Talk to me about intensive grazing please :o)

[big brown horse]

Please help me understand this idea. All I know is that you confine the grazer to smaller areas until they have gleaned the area of grass, weeds etc. How big should the area be for say, 2 sheep?

I'm guessing another added benefit is keeping the worm population down, especially if rotated every 21 days. Am I right?

I am thinking about doing this with my two sheep. I have 1 acre of land for them to use. Mostly grass, some forest and a fruit-tree orchard.

I have 7 or so pipe panels and a bunch of t-posts, so I can contain them in a portable corral..

I am already going to build (another, stronger and more thought out) pig pen. It is going to be two corrals connected by a gate. I plan on rotating him from one to another. Then next year (after he is butchered) I will be turning it into more garden space.

 

[justusnak]

BBH, if you have an acre for those sheepies, just split it in half. 21 days would be great growing time for the other half to "recover" Altho.....my vet told me 30 days is more optimal....for parasites to have time to "die off" This year we will be doing another pasture for ours...to rotate.
As for the piggies, great idea haveing a place to rotate them as well.
We are useing our old pig pen this year for a garden as well. I cant waite to see the results, since we have clay soil here..and it hard to get anything to grow.

 

[old fashioned]

Disclaimer---I am by no means an expert or even on hand experienced with this, but I have thought of this alot for future reference (if I had the land & animals). I'm sure it would probably work, I'm just not so sure for how long before having to rotate.

I would think, if you had the materials, to cross fence the acre into atleast 4 pastures and rotate when one gets low with possibly mowing an opposite pasture for winter/supplement hay. This would give it time to regrow before putting the sheep on it.
I'd guess 1/4 acre for 2 sheep isn't bad-I'd keep a close eye on the pasture to make sure it would be enough for 21 days.

As for the pig-similar but seperate plan. Just make darned sure pen area is strong and sturdy. I hear those things are like Houdini's. Cute as heck and smart as a whip. (I just love piggies )

Best of luck to ya, whatever you decide.

 

[modern_pioneer]

I didn't read the OP because being a big brown horse, you should have it covered.

 

[big brown horse]

I didn't read the OP because being a big brown horse, you should have it covered.

HA HA HA very funny.

Thanks everybody!

I would like to know the difference b/t intensive grazing and rotation.

 

[Ohioann]

I think if you do some more research you will find that rotational grazing and intensive grazing can be very different. It is my understanding that, in general terms, rotational grazing is dividing available pasture into plots, stocking a plot with the number of animals that can graze for a given amount of time (week,month,etc)and then rotating them to the next section at the end of that time. Intensive grazing is loading a large number of animals into a small area and moving them frequently ( up to several times a day). Joe Salatin has several books that talk about these methods and are probably available through your library. Joe is an interesting writer and speaker and tho I don't agree with everytinhg he has to say it it very thought provoking.

 

[The Vail Benton's]

http://www.internationalgrasslands.org/publications/pdfs/id2209.pdf

http://www.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/id/id74/id74.htm

http://intensivegrazing.tamu.edu/

 

[freemotion]

Remember the part in "Food, Inc" when Joel Salatin opens the gate and the cattle pour into a new pasture, with grass that is more than knee-deep, leaving behind a bare paddock with closely-cropped grass? That is the size it needs to be for two sheep....the size that they will graze it down completely, small enough that they will not be picky, that the grass will not have time to grow back while they are in it.

I am thinking at least four to your acre, but probably more. Depends on how rich your grass is and how many sheep you ultimately have, if you breed one, etc.

I plan on cross-fencing my field eventually, but for now, I need to improve the soil a lot more for this to be very effective. I will probably do 4 paddocks this year. One for pigs, maybe cross-fenced into two paddocks. Then three larger ones for the goats, and I will mow hay from two before moving them. I hope we have a dry enough year that I can get two cuttings, even with the grazing. We will see!

I will be getting Joel's book, Salad Bar Beef, from the library. I think (hope!) this is the one that talks a lot about pasture and intensive grazing.

 

[bibliophile birds]

i'm cheating by copying what i wrote in another post about MIG (management-intensive grazing).

what you want to think about with grass is it's optimal growth time (see page three of this article ). that will change over the seasons, but in early spring it's around 14 days. ideally then, each blade of grass would be cut (mowed or eaten) every 14 days.

optimal growth:

day 1: the blade of grass is cut. grass balances it blade and it's roots, so the plant kills off most of the roots, which then become food for the organisms in the soil and make GREAT fertilizer.

days 2 & 3: nothing should be allowed on the grass during these days. the grass will immediately begin rebuilding the blade and the roots.

day 4: if you have chickens, you can run them on the grass on this day. the short grass is easier for them to eat than larger blades and they will decimate the sheep poop. this will basically rid your paddocks of parasites AND spread the poop around nicely, fertilizing the field even more and spreading any seeds in it. plus, the chicken poop will help fix nitrogen in the soil. (i don't know about chickens with sheep poop, only horses or cows. something to look into.)

days 5-13: nothing should be allowed on the grass during these days. the grass will grow rapidly, sending out new roots.

day 14/ day 1: this the the last day of optimal growth. after this day, the blades will begin to get woody (less appetizing and digestible) and the weeds will go to seed. this is the day you want to reintroduce the sheep or mow the grass. the cycle will start over and the grass will continually get stronger and the soil will be AMAZING.

free choice grazing is terrible on paddocks as the good grasses get decimated before they can reach their optimal growth and weeds get left alone to take over.

here's what you could do:

1. invest in some movable electric fencing (you could go with 1 or 2 strands of hotwire probably). depending on your paddock set up and your access to electricity, you might need to splurge on a solar fence charger or just a couple car batteries (these can power a regular fence charger for at least a day and you can recharge them).

2. you want to break the paddock into a rotational grid. you are aiming for sections that are just large enough to be grazed pretty completely in a single day. ideally, you would have 13 sections that they would rotate through in a continual pattern, but that may not work out. it'll take some trial and error to figure out the right size/rotation but it'll be a great big help in the end. you could perhaps divide the field into this management-intensive grazing section and then whatever is left you could do some of the other suggestions about manure spreading.

3. you want to move the sheep onto fresh pasture at the end of every day. this way the freshly grazed section is protected from hooves while it is vulnerable. you simply set up the next section with the electric fencing (which shouldn't take too long), let the sheep onto the fresh grass, supply some water, and you're done!

like everything else that is good for us and our land, this is a major chore at first. once you get the right rotations figured out though, it's pretty easy and well worth it.

this kind of system is really designed for more acreage, but i'm sure you can find ways to make it work for you. you might have to run the sheep over grass before it's optimal growth period ends, but it would still probably be much better for the grasses in the long run.

good luck!