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Jim

Posted 8/30/2009 01:39 (#829545)
Subject: Rotational Grazing - pictures from today

Driftless SW Wisconsin

This can be a bit of a slower time of year just ahead of harvest so I thought I would post a couple pictures from a paddock change today in SW WI.

This cool weather is tough on the corn and beans but good for pastures here. We have also been fortunate to get rain when it has been needed this year - very different from last year.

There are some pretty difficult drought conditions in some parts of Texas and western Canada where the pastures don't look anything like this and I feel for those folks. It does not look like this everywhere.

This paddock was interseeded with clover and a pasture mix no till drilled into the existing thin grass in the early spring of 2008. Fertilized to a soil test in early spring of 2009.

It is interesting to me to see how the cattle eat the grass/clover mix just down to a certain height. An old engineer told me one time that the cow is the perfect mowing machine - the thickness of the cow's lips is the perfect minimum "mowing height" for grass regrowth. Or something to that effect.

I pulled back the end of the divider wire, called them from a different paddock down the lane off to the right of the picture and they came filing into the new open area. A couple were still over at a neighbor's place with my bull who we are sharing for a few days yet. We share a fenceline and gate and just leave it open for the breeding season. My bull must have had a date this evening!

There is a heifer calf from this spring (3909) shown next to her dam filing in and in two pictures grazing. 3909 is really out of a very ordinary cow that I almost culled last fall but she got a reprieve when she tested pregnant and switched places with one that was open on the trailer to the processor.

The thing heifer 3909 (and a couple others) are teaching me is the ability of a very good bull to sire very good calves out of very mediocre cows. Also not to judge too quickly which are keepers, both heifers and bulls.

Anyway, here are a couple pictures from a paddock change today. The interseeding has been very helpful. I took the first picture of the difference in the grass on either side of this week's divider wire, then lifted the orange handle and just flipped it back so they could file in.

I then moved a couple of the step-ins and placed the handle on the other side of the opening so they can not go back and graze the area on the left side of the wire in picture 1. The divider wire is energized through the handle in this arrangement so it goes dead when I lift it.

I have been concerned about possible bloat with all that clover but there appears to be enough grass and whatever else you see mixed in to offset all the clover, so far anyway.

It is also interesting to see the calves grazing more on their own in addition to all the good milk the pastures are producing from the cows. This heifer calf is right at 450 lb and 136 days (4-1/2 months) old today.

This is a very different system from the rangeland pastures in the west and southwest. Not better or worse but just different. I am very impressed by the stocking rates that rotational grazing on good grass can provide. The paddock in the rear distance on the other side of the lane of picture #2 is about half way through its 30 day rest period after its previous grazing.

Here are the pictures from today.

Jim at Dawn

Edited by Jim 8/30/2009 23:28