All the grazing management tips you need
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Are You Smarter Than a Cow?
Test yourself with this Free-Range IQ Test. My cows know the answers to the following questions. Do you?
#1) When grazing a field, should it be left ragged, messy and trampled, or grazed evenly, like a freshly mowed lawn?
#2) What’s the number one thing to watch out for when entering a fresh pasture?
#3) There’s a delicious looking plant you’ve never seen before. Is it poisonous?
#4) You could REALLY use a day at the spa, but you have no money. What do you do?
Answer #1 Everyone’s experienced a pesky house guest who overstayed his welcome. Cows, however, know when it’s time to leave. An internal clock tells them when to stop grazing, and move on. Despite the widely embraced suburban lawn aesthetic, the only time cows will graze grass down to ‘lawnmower’ height is if they are absolutely forced to do so. They intuitively know that by leaving lots of ragged, messy, trampled pasture behind them, they promote moisture retention (keeping water in the soil), cooler surface temp
People continue to amaze me with their comments about animals. Our sheep when we had them, came to the call of “Bertha, Bertha”.
My cows come on the trot when I holler “Come Boss”. The horses respond immediately from anywhere on the place when I whistle. They all know where the water is and when I drive in from being off the ranch, they check to see if the pickup turns in at the barn because they know there’s going to be something there for them. The cattle spread themselves across the pastures and as Mr. Prichard said, they don’t do the lawnmower thing. One learns a lot from just watching their behavior.