Adaptive multi-paddock grazing

#1

While this is drawing a lot of attention now, it’s really been practiced routinely in times gone by.

Very interesting paper.

#2

We’ve been raising grass fed beef cattle over 20 years. We’ve always rotated the cows from paddock to paddock. Just seemed like good ole common sense. But, the paper does shed more light on the technical scienc-y side of why paddock rotation is beneficial.
Thanks for posting.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #3

Here’s an interview Peter Ballerstedt did with Richard Teague, on of the authors of that paper:

If the topic interests anyone, Understanding Ag, a consultant company promoting regenerative agriculture, has some very good basic materials available on YouTube, especially talks by Gabe Brown and Allen Williams, two of the partners. The farmers Joel Salatin and Greg Judy also run YouTube channels, but they are a step down in terms of scholarliness. Still very informatative, however; and more practical than theoretical.

One of the challenges of AMP grazing, as I understand it, is to know when a paddock is ready to graze, as well as being prepared to move the herd/flock into another paddock before too much of the plants is grazed off. The grasses respond well to having a certain percentage of their leaves removed, but taking too much forage shrinks the roots and prolongs recovery time.

One of the things I find fascinating is Greg Judy’s observation that neither flies nor worms are a problem with this method of grazing. By the time the fly eggs hatch, the cattle have moved off to another paddock, and the animals never graze close enough to the ground to pick up parasites. And of course, the manure from the animals is better and far less costly than any synthetic fertiliser. This greatly reduces expensive inputs and therefore increases profits.

(B Creighton) #4

If you don’t give the grass a chance to recover, and just allow open grazing, they will eat the grass down to nothing until it is too damaged to regrow. This is how many African herders did it, and their land turned into desert. Once rotational grazing was introduced things started going much better for them.