Grazing Management

When cool season perennials take a vacation during July and August, dropping off in quality and yields, summer annuals might pick up the slack for you. Here’s a quick look at some of your options in case you want to get planting right now. We’ll follow up with more in-depth information in future issues.

Editors Note: Normally, we devote a lot of time to the “Hows” and the “Science” side of grazing management.  But since this week starts with Memorial Day we thought it would be nice to devote some space to reflection.  On Memorial Day, we take time to honor those who gave their lives in service to […]

Contributor Troy Bishopp has been tracking how his spring grazing has gone so far so that you can see his adaptive grazing management in progress and how he uses his grazing chart to best advantage. Troy is a great photographer, and pictures are worth a thousand words, so this story has lots of them. Click on them when you’d like to see them larger and enjoy!

A recent article in Nebraska Ag Connection by Bruce Anderson, an extension forage specialist describes how grazing early can be a good tool for managing weeds in native, warm-season grass pastures. He notes that while herbicides and prescribed burning can control many early weeds, grazing them might be better because it costs nothing, and doesn’t […]

It’s the time of year when we’re all chomping at the bit to head out to green pasture.  We can see the grass coming up, we’re tired of feeding hay and our stock is tired of eating it.  We know that hitting our pastures too soon could come back to bite us later and might […]

In “Riparian Regulations Threaten Livestock” we describe how new riparian regulations were threatening livestock grazing in Maryland, providing an example from one grazier trying to find ways to cope with the new rules. The theory behind keeping animals out of streams and waterways is simple: to improve water quality. But that simple goal may not […]

One of the toughest grazing management periods for livestock producers is spring green-up. It offers all kinds of challenging variables. It is hard to imagine a more optimistic feeling when everything is turning green after a long dreary winter of brown. The buds of the trees are starting to form, flocks of robins grace our […]

Greg Judy is well known for his ability to graze profitably while managing to improve the soil and his pastures. In this article he describes how he has continued to graze through two years of drought while others in his area are looking at dried out, desert-like pastures.

If it’s just a dry spell, or a real drought, you may need to adjust your stocking rate in your pastures. A plan on paper will help you think ahead, be proactive and make better decisions.

The National Weather Service is trying to help us manage our livestock and pastures by issuing drought forecasts for the United States.  This map can help you as you plan where, when and how many animals to graze, and where other forage might be available.  Most of the drought challenges are now rooted in the western […]

These grazing charts were developed as part of a project I led called “Utilizing Holistic Planned Grazing as a Regenerative Engine for Sustainable Agriculture.” Thanks to the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education for funding this project! We created these grazing charts for use on different size operations, with different numbers of paddocks.  We added […]

Livestock exclusion. These two simple words have the power to make grown men and women quake. They are also words that are coming up more and more often in conjunction with livestock grazing in pastures and on rangelands where animals have access to streams and ponds. In this first of a series, we explore impacts of regulation on private land grazing.