10 tips for successful rotational grazing

1 Keep it simple

Most farmers are well aware of the benefits of rotational grazing and yet there is limited uptake on farm. So why do farmers shy away from a method that has proven time and time again to increase grass growth, quality and utilisation and decrease the overall cost of production – ultimately putting more money in your pocket at the end of the year?

One of the most common replies from farmers when asked if they are rotationally grazing is that they don’t have time to be moving stock every other day, or that don’t see the benefit for the added labour input.

First things first, if you are to make a success of any planned grazing system, it needs to work for both man and beast. Rotational grazing systems need not be complicated with a maze of electric fences and temporary posts – keep the system as simple as possible. It is quite amazing how quick livestock become trained into the routine.

2 Deciding your rotation

If this is your first attempt at rotational grazing, try just one grazing group this year to see how you get on. Typically, if it’s a bulling group that you are going to run then it’s 35-40 cows or if it’s growing stock group size is likely to be similar. The next question is how to provide the shifts for the group.

This can be done two ways, by splitting up a large field up into smaller paddocks, or using a number of neighbouring fields and adjusting the stock numbers to suit the paddock/field sizes so that they can simply rotate around a number of fields throughout the grazing period.

3 Give yourself enough paddocks

One potential trap for first-time rotational grazers is not having a sufficient number of paddocks. While it may involve a bit more fencing initially, it makes managing grass much easier throughout the season.

If you take the ideal situation of ‘grow it in three weeks, graze it in three days’ that gives you a rotation length of 21 days, divided by three days per paddocks means grazing group requires seven paddocks. While this may not be possible in every situations, strive to have as many as possible.

The problem with having just three or four paddocks comes when grass growth is at its highest in June/July. At this time grass supply will surpass demand. If you only have three divisions, to maintain a 21-day rotation leaves you a paddock retention time of seven days – meaning you return to each paddock every 14 days. Taking out a quarter of the grazing rotation as baled silage may leave you short on grass by the time you need to re-enter the silaged paddock. Having a greater number of paddocks allows you to remove a smaller proportion of the total grazing area at any one time.

4 Fencing

For cattle, this can be as simple as a single strand of electric wire and a handful of fence posts to split a field into paddocks. While mains electric is the preferred option, especially for animals that may not be used to electric fencing, battery power fences work perfectly once they remain well-powered. Battery fencers fitted with a solar panel will maintain the charge throughout the season in most cases.

If there is a fear that animals will run straight through fences when they are first let out to grass after winter, the best option is to let them out to settle in the field for a couple of hours prior to putting up the internal single strand wire to create paddocks.

For sheep, good results are achievable with four, or even three, strands of electric wire. Again if sheep are not used to electric fencing four strands is the best option.

Once they are trained in on the fence system the bottom line of wire can be disconnected later in the season to reduce earthing and loss of power.

5 Water

Often cited as a reason why a paddock system is not suited on a farm, this can often be overcome by moving the existing drinking trough and the addition of one more. A correctly placed trough should be able to serve two paddocks at the very least and often up to four. While there will be some initial investment required, it is one that will last for many years and repay you many times over.

6 Fertiliser

Fertiliser application goes hand-in-hand with the next point on measuring grass. Fertiliser usage needs to be adapted to suit the system. Blanket spreading twice a year on pasture ground will only make management of grass even more of a struggle. ‘Little and often’ is the best approach when it comes to fertiliser application. If you could get to a situation where you are spreading once every three weeks or even once a month you will see a vast improvement and it will aid grazing management.

As with all fertiliser programmes, application rates should be in accordance with soil test results. There is no point spreading high levels of N fertiliser if the pH is incorrect or another nutrient is limiting production.

7 Measuring grass

The success or failure of your grazing system depends on how well you manage grass. Measuring grass growth is a key tool to aid in successful grass management. Grass is the number one crop we grow on the vast majority of livestock farms yet we have no idea how much we have in stock at any one time. Without knowing how much grass we have on farm today, we are unable to make decisions to:

Measuring can be done in a number of ways, cut and weigh, plate meter, sward stick etc. Once you get yourself trained in to it, you can eyeball grass covers quite accurately. There are many grass software applications that will then take all this information – ie stock daily demand, grass growth rate and grass supply and feed it back to you in easy to understand graphs. This will then tell you if you are going to have a grass surplus or deficit in the coming weeks. If you have a surplus you can take out a paddock of strong grazing for silage. Where there is a deficit, you can take steps to alleviate this problem – sow more fertiliser, reduce stock numbers, bring more ground into the rotation etc.

8 Measuring performance

All stock should be weighed at regular intervals. It is the only accurate way to measure stock performance, identify periods of poorer thrive, and allow you to address any issues. If you are giving rotational grazing a go for the first time and you are not fully convinced of the benefits, do your own mini-trial. If you have two comparable groups of stock – one rotationally grazed and the other set stocked – weigh each group at the beginning and end of the grazing period and compare growth rates. What you will find is that growth rates on the rotational grazing will be greater when compared on a per head basis but even more so if you compare it as kg liveweight produced per hectare. This is due to both increased stocking rates and improved grass quality.

9 Use silage as a tool to maintain sward quality

The best grass managers in the country will fail to maintain the perfect sward in all paddocks throughout the year. As the grass plant tries to produce a seed head, the level of stem in the sward will increase and with it reduce sward digestibility.

It is inevitable that there will come a time in the season when grass growth will surpass demand. Taking surplus grazing out as baled silage is a great way to reset the sward for the next grazing while providing some top quality winter forage at the same time.

If there are a number of times throughout the season when surplus grass needs to be taken out, try to rotate it across a few different paddocks to help maintain a decent sward of grass for grazing.

Give it your best shot and commit to the process

You can read hundreds upon hundreds of articles or listen to what the farmer down the road has to say, but until you give rotational grazing a go yourself, you will never truly know the benefits of it. Make the mistakes, learn from them, and strive to do better next time.

Like with all things in business, you need to commit whole-heartedly to the process for it to be successful. If you set out thinking it won’t work, then you are probably right!