Why is Rotational Grazing Important?
Our climate is increasingly unpredictable every season. The Midwest is hit especially hard with winters becoming warmer and with less snow, heavy rains, flooding, and hotter summers just to name a few. All of these changes directly contribute to increased challenges to livestock health and their vulnerability to diseases and parasites. Poorly managed grazing systems only magnify these problems. By having a nutritious pasture that can absorb water efficiently, reduce or eliminate the use of chemicals and pesticides, and using plants that help rebuild the soil, rotational grazing can help reduce and be adaptable to the effects of climate change.
What is a healthy pasture?
To understand how rotational grazing contributes to a nutritious and high-quality pasture, lets us first understand what a healthy pasture would entail.
A high-quality pasture should have an assorted mix of perennial plants that are densely stacked. No bare soil should be present, there should always be some type of vegetation. Generally, for midwestern regions, a healthy pasture contains a good mix of legumes, grasses, and forbs. This provides a combination of taller vertical grasses, with the shorter plants like the legumes and forbs. This helps capture more sunlight, allowing the pasture to grow robustly. This dense plant material provides shade for the soil during the hotter months, and insulation in the winter. The soil of the pasture should drain easily, meaning no standing pools of water. Water drainage from the pasture should be clear and not muddy, indicating that the soil is absorbing the water.
Types of pasture plants
As plants grow, minerals are taken from the soil up to the plant which in combination with photosynthesis, produces fiber, proteins, and fats. The more plants a pasture has, the more photosynthesis can take place. Carbohydrates are stored in the plants too, making it possible for perennial plants to live through the winter season and grow again in the spring. This same energy is also needed to grow back again after grazing. Plants won’t start storing new energy until they have grown new leaves and have time to photosynthesis again. This process can take anywhere between two weeks up to a few months. Some plants are better for pastures than others.
Legumes (such as clovers) are a highly digestible forage to livestock while providing nitrogen to the soil. Grasses provide fiber and energy to the livestock, and forbs (broadleaf plants that are not grass such as plantain) provide a mix of protein and fiber. However, each of these has different growth rates depending on the type of plant. It is important to have a grazing plan in order to avoid grazing the grass too short, which we will talk about further down.
Grasses comprise of both annual and perennial plants. Perennial grasses include warm and cool-season plants. Cool-season plants grow during the cool damp seasons of spring and fall, while warm-season plants are most productive during the hot and dry summer season. Common cool-season grasses include Kentucky Bluegrass, Quack Grass, Timothy, Perennial Rye Grass, Bromegrass, and Fescues. Common warm-season grasses include Big Bluestem, Little Bluestem, Eastern Gama Grass, and Switch Grass.
Legumes have a symbiotic relationship with microorganisms called rhizobacteria that live in their roots. This leads to the development of nodules in which the bacteria are able to convert atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia. The plant uses this as a nitrogen source to help grow. This nitrogen collection can also be used by other plants to use too, helping decrease or eliminate the need to apply a nitrogen-fixing fertilizer, hence the common term “nitrogen-fixing plants.” Common legumes are clovers, Bird’s-Foot Trefoil, Alfalfa, and different species of Vetch.
The word Forb means it is a flowering plant other than grass. Some Forbs are weeds, while others are planted intentionally. Weeds can actually have medicinal qualities for the animals. Common Forbs are Dandelion, Turnip, Forage Chicory, and Plantain.
By having a diverse mix of grasses, legumes, and forbs both the animals and the plants benefit from one another.
Why is rotational grazing important?
Now that we have established what a healthy pasture looks like and what it contains, let us examine how animals play a vital role in maintaining a high-quality pasture.
A well-managed grazing system can have many benefits to animals, humans, and farmers alike.
Good grazing practices can improve the health of livestock through better nutrition, freedom to engage in natural behaviors, lower stress, and overall quality of life for the animal. Grass-fed, pasture-raised animals produce meat and milk with different amounts and types of nutrients tan what conventional grain-fed livestock produce. Higher antioxidants, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin E and others.
By using plants that rebuild the soil naturally, there is a decreased need for pesticides and chemicals, which in turn decreases the exposure to humans. These chemicals also do not enter out water sources via runoff because they were not used. By having a healthy pasture, this makes the animals healthier, therefore reducing the need for antibiotics or other medicines. This aids in the slower spread of antibiotic-resistant pathogens. Perennial pastures also decrease soil erosion and provide nesting habitat to birds and other wildlife.
Rotational grazing can help extend the grazing season, allowing farmers to rely less and cut down on stored feed. Healthy pastures provide low-cost, high-quality food for their animals that the animals “harvest” themselves. This eliminates the need for mechanical harvest of feed, including storage and feeding. Grazing management can cause the mix of plant species in a pasture to change without the need to reseed or tilling by having the animal do what it does naturally: trample weeds and dead plants into the ground and spread their own manure, which adds to soil organic matter. They spread their own manure (fertilizer) too, decreasing the need to do this manually or with additives.
Overgrazing and Other Troubles
Pasture detriment is often caused by overgrazing either by grazing the plants down too short or by having the animals revisit the paddock too soon before regrowth can occur. Another common mishap is putting animals on pasture that is too wet, or during the winter months during the time that plants are reserving their energy.
Plant can be damaged by grazing if they are still growing, or if they are grazed down too short. If animals eat down to the ground, plants do not have enough energy to regrow quickly. It is important to have rest periods for the pasture and having the appropriate number of animals on each paddock. Another concern is parasites. Parasite larva lives in the bottom 2-4 inches of grass. Making sure that the pasture is not grazed too short also aids in the prevention of parasites, as well as pasture regrowth.
Bloat can also be a problem if not managed. By having too many legumes in the pasture, especially coupled with wet or damp conditions, bloat can occur. Bloat is caused by foam-producing compounds in the immature plants which get into the rumen of the animal. This prohibits them from belching rumen gas leading to serious medical problems including death.
All of these concerns can be avoided if a pasture is well managed. Moving animals frequently, cultivating a pasture that has a mix of grasses, legumes, and forbs, and making sure animals do not overgraze plants are all ways to ensure healthy animals and a healthy pasture.
Conclusion
To recap, rotational grazing is important because it:
Improves ecosystem health
Increases carbon sequestration
Increases pasture health
Provides nutritious local food to grazing animals
Improves animal health and welfare
Cuts down on feed costs to farmers
Assists in the decreased need for pesticides and chemicals
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