Moving the Cows From One Paddock to Another

We have a 3 acre pasture for our cows to browse around on and eat grass.  Although we have a nice-sized vegetable garden, the crop on our little homestead that gives vegetables a good run for the money is grass.  Let me further define that - a Bahia-Bermuda mix that grows out on the pasture intermixed with various weeds that grow up from the seed bank in the soil.  The more noxious weeds like Bitterweed, I pull up from the roots when I spot them growing.

The Bahia and Bermuda grass that grows wasn't planted.  It just naturally comes up.  I've found that the easiest, cheapest and best forage for us is not grasses that you plant from seed and 'force' to grow, they are the grasses that just come up on their own.  They are native to our area and seem to thrive without any inputs other than sunshine, rainfall, and animal fertilizer.  I'll probably add some lime to the pasture at some point, but really there's not much work in making our pasture grass grow.  There is, however, a little work in managing the 'buffet table' that our cows graze on.  I'm talking about the pasture, of course.

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The photo above shows the two northern-most paddocks in our pasture.  We have the 3 acre pasture divided into six individual paddocks, and the animals are allowed access to only 1 of the six at any given time.  The remaining five are blocked off as we rotate the cows through the paddocks and allow them to dine on fresh green grass that they love.  The paddocks are arranged so that the cows always can walk to shade, hay bale, and the water trough.  This is done by having a lane that all the paddocks open up to and share.

The paddocks are divided by portable electric fencing  I use poly-wire supported by fiberglass, step in posts.  Our paddock sizes aren't uniformly sized as our pasture isn't a perfect square or rectangle. Moving the cows through the pasture takes some management as there are several variables in deciding when it is time to move them from one paddock to another; it's not as easy as just moving them to a fresh paddock every day.

First, the time of year matters.  During early spring when it is still cool, the grass grows slowly and the cows quickly eat the tender growth on top.  In this case, I do cycle them to the next paddock quickly.  Next, the heat index matters.  During the heat of summer, the cows only eat grass first thing in the morning and in the late afternoon.  In this case, it may take 4 days for the cows to eat the grass in a paddock.  Also, in this environment, a lot of the grass is wasted since it grows faster than they can eat it, and the grass grows a long stem and seed head, which the cows avoid. Finally, the level of the grass eaten matters.  We try to ensure that the cows aren't eating any lower than 3 inches down on the grass.  Any lower and they can pick up parasites, so when the grass is eaten down, we move them.

Cows are true grass aficionados.  They are connoisseurs of grass and when they see me reeling up the poly-wire, they come running to get into the paddock with the fresh grass.  They know what they want and go get it!  I have several of These reels and they make opening up new paddocks easy, fast and efficient.  The picture below best illustrates this.  You can see the poly-wire running across the top of the photograph, and you can see how the grass is clipped short at the bottom in the paddock where the cows have been eating and the longer grass at the top, where they'll be moved.

See the difference in the grass height?  The difference is a miracle of sorts.  That grass has largely been converted into milk!  The sun grows the grass which is eaten by the cows, converted to milk. The waste is deposited (plop, plop) back on the pasture and combined with sunshine and rain, grows more grass and the cycle continues.

The advantages of splitting the pasture into paddocks are numerous.  This helpful link from NRCS shows the benefits of rotational grazing.  In our experience we've found all of the benefits to be true. Believe it or not, rotational grazing allows your pasture to produce more grass than in a continuous grazing arrangement.  Rotating them through different paddocks allows the pasture to "rest" and gives your pasture diversity in grass types.  The animal can pick and choose what she likes to eat and not just "cherry-pick" only one type of grass.  More grass growth, as opposed to constant-clipped growth, allows the grass to grow a deep root system, making it more healthy and gives some semblance of being drought resistance.

When you employ rotational grazing you can 'stockpile' grass.  We call one of our paddocks the sacrifice pasture.  We allow it to grow up at the end of the season and turn the cows in it to clean it up after the other grass is gone.  It is sort of like having a pantry full of canned goods for them in the off season.  Finally, as discussed above, rotational grazing allows a form of parasite control, since the cows are grazing off of grass tops instead of eating close to the ground where they pick up parasites.

We feel that rotational grazing has been a great pasture management tool for us in giving our cows the best from our limited pasture and we constantly try to improve our management of the land.