mack
Well-known member
dieselbeef":25v5oqlp said:grass farmer mag is all over that technique. seems like it would be difficult f or me to do but it looks like it works real well. im guessin it must be pretty thick when ya start. how many paddocks before you return to the first one...30 day rotation takes alotta paddocks
Grass Farmer is my favorite magazine hands down!!!
Grass doesnt have to be thick when you start, you just adjust paddock size accordingly to get them off when you have about 4in of stubble, there is one method called scorched earth where you leave nothing, but this is a little extreme for us to try just yet. As the grass matures and thickens it may be a little harder at first to guess what size paddock to make (paddocks sizes may need to be ajusted every day). The main object is to get them on, let them eat and naturally recycle the nutrients evenly, then get them off the area for about 60 days. However, 60 days may be a little long the way it looks now. I took these pics WED/THURS and am still amazed at the ryegrass regrowth that quick. That is something that does not normally happen in KY in JUNE... even with management intensive grazing on a 4 or 5 day rotation schedule. To answer your other question, you will proabably have created about 110-130 paddocks/moved cows this many times by the end of the rotation. It is not as hard as it sounds. I just takes a few days of practice for the cows and your eye to judge how much to move the fence.
*** in an ideal situation, I will have killed all of my KY31 DIRTY IFECTED FESCUE (not native to WKY) and opened up the natural seed bank of native grasses that was here when the bison mob grazed this land a couple hundred years ago. KY31 is a wonderful thing for winter stockpiling, but whether we admit it or not... is pitiful in the summer and costs our industry and farmers like us BILLIONS of dollars per year in wt gains and conception rates. But that is a different subject.