Ulf owns and operates White Clover Sheep Farm and breeds and raises grass-fed White Dorper sheep and Kiko goats without any grain feeding and offers breeding stock suitable for grazing. The Cornell Small Farms Program is housed at Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) in Ithaca, NY, and works in partnership with Cornell Cooperative Extension across New York State. With most perennial species, some form of rotational grazing is essential to ensure persistence in the medium to long-term.
Numbers may vary between two or three or four.
Based on grazing management of livestock, we recommend that a group of horses is introduced to the first paddock in the rotation when the average plant condition is optimal, as described earlier. © 2019 Cornell Small Farms. The more intensive systems with one-day paddocks for example are obviously most suited to the dairy herd. Use of temporary interior fences is recommended for flexibility. Great article! The problem arises when an animal comes back and “regrazes” that plant before it has had time to store enough energy/carbohydrates. Like Ulf, I found that putting in a permanent perimeter fence on much of my grazing land made it much easier to move my electronets more frequently and reap the benefits of improved forage use.
When we stimulate a plant by grazing it while in its recovery phase and before it has enough sugar to feed the soil (through its root exudates), it is “overgrazed.” The overgrazed plant will be forced to sacrifice root mass to grow more leaf tissue.
In traditional livestock, effects on animal performance have been mixed, but the rotational systems had higher forage production overall, especially in humid regions of the country (Holechek et al., 1999). In general, the higher the FOO the higher the potential growth. Once a day rotation means you have exactly the amount of forage in the pasture that the sheep should have that day while still leaving the desirable four inches of residual. That means a rotational schedule should be less than one week.
A well-managed pasture program can be the most economical way to provide forage to ruminant animals. As mentioned before, not every piece of land is suitable for the most intensive management, we must consider costs and return on investment. The problem with rotational grazing is “moving livestock between paddocks every set number of days.” Pasture does not respond to grazing the same way throughout the growing season. This would not be sustainable to maintain a pasture with predominantly desirable pasture species and it will most definitely not be sustainable if you are paying a mortgage and property taxes on the land you graze. Researchers have been comparing rotational and continuous grazing systems for many decades. At the peak of spring growth it would be expected that animals would rotate around a paddock system on a 21-day cycle. Day four or five leaves only less desirable plants. 4. On day three these plants are now scarce or gone and less desirable plants must be grazed. However, there will be excess forage in the spring, and the herd will need to receive supplemental forage in October. The bigger soil critters eat the smaller ones and the byproduct of this R-rated free-for-all is a flush of plant-available nutrients. For example, if the herd will be grazing medium- producing Kentucky bluegrass and white clover pasture in June, approximately 1.3 acres will be needed to support each AU. Rather it is a planning procedure that has been adapted from 300 years of military history. There are a number of species including tagasaste and some of the temperate perennial grasses that persist under set-stocking with cattle but not with sheep. To lessen the chances of disease, the most logical approach is to lessen pasture exposure to infective larvae.
Note: Actual acreage will depend on pasture yield, dry matter intake, and efficiency of pasture utilization. Further research is needed to better understand this relationship. I would recommend reaching out directly to Ulf with your question. We will reference the grazing plan throughout the grazing season against the reality we observe daily on the ground. A shortened version of the URL, helpful when communicating the URL over email or verbally. Good access tracks and a reliable water supply to each paddock are essential features of the system. How long do you rest an area before you start over again grazing it? Therefore young animals with immune systems that have not encountered parasites or have not matured sufficiently to limit numbers of parasites are at greatest risk of disease.