Saturday, May 28, 2011

Rotational Grazing

So this year we are moving to stockers this fall. This spring we have only 400 or so stockers and a few hundered cull cows in two different groups at the goat ranch. We are going for maximum gain since we will be selling everything in 30 days or so and then not restocking until next February...so the grass will have plenty of time for regrowth. To get maximum gain, we are rotating the stockers thru large pastures every three days. The grass at the goat ranch this year is awful. It's better than the neighbors, but the undergrowth is only 4-5 inches tall. Two years ago when I mob grazed the stockers, I could barely drive the four wheeler thru the grass. We had at least 12 inches of undergrowth. I went back and looked at pictures from 2009 when we mob grazed and the grass we had was unreal. Although we mob grazed the cows last year, I don't think we did nearly as good a job as we did in 2009. I'm excited to go back to mob grazing a group of stockers. Our grass production was at least 50-60% better.