Paddock sizes

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It will vary so much depending on your grass, soil, and growing conditions. The "ball park" number I used when advising people on setting up a rotational grazing system as a starting point was 40,000 pounds of cows per acre per day. That is based on strong healthy stand of grass that had 300 pounds of dry matter per acre inch. Taking the grass from 12 inches to 6 inches. Studies show that grass left at a higher stubble height will recover quick. That 6 inches you remove provides 1,800 pounds of dry matter. 40,000 pounds of cattle taking in 3% of their weight a day in dry matter is 1,200. Where does that extra 600 pounds go? Grazing isn't 100% efficient. Grass gets stumped down, pooped on. laid on, etc. Those numbers are a starting point which probably will need to adjusted according to your conditions.
 
@TNtrout23 how often do you feel like moving them? I move sometimes 4 times a day, most of the time twice a day, and one spot I let them have the whole field for a week or two which gives me a break. Moving at least every 3 to 4 days is the compromise for the least amount of effort being effective IMO.

The more you move them and the smaller their paddocks, the more rest itll get which increases totally forage production.

You don't want regrowth grazed until the plant has recovered completely or it'll set things back. Overgrazing with purpose can be beneficial, but you don't want to do it all the time.

Go slow with permanent fence installation until you know for sure you will want it in place. Polywire on reels and pigtail posts are a good route to take til you know for sure where you need the permanent. If it stays hot the animals will learn to respect it pretty fast.

In regards to them getting enough to eat, watch their left side between ribcage and hip. If it's sunken in they are hungry. That's how I gauge mine.
 
ClinchValley86 said:
@TNtrout23 how often do you feel like moving them? I move sometimes 4 times a day, most of the time twice a day, and one spot I let them have the whole field for a week or two which gives me a break. Moving at least every 3 to 4 days is the compromise for the least amount of effort being effective IMO.

The more you move them and the smaller their paddocks, the more rest itll get which increases totally forage production.

You don't want regrowth grazed until the plant has recovered completely or it'll set things back. Overgrazing with purpose can be beneficial, but you don't want to do it all the time.

Go slow with permanent fence installation until you know for sure you will want it in place. Polywire on reels and pigtail posts are a good route to take til you know for sure where you need the permanent. If it stays hot the animals will learn to respect it pretty fast.

In regards to them getting enough to eat, watch their left side between ribcage and hip. If it's sunken in they are hungry. That's how I gauge mine.
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@ClinchValley86 I don't think I would be able to move as often as you do. I could manage every 7 days, keeping my moving days on Sundays. 75% of the time I'm working 6 days a week 12-13hrs including my driving time to and from work. Do you carry over the same technique in winter time as well?
 
TNtrout23 said:
@ClinchValley86 I don't think I would be able to move as often as you do. I could manage every 7 days, keeping my moving days on Sundays. 75% of the time I'm working 6 days a week 12-13hrs including my driving time to and from work. Do you carry over the same technique in winter time as well?
Click to expand...
There's a lot of people here saying to rotate waaaaay more often than I ever have. And I'd put my pasture/cattle up against theirs any day for results. Not saying their methods don't work... just that I think they are over thinking it and making it harder than it is. Here again, the cows know when it's time to move and they will tell you if you watch them and understand what they are saying. The grass is only greener on the other side of the fence when they are done eating in the pasture they are in.

When bison roamed in migrating herds they ate down grass that was over six feet tall, and then stomped what was left into the ground as they passed. Modern grasses are more fragile, but they will still take some abuse while you learn. It's really about being aware of what you have and the results your are getting... and being smart enough to refine your methods to do better.

I'd suggest you get to know one of your neighbors that has lush pastures and rotates their cows and watch what they are doing. Maybe ask some questions. I've never been afraid to get to know people and be interested in what they are doing.
 
Once you get it down it takes very little time to move them with the poly wire and step in posts. It took me longer to walk out to the field adn back than it did to do the rotation. There are advantages above the improved forage production and quality. The two biggest are that the critters get use to moving to fresh grass. They will follow you anywhere. And you are looking at them everyday so if there is an issue you see it up front not a week later.
I use to rotate every 7 to 10 days. From work I got sent to some grazing workshops. Came home and I said if I am going to be tell people to do this I am going to do it myself first. As a result I had to buy more cows to eat all the grass and my weaning weights went up.
 
kenny thomas said:
A good rotation is 4 dsys or less. After 4 days the plants start to regrow and tge cows will concentrate on the new growth.
Your NRCS tech or Ag Extension Agent should be able to look at the soils map and help you predict the production and divide paddocks from that info.
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Hey @kenny thomas , the NRCS uses information to predict production on soils that is actually available to everyone. The information is found on the site: Web Soil Survey (WSS). All the information you need is there. The problem for most producers is going to be figuring out how to navigate the site and find the buried information, but it is there for everyone to use.
 
TNtrout23 said:
@ClinchValley86 I don't think I would be able to move as often as you do. I could manage every 7 days, keeping my moving days on Sundays. 75% of the time I'm working 6 days a week 12-13hrs including my driving time to and from work. Do you carry over the same technique in winter time as well?
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Nothing wrong with once a week. Nothing wrong with once every two weeks. Everyone's life and time and energy allotment is different. I expect most don't want to do what I do. 😃

If I'm grazing, I am stretching the grass out as best I can to hold off on having to feed hay. I strip graze my winter stockpile, assuming weather let's me have one. When grazing runs out, I feed hay all over the place so to move the animals and their impact around. Also spreads the seed around better. Hate feeding in one spot. Thr ground destructions is something else with our mud.

If you could get 4 to 8 paddocks to start with, I think you'd get to see some benefit of the rotating. Just try to let the rest period be sufficient. 28 days minimum. You'll set the grass back by returning too soon, but sometimes that is the goal though.
 
Travlr said:
There's a lot of people here saying to rotate waaaaay more often than I ever have. And I'd put my pasture/cattle up against theirs any day for results. Not saying their methods don't work... just that I think they are over thinking it and making it harder than it is. Here again, the cows know when it's time to move and they will tell you if you watch them and understand what they are saying. The grass is only greener on the other side of the fence when they are done eating in the pasture they are in.

When bison roamed in migrating herds they ate down grass that was over six feet tall, and then stomped what was left into the ground as they passed. Modern grasses are more fragile, but they will still take some abuse while you learn. It's really about being aware of what you have and the results your are getting... and being smart enough to refine your methods to do better.

I'd suggest you get to know one of your neighbors that has lush pastures and rotates their cows and watch what they are doing. Maybe ask some questions. I've never been afraid to get to know people and be interested in what they are doing.
Click to expand...
I do it for the increased carrying capacity. It's much cheaper than buying more land for me. I carry close to double the animals that most around me are able to carry.

When drought hits, usually, I got 60 to 75 days before it really effects me. This being year 2 of bad growing weather shortens that number a bit.

I would put my pasture up against anyone's though. Moving this often really turns the switch on. My cows eat just about everything. Only a couple things they don't touch, horse nettle being one of them.

Its all in your context. What you can, will, or want to do. It can burn ya out sometimes. I enjoy it though. Cows are tame as a dog.

Truth be told, my animals probably grow slower than yours. I've been trying to learn how to graze with more performance in mind. Thinking about, while I'm understocked, trying a field of mixed covers to get some higher ADG.
 
The challenge of rotational grazing - and being able to do that well - is fence, water and in summer shade. I'll relate my experience.

We have little interior fence and use polywire like others have described above.

The chief issue for us has been getting out water economically. We have some underground line with rain bird connectors and use a lot of garden hose to distribute. So there is a lot of rolling and unrolling all by hand with no reel. Our next step is to lay out some black poly pipe with tees and vales every 100 feet and then use a single hose from there. That should reduce work in summer. However we also use water lines well into nightly freezing weather so need to uncouple hose and drain daily.

Shade has also been an issue and one that meant we might have to skip paddocks that lacked trees in the heat. Heat can become problematic particularly with fescue in summer leading to lower ADGs, breeding issues, and mud holes in your pature. We just bought a Shade Haven which is easily moveable.
 
dave_shelby said:
The challenge of rotational grazing - and being able to do that well - is fence, water and in summer shade. I'll relate my experience.

We have little interior fence and use polywire like others have described above.

The chief issue for us has been getting out water economically. We have some underground line with rain bird connectors and use a lot of garden hose to distribute. So there is a lot of rolling and unrolling all by hand with no reel. Our next step is to lay out some black poly pipe with tees and vales every 100 feet and then use a single hose from there. That should reduce work in summer. However we also use water lines well into nightly freezing weather so need to uncouple hose and drain daily.

Shade has also been an issue and one that meant we might have to skip paddocks that lacked trees in the heat. Heat can become problematic particularly with fescue in summer leading to lower ADGs, breeding issues, and mud holes in your pature. We just bought a Shade Haven which is easily moveable.
Click to expand...
How are you addressing the fescue toxicosis? Do you have a legume/clover growing with your fescue? How long of intervals BETWEEN grazings of the fescue dominant pastures (or are all your pastures dominated by fescue?)
 
andybob said:
When we started out, we herded the cattle and goats due to the large game population, when we had to leave, with a much smaller herd, we went to polywire, having seen how my former neighbour Johann Zietsman was managing his herd, - https://www.cfuzim.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/uhdzietsman.pdf
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There are success stories like this, but what is never discussed is the number of failures for each success and how many times the attempt failed before success was finally achieved. I am not familiar with this presentation, but I have seen other presentations like this that fail to mention all the ugly details that accompany the 'success'. I am not saying this isn't a success, but I don't believe in 'magic bullets' either. Every operation is different. I know the concept supposedly doesn't depend on actual animal numbers, but there are ALWAYS more animals in any one of the pictures shown than any producer I work with.
 
Mark Reynolds said:
Hey @kenny thomas , the NRCS uses information to predict production on soils that is actually available to everyone. The information is found on the site: Web Soil Survey (WSS). All the information you need is there. The problem for most producers is going to be figuring out how to navigate the site and find the buried information, but it is there for everyone to use.
Click to expand...
Exactly why i advised getting someone familiar with the soil survey to help.
 
ClinchValley86 said:
I do it for the increased carrying capacity. It's much cheaper than buying more land for me. I carry close to double the animals that most around me are able to carry.

When drought hits, usually, I got 60 to 75 days before it really effects me. This being year 2 of bad growing weather shortens that number a bit.

I would put my pasture up against anyone's though. Moving this often really turns the switch on. My cows eat just about everything. Only a couple things they don't touch, horse nettle being one of them.

Its all in your context. What you can, will, or want to do. It can burn ya out sometimes. I enjoy it though. Cows are tame as a dog.

Truth be told, my animals probably grow slower than yours. I've been trying to learn how to graze with more performance in mind. Thinking about, while I'm understocked, trying a field of mixed covers to get some higher ADG.
Click to expand...
That's why I did it too. I doubled my capacity over two years by rotating and some light reseeding. Learning how to work it best was just another extension of watching the cows every day. I got more wildlife too.

As for performance, genetics matter. The cow end of that is often dismissed in favor of the bull side... but I've always paid attention to the cows more than the bull. If you have a hundred mixed quality cows you'll get a hundred mixed quality calves. If you have a hundred top quality cows you'll get a hundred top quality calves.
 
Mark Reynolds said:
How are you addressing the fescue toxicosis? Do you have a legume/clover growing with your fescue? How long of intervals BETWEEN grazings of the fescue dominant pastures (or are all your pastures dominated by fescue?)
Click to expand...
We are addressing the issue by genetics (culling, heat tolerant bulls), seeding clovers and chicory, and planting novel endophytes in places.

Rest periods vary from 30 in spring flush to 60-75.
 
As a rule of thumb, a continuously grazed/season long use pasture has about a 45% utilization efficiency of available feed. A pasture in rotation with a 7 day grazing cycle followed by a 30 day rest period before being grazed again has about a 60-65% utilization efficiency. If you halve the grazing cycle to 3-4 days, the efficiency increases another 10%, halve it again and the efficiency increases 10% again. halve it again (now at 1 day of grazing within the pasture) you are at 85-90% efficiency. Going to a 12 hour rotation will get you about 95% efficiency, but at some point the increased efficiency isn't worth the time and expense in terms of water, fencing and time. The typical system I design is a 5 pasture, 7 day grazing followed by 28 day rest. I have designed pasture systems that operate on a 1 day rotation. A particular operation I'm thinking of I designed 9 years ago. It's now a model used on the state level. The producer rotates daily and has 40 pastures. He has 114 pairs on 100 acres. He also has grass, right now, that is 2 feet tall. Efficiency isn't the only thing that improves with rotation/shorter grazing periods. The numbers can't be generated from WSS, but production increases significantly as well. Every farm is different in this aspect. Start with what the science shows, and then adjust based on what you see and get.
dave_shelby said:
We are addressing the issue by genetics (culling, heat tolerant bulls), seeding clovers and chicory, and planting novel endophytes in places.

Rest periods vary from 30 in spring flush to 60-75.
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30 days rest is good, 40 days rest is good. 50 might be getting a bit long, but may be needed in a drought. I'm a bit concerned about your 60-75. What happens is that if you go too long, potentially the palatability and nutritional content of your grasses declines. In addition to that, and part of the reason I asked about your rest intervals, is that theoretically, the more mature the fescue gets, the higher the concentration of the problematic endophyte gets. Rest is a good thing in summer and more may be required, but don't let it become "too much of a good thing". I'm not saying this is happening, but you might want to think about it.
 
Travlr said:
That's why I did it too. I doubled my capacity over two years by rotating and some light reseeding. Learning how to work it best was just another extension of watching the cows every day. I got more wildlife too.

As for performance, genetics matter. The cow end of that is often dismissed in favor of the bull side... but I've always paid attention to the cows more than the bull. If you have a hundred mixed quality cows you'll get a hundred mixed quality calves. If you have a hundred top quality cows you'll get a hundred top quality calves.
Click to expand...
When these cow prices get right, I want to let most of mine go except for 2 families and start over. Started with 2 in 2016 and have made some questionable picks for replacements. Lol. Most are good cows though I will say. Just needed to find my direction in all of this.

All in all I'm just happy to have calves to sell. I am pretty sure my problem has been grazing mature forages at times of high precipitation.

With the grass short due to lack of rain, everything is tender and powerful it would appear. I think I need to try to keep things vegetative. Maybe cut hay on those sections that get ahead of me in good years, or just clip em and let rot back into the ground. The calves are really growing that are grazing the shorter stuff. Planning to get scales here soon and compare growth rates on the two different groups that have been managed differently. One moved couple times aa day, the other moved every 3 or 4 days. Has me curious.

It's all a learning process and I like to learn.
 
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Those numbers are for the last few years where its been very dry and we have only been doing intensive rotations for the last 3 years.

Another reason for the longer rotations on some pastures is the novel endophyte fescue I planted (Baroptima) is a palatable soft leaf variety. Cattle will eat it to the ground.
 

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