Learn about grazing management and how to be the best producer for your desired results.
Ranching is a multi-faceted business, and requires careful thought and planning in many aspects. Today we’ll be discussing grazing management, or the process of carefully monitoring cattle and grass height to ensure desired results are being met. As a producer or ranch manager choosing how you’re going to graze your cattle, make a list of your priorities. Are you focused on the nutritional wellbeing of your young cows? Do you have plenty of land and fencing available to expand into rotational grazing? We’ll break down methods for grazing in today’s blog from Dark Hammock Legacy Ranch. For more tips for ranchers, visit our blog.
Continuous Grazing
This only requires one pasture, so it’s a good way to save money on land, fencing, watering systems, and management. However, grass can easily get overgrazed using this method. The stem is less nutritious than the upper leaf part of the grass stalk, so if the grass is continually being eaten down to the ground, the plant has no time to recover and provide those top notch nutrients back to the cattle. Not getting a lot of leaves or top of the stalk in their diet could be sufficient depending on the makeup and needs of your herd and supplemental nutrition being offered.
Rotational Grazing
Perhaps the most well-known method, if you’re using rotational grazing, you’ll have multiple paddocks on your farm and your herd will rotate from pasture to pasture. The formula when determining the number of paddocks needed is the number of desired rest days for each paddock, divided by the number of grazing days in each paddock, and add 1. This helps put into perspective just what your land needs might look like for a rotational system. This method does typically result in better nutrition, but high management levels are needed to move and monitor the herd. To learn more about our farm, we invite you to visit us on an agritour.
There’s a lot to take into consideration when planning your grazing system, but the results will be worth it. Your farm can have higher nutrition, production, and better beef when proper plans are followed. To purchase our quality grass-fed beef at Dark Hammock Legacy Ranch, visit our website.
