Rotational grazing your livestock instead of using continuous grazing maximizes the amount of animals you can keep per acre and improves soil fertility, erosion, manure distribution, and quality of both beast and field.
How It Works
Just like all things in Creation, the land needs rest to preform at it's best. Rotational grazing is the process of moving your livestock to new pasture every day or few days. You should move them when the grass is still very much there, thick, and 4-5 inches long. Grass should get around 20 days of rest before having animals on it again. The best time to graze again is right before the grass goes to seed when the grass is about 12-14" in the warm seasons and 8" in the cooler seasons. In other words right after the rapid growth ends.
What We Do
All the pasture on our property is fenced with a main electric perimeter fence. We have 8ft wood fence posts (buried 2-3ft in the ground though) and high tensile metal wire that we electrify. Then we use "temporary" plastic fencing posts and wire to partition pieces of pasture to make paddocks. We have 4 lines of permanent fencing wire and 2 for the temporary.
All of the supplies can be found... pretty much anywhere. We got ours from our local Southern States and Tractor Supply. If you have questions about building your fencing feel free to reach out.
Pros
- Rotationally grazed pastures recover better in droughts
- Under this system your pastures will have a more diverse plant growth.
- boosted carbohydrate stores
- improves yield
- Overall brings more "bang for your buck"
Cons
- More time and work put into pasturing livestock
- More fencing required
- Water tubs and shade needed in each paddock