wire that divides this 30 ac field, that the discmower didn't get, was noticably bigger than the rest of the field. I am beginning to think that it would be difficult to overrest fescue and orhard grass. So anytime you can let it go you are just doing yourself a favor, I would clip the seedheads, but since it doesn't try to keep going to seed like ryegrass. after that it seems to just grow and grow.

This is my second year of moving the cattle daily. Prior to that, I was on a weekly rotation. It is unbelievable what a difference it made to the grass in just one year! Last year I didn't stockpile enough grass so I was feeding hay by mid-January. This year I stockpiled one acre per cow and it appears I will be able to feed grass through early March. Last year I backgrazed, but based on what members on this site suggested, I have ceased that and limited the area that they are on each day. That should help in the Spring.

I am speading manure everyother day. In the winter, the cows seem to stay on the allocated grass as opposed to going back to the water source and loafing area. The difference in the amount manure in the winter and summer is huge. I just think about all that fertilizer that is wasted in the summer. But I should be thankful that the area that they are on now will benefit later this year.

Next year I thinking about seeding the daily allocation the day before I turn in the cows. Agman, did you say you seeded after they finished an area? If so, why?

I am still learning about the allocation of grass, not all ground is equal. I am leaving too much grass at times. I guess that was one reason I liked the strip grazing. It kind of evened out, a little too much one day, not enough the next day. Not a big problem but a learning process.

How much of an area are you alocating?
Where in Ky. are you located?

I am located in Allen County, about 18 miles from Bowling Green. I am allocating about 7000 square feet. Where are you?

7000 square feet for how many cows?
I'm just outside of Somerset.

I am running 18 cows, one bull, and four heifers. I sold ten 600lb calves around Dec 1. That made a big difference.

I am in Between you both
 

We live in Adair county. We are running 40 plus dairy cows and heifers on a weekly rotation. Last we we set aside one field to cut for hay on first cutting, then reintroduced later. We went futher in winter without feeding hay. This year I plan to leave that "hay"field in the rotation, and move the cattle quicker, leaving more.

Good to hear from you. I get over to Columbia probably 2 or 3 times a year going to Sandusky's to pick up some steel for a project or two. I actually live in Nancy, with a farm there and one just outside of Somerset.

ycanchu2
 

Sandusky's, that place is so much fun. I've been to Nancy a few times, bought a tractor from Barlows. Been to Somerset a few more times. Good to hear of grazers close by.