It’s a given that there isn’t one particular grazing management system that is the best fit for every single producer. Likewise, every grazing system has its own strengths and weaknesses. Overall, the most important aspect of any successful grazing management system is for a producer to match their farm resources, goals, and management availability with a particular grazing system in order to maximize profits.
Controlled grazing management is simply a grazing management system in which livestock are confined to and released from one of multiple pastures at the control of a producer. This is such a different grazing management system than the traditional continuous grazing management option in which animals are allowed to roam freely through open gates and across the entire farm. Controlled grazing allows a pasture’s soil and forage time to rest between grazing intervals. This rest or “recovery period” for the pasture ensures that a grazing land can stay in top condition for longer periods of time and will also prevent soil erosion and nutrient loss.
Some of the advantages of controlled grazing systems are reflected in the increases of forage utilization, total animal production, farm carrying capacity and the number of grazing days per acre per year. Those increases not only translate into increased farm profit, but also a decreased reliance on hay.
The primary advantage of using controlled grazing instead of continuous grazing on the farm is that its use can increase the farm forage utilization by up to 35 percent. This improved forage utilization efficiency can ultimately increase the carrying capacity of a farm through an increase of available forage for grazing and hay production.
The reason that the forage utilization efficiency increases under controlled grazing management is that the selective grazing of more palatable forages by livestock is limited by an increase in stocking rate. As the pasture stocking rate increases the livestock are forced to graze the available forage and not allowed to selectively graze the favorite forage as often happens with continuous grazing. When the forage in the pasture being grazed becomes diminished the animals are moved to another pasture and the one just vacated is allowed to rest for several days or weeks. The rest period for each pasture varies depending on pasture size, forage species, growth rate, time of year, number or pastures and weather conditions.
The number of pastures in a controlled grazing system can vary from a few to many, and a high stocking density is placed on each pasture for a short time. The duration of grazing may be as short as a few hours but generally no more than two weeks and then the animals are moved to another pasture.
With controlled grazing, cool-season forages may be stockpiled in the fall for later grazing and warm-season forages can be hayed in the summer to be fed in drought periods or winter. Controlled grazing management should be designed on your farm to extend the grazing season for both warm and cool-season forages and this will result in better utilization of forages which will reduce the number of days that hay must be fed. Again, this will reduce the cost of production.
