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IL cow man

Posted 5/31/2013 18:28 (#3129865)
Subject: Rotational grazing??? from earlier post PIcs?

Buffalo IL

I'll try and post some pics of what I see from Mig grazing vs continuous. the continuous grazing is at my house where I only have fifteen acres. Give me time please and i'll explain the photos later and storms coming and couldn't get more. I tried to downsize a whole group of pictures and will be longer as I WILL NEED TO DOWNSIZE EACH PICTURE. SEE YA LATER. Ok i'm back and the first three are picture of the continuous grazed pasture and what you see is the heifers that I have failed to get moved grazing the regowth and not eating the mature grass. They will keep eating the regowth and never touch the mature growth and it will be mowed off later. I was trying to show the heifers eating the young regrowth. The heifers that have calved should be with the big herd. Pic 159 and 160 is what I think I want to see the the seed heads cleaned and what is not eaten trampled down. The trampled part is not bad as it will hold moisture in the ground later when it is hot and dry and I don't consider it waste. I have an easier time growing legumes as I have better soil than most areas as you can see by the mud in PIC 161 and here is the type of cow in pic 162 that you don't want. Large frame and horrible udder and I missed getting her head in a pic as being long a narrow and can't eat enough grass to survive. She is going to town as she lost her calf( I only kept her because she was bred) and I have no idea what calf is nursing on her. She's from Nebraska and wonder why they are having to liquidate cows???? Pic 165 is what a cow pie should look like in my opinion if the cows are getting the right nutrition. Pic 166 indicates too much protein and not enough energy, but grass is really wet here so it may be OK. PIc 167 and 168 is where I mowed a swath along the fence as I was going to mow some Poison hemlock down that really loves to grow where I fed round bales 3 or f0ur years back and that is where the mud picture is from. PIC 169, 170, 171 is pasture that was stock piled and grazed in early April. I need more cows at this time, but who knows how the rest of the year will play out. I'm definitely not an expert as I still feed to much forage thru the winter. Somewhere around 5 inches of rain in the last week and I haven't been dividing up into smaller areas with the mud. I may regret it later.

What I see is rotational grazing has improved and maintained my forage diversity, i'm getting better nutrient recycling with cows pooping more across the whole pasture, I don't have to fertilize to grow grass with legume, My legume survives from eliminating selective grazing, I still can grow weeds, but much fewer, white clover is an indication of overgrazing and under grazing, pasture need rest periods, continuous grazed pastures have the cattle eating the young regrowth and not eating or tramping the mature grass, etc.

these are my observations others are much better graziers than me.

One more note I would like to make is: rotational grazing will not guarantee a profit, but may reduce the loss you have raising cattle. LOL I just know I fed less forage thru the drought than my neighbors by several months and didn't run out of grazing as much as I ran out of water where I had forage. I think I also liked feeding stock pile thru march and April and don't mind feeding Cows in Jan and feb with no mud on frozen ground. Might be a good plan in the future. When I started rotational grazing I thought you had to leave the cows in until the ate it uniformally and I learned that caused over grazing and I was not rotational grazing by rotating cows. That one is hard to explain.

Edited by IL cow man 6/1/2013 09:06