Tim, Water does not have to be a major issue with rotational grazing. One very reliable strategically placed waterer can cover a lot of grass and paddocks. If you look in the background of the 5th picture down you can see in the distance some guard rail and a group of gates on the far side of the "dam". Inside that guard rail is a heated Petersen concrete waterer. This is my main watering point year around for this "valley" including all winter.

I don't usually use back fences. In other words the wire (which was energized at the gate handle) lying on the ground in picture #5 just keeps getting moved to the left and the cows and calves can always walk back through what's been grazed across the dam to the waterer.  They will graze the fresh grass to the left through this whole long paddock before they start grazing on any regrowth on what they've already grazed.

There is another similar long paddock and a lane behind where I am standing taking picture #5. When they get to the far left end of this current paddock I will switch them to the similar long skinny paddock behind me, close off the paddock shown so the grass can regrow without the best forage being nibbled to death but they can still get back to the waterer across the dam through a 10 ft wide single hotwire lane on the right and behind.

I don't know if this helps or not but with a bit if experience and thought you can usually have one single watering point service a lot of rotational grazing paddocks.  I don't mind making a 10 ft wide lane and the cattle soon learn the drill. Walking back and forth to water a couple times a day they will finally get some exercise after a long winter in the sacrifice area near the corral in the distance and background of the 2nd picture. and maybe wear their hooves down a bit ;).

I like lanes better than a pie-shaped setup with water at the center.

The watering point and corral seem to me to be initial investments that repay themselves over say 10 years and make everything with cattle much easier, safer and more profitable.

While the grass can really get ahead of the grazing this time of year, I am keeping the pressure on (making them eat everything down to about 3-4" height before giving them more) as a weed control measure. As Ben has shown it is amazing the stocking rates you can handle with this type of system - as long as you get rain and the grass grows.  If there is a very dry spell in midsummer they go back to the sacrifice area and hay rather than scalp the pastures down to nothing.

I was concerned a week or two ago if there was ever going to be grass to keep these growing calves fed, all of a sudden it looks like I may have to mow some paddocks to keep them in the vegetative state (not go to seed) until the cattle can get there.

Maybe give it a try on a small scale, even with a hose and stock tank, and I bet you will find a way to solve the water situation.  Some folks do run extensive waterlines to each paddock but that is completely out of the question for me. There is some benefit to letting the cattle walk back to one very reliable, year-round waterer installation. I can make a lane very easily although mine have settled down to semi-permanent routes.

Thanks for the kind words on condition. It is amazing what finally getting some green grass will do.

Jim at Dawn