With fertilizer prices skyrocketing and hay just as costly, pasture utilization is essential to livestock producers. Mark Kennedy, State Grassland Conservationist in Missouri, offered these 10 tips for grazing 365 days.
While he warned, there is no silver bullet or magic pill, he added, "utilizing a combination of these ideas can help get you to that 365-day grazing rate."
“It is possible, barring ice, that is. When stuff gets covered with an inch or more of ice it is hard not to feed hay,” he noted.
The goal of profitable grazing management is to meet the nutritional needs of livestock from standing pasture as many days as possible, Kennedy began.
“It’s important to harvest forage from pastures with animals and as efficiently as possible,” he said.
1. Proper Stocking Rate
Square one is establishing the appropriate stocking rate for your pastures. Stocking rate, Kennedy explained, is the number of animals or animal live weight on a pasture. It is important for stocking rate to be near the carrying capacity, also. Carrying capacity is how many animals can be on your land and have enough forage to meet livestock needs and not do harm to the pasture.
2. Efficient Utilization Forage Produced
Utilization of forage can determine carrying capacity as well. “Slow continuous grazing will yield about 30 to 35 percent utilization efficiency, whereas management-intensive grazing with paddocks can increase that to 60 to 65 percent,” Kennedy said.
Forages can be harvested two ways, either by mechanical means or by livestock. Mechanical harvest is 70 percent efficient, but there is a cost involved. Harvest efficiency with grazing can be as low as 30 – 35 percent. “The longer an animal is in a pasture, the lower that utilization efficiency becomes,” Kennedy explained.
Kennedy suggested to use red and white clover or an annual lespedeza to add production in the summer. “You’ll need a rotational grazing system to maintain mixtures like that,” he stressed. Still, he added, “Highly diverse pastures is the key to maintaining a long growing season.”
3. Add Warm Season Grasses
There are many native and introduced warm season grasses that work well in the Ozarks' pastures. “Warm season grasses offer good summer production and they can help manage the endophyte problem,” he noted. They help manage spring growth of forage in cool seasons, and they are more efficient utilizers of water and Nitrogen than cool season grasses. Available crude protein numbers range from 14 to 16 percent, making them a viable forage as well.
4. Stockpile Tall Fescue
They say successful businesses always have an unfair advantage. Kennedy proposed that tall fescue is many Ozark cattle producer’s unfair advantage. “Fescue is our cheapest livestock feed in winter,” he said. Fall regrowth accumulates high concentrations of carbohydrates, and the leaves’ waxy coating creates resistance to weathering. Also, in tall fescue, the levels of toxins are lower in the fall. “The Ergovaline concentrations drop more rapidly than forage quality does, as winter goes on,” Kennedy noted.
5. Use Warm Season Annuals
Sudan, corn, millet, crabgrass are all recommendations for warm season annuals. Crabgrass is Kennedy’s pick, calling it the highest quality warm season grass out there. Crabgrass offers a medium yield potential, and good persistence when reseeding. When using sudan, corn, millet beware prussic acid poisoning at some stages. (Like johnson grass, they can be toxic during young, tender growth.)
6. Graze dormant alfalfa and hayfields
While hayfields will need a 45 day resting period prior to frost, utilizing standing dormant forage can bee effective. It also may reduce some insect populations. Studies have shown that grazing alfalfa hayfields reduced the weevil population. It is important to note that grazing should not occur before the killing frost, he said.
