Rotational Grazing
Rotational grazing is a practical way to manage livestock and pastures by mimicking natural grazing patterns.
This method involves moving and containing animals through different pasture areas to improve soil, animal, and pasture health. By dividing pastures into smaller sections and grazing them in a systematic rotation, it allows the grazed areas to rest and regenerate for future use. When done efficiently, rotational grazing can help with drought resistance, improve pasture quality, and maximise economic benefits.
In Practice
Pasture Division: Pastures are divided into smaller sections, known as paddocks. The number of paddocks and their size can vary based on factors such as accessible grazing area, livestock type, topography and forage growth patterns.
Grazing Rotation: Livestock are rotated between paddocks according to a set schedule. This rotation prevents continuous grazing pressure on any one area and allows forage to recover. It also helps reduce the spread of parasites and diseases that can build up when animals graze the same pasture repeatedly.
Rest and Recovery: While one paddock is being grazed, the others are rested. Pastures need time to regenerate, allowing for forage regrowth, soil recovery, and nutrient replenishment. Rest periods can range from days to weeks, depending on factors such as forage type, growth rate, and weather conditions.
Monitoring and Adjustment: Successful rotational grazing requires ongoing observation and adjustments. Farmers watch livestock behavior, pasture growth, and forage quality. They change the rotation schedule based on weather, forage availability, and animal needs.
Portable Electric Fencing: Using electric fencing systems, pastures are divided into smaller sections for rotational grazing. This fencing is a cost-effective way to create paddock divisions and manage livestock movement, helping with infrastructure costs.
Adaptive Multi-paddock Grazing: Similar to rotational grazing, adaptive multi-paddock (AMP) grazing involves moving livestock through smaller paddocks for short periods, allowing the grass more time to recover. This prevents overgrazing and keeps the soil covered, reducing erosion.
Key Benefits
- Pasture growth: Allows pasture to rest, and regrow, allowing for more grazing sessions to occur on the pasture, and potentially increasing the grazing season.
- Soil health: Rotational grazing allows for a range of plant species to thrive. Increased biodiversity supports healthy soil microbial communities and nutrient cycling. This increases the quality of the pasture, offering better quality feed for cattle.
- Drought resilience: Well-managed pastures have better water retention and infiltration. Increased water availability comes from rotational grazing, which improves plant cover, soil structure, water infiltration, and water storage while reducing water evaporation and soil temperature. Even a 1% increase in organic matter can store an impressive 27,000 additional gallons of water per acre.
- Disease Management: Rotating livestock between paddocks frequently assists in disrupting the lifecycle of parasites and pathogens which can accumulate in one area. This helps to reduce parasites and disease transmission between animals.
- Flexibility and Adaptation: Rotational grazing is adaptable to various contexts. Farmers can modify rotation schedules based on changing weather patterns, livestock needs, and seasonal variations in forage growth. Flexibility is essential to optimize grazing outcomes.
- Nutritional Quality: Research has shown that rotational grazing promotes healthier pastures by allowing forage plants to recover, leading to enhanced nutritional quality of the forage, resulting in better feed for livestock.
- Increased Meat production: A study by the University of Georgia found that a twelve-paddock system with cattle rotated every two days resulted in a 38% higher stocking rate, 37% higher calf gain per acre, and 31% less hay fed per cow. With the potential to increase the carrying capacity of your farm by 69%, these are significant improvements and cost savings.
- Increased Labor: Moving livestock frequently and setting up fencing can be more labor-intensive than other grazing methods.
- High investment costs: Starting rotational grazing often requires an initial investment to set up fencing and water systems in each paddock.
- Management and planning: Rotational grazing needs careful planning and management. When first starting, there will be an adjustment period where management decisions are crucial for the health of cattle, pasture, and profits.
- Soil degradation: If not planned well, rotational grazing can lead to overgrazing, soil compaction, and insufficient recovery time, resulting in soil degradation and reduced pasture quality.
- Adaptation to Climate: Effectively adjusting the rotation schedule based on changing weather patterns requires flexibility and adaptability, rotation planning, and management techniques.
Case Study: Tracking Y Ranch
Tracking Y Ranch in Washington State, USA, has incorporated rotational and adaptive grazing into their farming practices. They say these practices are crucial for optimizing land use and improving livestock management. These methods are crucial for the ranch to maintain pasture quality while promoting animal health and performance. They highlight the importance of adjusting pasture allocation according to animals' nutritional needs and seasonal conditions to ensure both pasture longevity and livestock well-being.
“It's been great because the small paddock moves allow us to increase daily gains on our cattle over the whole grazing season. Keeping them in smaller paddocks allows us to keep a closer eye on those animals as they go along, and because we're controlling when the cattle end up moving and coming off areas, we can make sure that our cattle target and graze different species that they may not like such as rushes and sedges in our Wetland areas as they dry out.”
– Jake, Tracking Y Ranch.
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