Author: Jim Gerrish

You may not be swath grazing this year, but as you feed your livestock this winter, consider if this is something to try next year.

It’s an interesting question. Jim has some thoughts. What do you think? How would your life change?

Stockpiling pastures for winter grazing is a great way to allow legumes to naturally reseed in your pastures. Most of the commonly used legumes such as red, alsike, or strawberry clover and birdsfoot trefoil will produce enough seed for stand rejuvenation with 60-75 days of recovery time. Some native legumes will take longer. Most of […]

If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “Why bother changing my grazing system? It probably won’t make much difference anyway,” here are some pictures to consider. They come from the McGinn Ranch in the Sandhills of Nebraska and show some good improvement in just 2 years.

That is a theme I frequently use in my grazing management presentations around the country. I often say I have learned more about grazing management by working the last dozen years in the extremes of irrigated and desert environments of Idaho than I did in 23 years of the high natural rainfall environment of Missouri. […]

Jim Gerrish experiments with fencing supplies so you don’t have to. Here are the results of a 5-year test to see how different size fiberglass posts hold up when used as braces so you’ll know when you ought to spend just a bit more to get the results you’re looking for.

Crested wheatgrass is a Russian native that was purposely introduced to rangelands in the American West as a forage and an erosion control tool starting in the 1900s. It became especially widely used starting shortly after the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 through the fifties when land managers were working on restoring rangelands impacted by […]

Biodiversity in your pastures provides many benefits to pasture productivity, soil health, animal performance, and wildlife habitat. The table below shows typical composition of our home pastures on our old Missouri farm. There were many other less plentiful species present that are not listed. Nine different plant functional groups are represented in these pastures with […]

I’ve learned these do’s and don’ts of stock tank installations over the course of my life and am sharing them so you can learn from my experience. The main ‘do’ is to create a pad on which to place your tank. This provides a flat place for the cattle to stand and they don’t move […]

A common question we hear at pasture walks or grazing seminars is when is the best time of day to move cattle to the next paddock. There are some who advocate moving in the afternoon based on the fact that energy content of forages peaks in mid-afternoon corresponding with peak photosynthesis. But, since cattle will […]

Sometimes we just need a little evidence that something works in order to make a change in our grazing management. It’s even better when we get quick results, right? Here’s what Jim saw in Nebraska after just a year.

A common question for graziers is what does ‘back-grazing’ mean. Then their next question becomes for how long is back-grazing acceptable? Back-grazing means letting livestock go back across areas that have been previously grazed, usually to access a fixed water point. What we are trying to avoid is allowing animals to bite off regrowth occurring […]

Editors’ Note: Awhile back Jim wrote an article on why he prefers managing his cattle with electric fencing. One of his reasons was that it just makes him happy. And maybe he’s happy because he uses good equipment and he’s figured out how to make the best use of it. So here’s some suggestions he […]

Occasionally we can experience what looks like some pretty substantial pasture damage with high high stock density grazing in wet conditions, but first looks aren’t always what they appear to be. Each picture tells a little bit about the results. Here is the scenario, the pivot passed over this paddock in the night just before […]

Fencing is a big part of Management-intensive grazing. And that’s one of the reasons many of us avoid it. But here Jim explains why it really isn’t that bad, and could make you happier too.