Follow Up: How Hard to Mob Graze A Paddock

I just thought I would revisit the mob grazing/oak sprouts issue for those that may be new to this blog. You can go back and look at pictures from last year that clearly show the issues that we have with oak sprouts. There are even more pictures here that give you an idea of just how bad these sprouts are. As mentioned, grazing only 25-40% of the forage just won't get the job done as far as controlling these sprouts thru mob grazing. We simply have to put more pressure on than most graziers might to try to get some utilization and control of these sprouts. As previously stated, if you don't have brush and weed issues, you may want to lighten up on the pressure, 25-40% may work just great for you. We just simply don't have that luxury. A word of caution: if you are only taking 25-40%, you better make sure that the remaining 75-60% is tromped down onto the ground. Otherwise you are really defeating the entire purpose of mob grazing. If you look out into your paddocks and see standing forage, you simply don't have enough pressure: increase your densities or graze longer/harder.

Ragweed

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I'm not sure about you, but here in SW MO it's been a great year for ragweed. This South Center pasture was last grazed in late March. It grew back great with tons of forage, mostly fescue and warm season grasses. But as we got later into the summer, the ragweed started coming on and we ended up with a bumper crop...in a pasture that we didn't even graze during the growing season! I hate ragweed and was concerned about how the mob would react to a pasture full of it. Well, you can find the answer in the pictures. They ate it like they eat everything else. You can clearly see the difference between one side of the fence and the other where they were just turned in. I'm really disappointed with the amount of weeds we have on the ranch this year, I was hoping that we would greatly reduce the number of weeds with our mob grazing and it just doesn't look like we have. But at least we are able to utilize the weeds that are growing by getting the cows to consume them.

Update on Weed Consumption

I mentioned in an earlier post that the cows weren't eating any of the weeds like the stockers had last year. Well, things have changed. I noticed the 192 head of heifer pairs I purchased from central Arkansas were eating leaves off of big tree limbs while we had them penned up before we turned them out. Since turning them out with the original 410 cows, I have seen a substantial increase in weed consumption. In fact, the cows are stripping the leaves off of all the tree sprouts (except the hedge), eating big chunks out of the musk thistle rosettes, eating leaves off of the blackberry, and occasionally taking a nibble of buck brush (although not nearly enough to make a dent...we have tons of the stuff). I have many more pictures of whats left of the weeds after the mob passes thru a paddock...but I've posted so many similar pics that it seems pointless to continue to post pictures of bare sticks and partially eaten weeds. I'm dubious that we will kill these weeds but at least we're getting some good out of them.
I have a theory...I think the Arkansas cattle have grown up in the brush and are used to eating brush whereas my original cows all came from South Dakota and most likely, never got the opportunity to eat brush while growing up. I'm likely done purchasing cattle out of the north.

Two More Pics

These are 2 pictures of the same field, from the same location (at the north end of the North Rock Barn pasture). The first is from April 29, 2009, the second one is from April 9, 2010 (20 days earlier!)...a noticable improvement in just one year of mob grazing. Granted the weather has been warmer, earlier this year, and last year was a tremendous clover year (cool, wet spring) but the grass looks so much healthier this year than last.