Summer newsletter - Grazing planning for a tricky season

Grass is a great plant; the more it gets eaten and allowed to regrow, the more it grows. Making the most of the grazing is the most financially impactful step a livestock farm can make. Grazing grass is the cheapest feed stuff, yet it can be full of quality nutrition for growing stock as well as suckler cows. 

How we set up and think about grazing is key, this can be before the grazing season starts (or even better at the end of the last season)! It is particularly important to adapt your grazing plan when weather changes, particularly when or if drought starts.  There are many different types of grazing, moving away from set stocking to rotational or even mob grazing can massively increase grass growth as well as utilization.  

Dividing up existing fields into at least 8 paddocks and moving them every 3-4 days can be a first step. This can usually be done with minimal changes to water supply needed. This should allow 28 days rest for the grass to regrow. Cows with calves at foot benefit from double strand electric fencing although once trained single is fine, but sheep definitely need three strands! 

For maximal impact we want the grazing animals as tight as possible but for a short time giving the longest rest period. Sheep and cows can be mixed into a "flerd" or sheep can go ahead of the beef cows.

As a rough plan 35 cows with calves at foot running with a bull normally need approx. 1 acre a day. By eating the grass down to about 5cm it means the quality of the next graze is maintained and also stops the animals only eating the tasty grasses and clovers and leaving the other bits, but means everything is eaten. Dry matter can dramatically change with the weather but also how old and stalky the grasses are. Ensuring energy and protein levels are high is key, well maintained grasses are currently at 16% crude protein and 12% metabolizable energy. 

Parasite management can also be helped with rotational grazing as the eggs that are shed in the faeces need time to hatch into larva before they are eaten and cause infection. Because of the rest period, this can mean that the eggs either haven't hatched before the next graze or that all the larva have died before they return. In addition, when not grazing the pasture as tight it means that less larva are ingested overall. Herbal leys have natural anthelmintic properties and can help reduce wormer use.   

Cows evenly spreading their faeces on the fields means insects such as dung beetles can establish and add to the biodiversity on farm.

Carbon sequestration is also maximized because grass growth absorbs lots of carbon dioxide to make into sugars and energy. 

If you want to discuss any grazing plans or integrated parasite control please just give us a ring.