I have 20 acres of excellent pasture. Right now its cross fenced and I am considering fencing it again into 5 acre pieces. I fun 14 cows some with calves. So far so good. How does intensive grazing work besides moving cattle between pastures? I assume there is alot of fertilizer involved. Any links or advice on getting the most of my small property. I am in FL. Thanks.
intensive grazing
- Thread starter jvicars
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jvicars":p250e7iv said:
Intensive grazing means you put enough cattle on a plot to graze all the grass one time. Then you move them to another plot to graze all the grass once. The cows will take the best bite from the best grass first. Then they'll go back to lesser attractive grasses and get that first bite. The trick is to get them out before they go back to the best grass and graze it down. You don't put them back into a grazed plot until all the grass has had enough time to regrow the leaf. The time it takes for grass to regrow will vary with the species, climate, rainfall, time of year.
We have used it for years. I think intensive grazing works best on our native grass and we don't fertilize it. Our Bermuda is only good for about four months of grazing. The variety of grasses in the native pastures gives us grass for early grazing and we'll have standing dry grass there for winter grazing this year, too.
There's lots of stuff on the net about Intensive Grazing. Spend a little time with Google. Or you local extension office may be some help to you.
If the fertility is in the soil there is very little additional fertilization required, except maybe some nitrogen in the fall to stock pile some grass. If the cows move every couple of days and the paddocks are sized right they'll keep returning the magority of the fertility to the soil. Rather then permanent divisions you might want to consider temporary fencing. When the grass is growing really fast like in the spring you move them more frequently then when the growth slows down. Too large of a paddock and they won;t grass is effectively, too small and they will need to be grazed for shorter periods. Theoretically the optimum time frame is 3 days per paddock. The rule of thumb is take half and leave half.
Texas PaPaw
Well-known member
Heres a link to a book on intensive grazing:
http://www.stockmangrassfarmer.net/cgi- ... d=359.html
Also the Stockman Grassfarmer magazine has lots of info.
http://www.stockmangrassfarmer.net/cgi- ... d=359.html
Also the Stockman Grassfarmer magazine has lots of info.
Here's an excellent book: Grassfed Cattle by Julieu Ruechel
http://www.amazon.com/Grass-Fed-Cattle- ... 423&sr=1-1
Essentially, you want to try to rotate your sub-pastures such that you arrive back to the starting one 5-6 weeks after leaving it depending on how fast the grass is growing. How often you move the cattle depends on how the size of your paddocks, the amount of grass / number of cattle, and how many you have in rotation. Some people rotate twice a day, some every 2-3 days.
The goal, as mentioned before, is to get the animals to feel the need to eat all the forage not just the best tasting stuff, then to move them on to fresh pastures and to allow the pasture they are leaving to recover before bringing them back.
http://www.amazon.com/Grass-Fed-Cattle- ... 423&sr=1-1
Essentially, you want to try to rotate your sub-pastures such that you arrive back to the starting one 5-6 weeks after leaving it depending on how fast the grass is growing. How often you move the cattle depends on how the size of your paddocks, the amount of grass / number of cattle, and how many you have in rotation. Some people rotate twice a day, some every 2-3 days.
The goal, as mentioned before, is to get the animals to feel the need to eat all the forage not just the best tasting stuff, then to move them on to fresh pastures and to allow the pasture they are leaving to recover before bringing them back.
