Grazing for Beginners (very long post for the HOA TN attendees, and anyone else who is interested)

Grazing for Good: Grass management for beginners: why managed grazing is so important, and a nuts-and-bolts explanation of how to do it

Maybe you've just bought a new homestead or small farm, or maybe you've been on this land for years. Maybe it's beautiful – green pastures, healthy trees and animals, tight fences and well-painted barn – or maybe it's a run-down wreck: weedy, topsoil gone, soil bare and eroding, fences non-existent. Either way, here you are, and you want your ownership of this land to bless both it and you. Where do you start?

Right now is the moment to start good grass management. Because grass, it turns out, is at the center of regenerative land stewardship.

Why grass?

Grass – and when we say grass, we mean all those plants out there that aren't trees or bushes or moss, all the species of herbaceous (non-woody) plants, grass and forb and legume, that make up what we call 'grasslands' – is the foundation of an enormous percentage of terrestrial life: plant, animal, insect, fungus, annelid, biota. Take care of your grass and you take care of everything; neglect your grass and nothing else will be as good as it should be. No exaggeration.

Grass is king

Think of it this way: Life requires energy; and all the life energy on the planet starts out as simple photons: solar energy – sunlight. Fortunately, there is generous sunlight pouring down on us constantly – we're good there – and all that needs to happen is that it must be caught.

That's where plants come in; they capture solar energy with chlorophyl, and use the energy to split and recombine molecules of water and carbon dioxide. Most of the oxygen is returned to the atmosphere, while the resulting carbon and hydrogen become plant material – that is, the plant grows. And because plants grow, so can everything else. It's that simple.

All of which means that good land stewardship requires, absolutely, good grass management.

Not to understate the importance of forests, but we're talking about human stewardship, and few human food systems are forest-based. The bulk of human land management happens on land that is, or would be but for human intervention, covered with the relatively low-growing, non-woody, wildly various species of plants that make up our lawns, fields, pastures, prairies, steppes, meads, and moors. For purposes of common speech, we call it 'grass'.

Grass covers about 40% of the earth's land mass. There's a whole lot of it, which is one reason it's so important. There's another: the wildly biodiverse communities we call 'grasslands' are the most effective solar energy collectors imaginable.

This is because of the way grass and forbs grow. Any size from over ten feet down to just milimeters in height, and with leaves of extravagantly various shapes and sizes held out at every possible angle, a community of these plants so arranges itself as to take advantage of every last bit of light the sun offers it. They spread out, pack themselves tight, and sift out almost every last photon before it reaches the soil surface. They send down roots ten, twenty, thirty feet or more, hold soil, collect and conserve moisture, draw up deeply deposited minerals, and combine them with carbon dioxide from the air to make food – directly or indirectly – for all the living things on the earth.

You. Me. The songbird outside our windows. The fox that eats the songbird. Our families, pets, and livestock. All of us.

Taking the best possible care of our grass lets us take the best possible care of everything else. And the better we do it, the healthier our families, the stronger our farms, the longer, richer, the more exciting our lives in this place.

That's why we're going to focus on grass management.

What does grass need?

Grasslands seem like pretty independent communities, when you think about it. So why do they need management? What does grass require?

The answer is pruning. Yes, pruning. Most herbaceous – non-woody – plants periodically require the mechanical removal of older plant material – leaves and stems. Clearing these away lets light down to reach new growth tips so fresh leaves and stems can grow.

Moreover, pruning plant tops stimulates root die-back. Maybe that doesn't sound like such a great thing at first, but when grazed plants – grazing, after all, is nature's primary means of pruning – respond to pruning by shedding old root mass, the organic matter this leaves in the soil feeds tiny life, biota which renew the fertility of the soil. In addition, the spaces left by rotting roots allow the soil to aborb rainwater, and make room for new roots to grow.

Grasslands that don't get pruned eventually suffocate under their own dead material; cut off from much of the available sunlight, new leaves and seedlings never have a chance to grow.

And there's more than pruning going on when plants are grazed. The trample of grazing animals helps break down woody stems, drives seeds into the soil, makes divots to cup and hold rainwater, breaks crusted or capped soil surfaces, all promoting healthy growth and regrowth. Grasslands need grazing animals as much as grazing animals need grasslands.

Not really very surprising, when you think about it.

Where do we come in? -- a brief explanation of the need for grass management

You might wonder why grass management should be necesary. If the grasslands want to be grazed, like to be grazed, it might seem that the best thing we could do to help would be to fence in some grazing animals and then let them go to it. No managment necessary.

Well, that method has certainly been tried! Especially since the introduction of barbed wire in the late 1800's. Herds of animals, large and small, have been penned onto grasslands, given a source of water, and left to do their thing. And the results, by and large, have been little short of disastrous.

Why? Because new young growth is sweeter and tastier than older growth. So when nicely pruned plants send up tender new growth points, an unmanaged grazing animal comes along and nips it off, and the plant has to start over again from root reserves to build a new growth point. And what if the grazing animal returns just as that growth point emerges, sweet and succulent? And so with the next new growth – and the next?

This is what happens when livestock can wander at their sweet will over pasture, grazing as they please. Favored plants are grazed to the ground and eventually eradicated; less favored or woody plants go unpruned. Bare soil between plants heats up and dries out. Seeds cannot germinate; soil life dies.

What about wild populations?

You may wonder, if this is the case, how it is that the grazing of wild animals – unfenced, unmanaged – has not been an overall detriment to grasslands? The answer is predation. It is only fearless animals, unconcerned about predators, that can spread out over a landscape and selectively graze just the choicest bits. Wild grazing animals in natural communities, on the other hand, crowd together for safety from predators. Crowding automatically increases competition for food. Competition makes grazing far less selective; pasture plants receive more equal impact. Hard grazing – and the heavy trampling and manuring that result – necessitate migration to fresh pastures, as local food sources are temporarily unavailable. Migration prevents over-pruning – what we learn to call 'taking the second bite'.

Domestic animals, on the other hand, are protected from predators by fences and guns and habitat destruction, and so lose the instinct to bunch together. Spreading out reduces competition for any given bite; animals become more selective; the less succulent plant material (the older material that needs to be removed) is not so inviting as young, green shoots. Woody growth is allowed to remain, or replacement growth is removed before it can mature. Marginally nutritious and medicinal plants replace food species. Bare soil heats up; seeds fail to germinate. This pasture is on its way to scrub land, or desert.

Think back, now, to that wild herd bunching for safety from predators. Remember how they grazed and trampled the grass to the point where they had to migrate? All that heavy impact – including a nice layer of manure and shower of urine – meant there was nothing fit to eat, so the animals moved on. Weeks or months pass before the herd returns to this point, and over that time great things are happening.

Urine is absorbed; manure incorporated into the soil. Dead plant material breaks down. In this newly fertilized environment new shoots emerge and grow; new roots follow old paths into the earth, take up minerals, bind nitrogen. The earth, shaded, retains water, remaining cool and biologically active. Seeds, forced into the soil by trampling hoofs, germinate and grow. Minerals are made bioavailable by active biota; soil health increases. Grasses and forbs cover the earth again, ready for another pass by the grazing herds. Abundance and health prevail.

How do we make this happen on our farms? With managed grazing.

Principles

The concept of grass management has become far more widely considered in the past two or three decades. Although still very much in the minority, grass farmers have yet had the opportunity to learn by doing and to share what they are learning. Consequently there are many books and videos available on the topic, and this is a great asset.

But the plethora of advice on grazing can also be a little overwhelming. So many imperatives; so much to remember. So many numbers and formulae and details. But don't be intimidated: The science of grazing is fascinating, but it only takes a few basic principles to get started. You don't need a PhD to practice regenerative grazing of high quality; you need just a few principles, persistence, and attentiveness. Nature will teach you the rest.

The basics of good grazing are simple, and can be summed up in a few words: small paddocks, short duration, heavy impact, long rest and recovery. There you have it in a nutshell. Whether you're grazing one animal or many, these minimal rules will start you down the right path. The degree of smallness, shortness, heaviness, and length can vary widely and still be within an acceptable range, still be regenerative.

Let's look at how to put them into practice.

Tools first

Portable temporary electric fence. This is polymer twine with stainless steel fibers twisted in to carry an electric charge. It loads onto reels so you can let it out or wind it up just like fishing line. You want two reels to start out with, and about two dozen fiberglass or UV-resistant plastic posts. Not from the farm store, but a reputable brand; you'll have to order from away, probably. Kencove, Gallagher, Obrien, and Premier One are reliable.

Posts: We like fiberglass posts with permanent clips and step-in brace, or the Obrien posts molded in white plastic. Light weight is important; you're going to be carrying these around a bit. This is temporary interior fence, not permanent perimeter fence. Cheap plastic posts grow brittle under ultraviolet light (like sunlight) and snap under strain; cheap fiberglass posts grow splintery. Try working with stuff that leaves slivers of glass in your hands; you'll soon know why we recommend buying quality tools.

Reels: If you're on a tight budget you can get along fine with those plastic reels the hardware store sells for extension cords, but they'll get brittle after awhile and break up. Reels actually made for fencing will cost five times as much but they serve rather better than extension cord reels, and they seem to last forever; our original equipment has been in constant use for over ten years and is as good as new. We'd recommend two full-size reels (the tiny ones are for cross-fencing; you might want one or two), and we prefer geared reels because they wind up faster. Mid-size is big enough; for a smaller farm you don't need an enormous reel, and you don't want to be carrying more weight than necessary.

Twine: The more metal fibers it contains, the better it will carry a charge. Usually you have a choice between six and nine. Twine comes in various thicknesses for different applications: you don't need a thick twine for most homestead needs, and smaller guage stuff packs more on a reel. One spool of twine will load two large reels easily, with some left over for the little cross-fence reels if you have them.

Fence charger: If you're not confining buffalo you probably don't need more than a three joule charger for a small farm. If you decide to go with solar charger units, they'll be less powerful -- .5 to 1.0 joules is what we see out there now – but these work fine for us, too. The lower power doesn't seem to matter as long as the solar charger is only asked to charge the relatively short paddock fence, not the whole perimeter of the farm.

Get a good brand. If you are going with wall current chargers, don't forget the ground rods. Be sure to follow installation instructions if you want a fence that functions properly.

Text box: fence tester

Water system: We find that hoses and half barrels are plenty adequate for portable livestock water. We use stock water float valves to regulate fill, but for one or two animals you could just fill a tank by hand once or twice a day. There are lots of stock water valves on the market, and you don't need anything fancy; with water available in the paddock at all times, animals drink as needed and don't require a fast refill rate.

City water costs money and may be interrupted; it will almost certainly be treated. Contamination of one kind or another is almost inevitable these days, but if you trust your sources, rainwater and surface water are both free and easy to capture. Large IBC 'totes' hold around 300 gallons each; several of these can be plumbed together to hold thousands of gallons. We have been using them successfully for years.

'Flash grazing' creek and pond banks (more below) lets you use surface water for livestock needs without causing pollution or erosion problems. None of these methods requires energy inputs (see our field guide on Free Water for more on passive captured farm water systems).

There are lots of dandy tools out there that promise to make managed grazing easier, but these few tools will get you started.

What you don't need, at least not yet:

• a high pressure in-ground water system
• high tensile perimeter fence
• permanent interior paddock fences
• a planned, planted pasture
• a fancy tractor
• a four-wheeler

What is a paddock?

A paddock is the area fenced for a single grazing period. Five things make a paddock:

First, of course, is grass or forage; whatever you intend the enclosed animal or animals to eat during the grazing period. In the beginning you're just guessing at the amount, but you very quickly get an idea of how much forage you need in a paddock. More on this later.

Drawing of a good paddock

Water. Ideally, you will keep a small tank or a bucket in the paddock*. If you can run hoses out to the pasture you can use a stock water valve to fill a very small tank – something easy to empty and move from place to place. It can be quite small, even for a large number of animals, since the water is constantly refilling; we use the half of a 55-gallon barrel.

*The alternative to keeping a water tank in the paddock is either to walk the animal or animals back to a water tank twice a day, or to leave an open lane from every paddock back to a stationary water tank. Both methods have been used; both work. The disadvantages of the first method depend on the farm and the farmer, and you can work them out for yourself. Regarding leaving a lane open back to water: much grazing time is lost when cows go back to water and lounge in the water area; trailing and compaction in the lane are serious, as is overgrazing in any area to which animals have constant impact; manure will build up around the stationary tank and not in the paddock. That said, stationary water tanks serve on many intensively grazed farms when circumstances don't allow for portable water; if it's the best you can do, do it.

Minerals. It seems to be a fact that our national soils have, in general, been enough damaged by bad farming practices that we should assume they are mineral depleted. Supplementary minerals are a good idea. Kelp works for us. Salt, in any case, should be always available. The other half of the barrel we used for the water tank is about right to hold these, and not too awkward to move about.

Shade or shelter. Not always necessary, but the possibility that your animal may need shelter or shade at some time in the duration of a paddock should always be a consideration. In hot weather, or on a very sunny day in early spring, animals should have a place where they can shade up for part of the day. Our farm is surrounded by woods, so we just include a little of the treeline in our paddocks when the weather gets hot.

In extreme winter storms, or when autumn rains are accompanied by fast-falling temperatures, we may give our cows, and especially young calves, the option of a three-sided shed that backs to the northwest. It doesn't happen often – maybe once or twice a year. You don't need anything new, big, or designed just for the purpose; in the beginning, we just moved some equipment and ran the cows up into the machine shed if the weather turned really nasty. One animal, or just a few, could be made comfortable in the garage.

The final element of a complete paddock is power – electricity, that is. A hot fence. A single strand of white string is only a convincing deterrent if it snaps.

Getting started grazing

The biggest issue for the beginning grazer is probably the matter of forage. What kind? How much? -- and how do I know I've done it right? You don't need to know much before you start – the way to learn grazing is to graze something. Observation will teach you most of what you need to know.

The grass

Grass should not be too short when you begin grazing – for instructional purposes, we'll say at least eight inches. Or look at the individual grass plants and count the leaves from the base up; you want at least three. If there is already a seed head, the grass is mature. What you are after is grass that has grown to the point where its root stores are replenished after the work of sending up new shoots. Don't worry if there are a lot, even a whole lot, of 'weeds' – gardeners may call them that, but ruminants call them dinner.

What if this pasture is not primarily grass? Maybe it's mostly 'weeds'; maybe it's briars. Pastures of this description can be grazed with goats or sheep; or you can mow them and then begin grazing when the grasses in the understory have grown in. (more on grazing sheep or goats in the field guide Fence Strategies).

Small paddocks

We mean really small.

Suppose you have one cow. Put a collar on her and fasten her to a tether twenty feet long. Stake her in some high grass and put her water at the perimeter of her area (so she doesn't snag it with her tether and knock it over). Or get a reel or two of polytwine, some posts, and a charger and make a small paddock – say, ten steps long and ten steps wide. Put the cow in it, supply some water, and turn on the fence.

Short duration

Come back in ten or twelve hours and see what she's done.

Heavy impact

What do you find? First of all, the grass will be shorter than it was. How much shorter? There is a broad range of acceptable post-grazing height:

1. You want observable impact; you want to be able to see clearly the difference between where she has been and where she has not.
2. You don't want to take everything. You want significant residual forage; enough grass should be left that the ground is still covered and the soil shaded. Trampled is great. Plants in general should still be tall enough that the new growth tips, which are usually down around ground level, have not been nipped off. For folks who like numbers might say a minimum of three or four inches of remaining height is about right.

The reality, of course, is more sketchy. To begin with, different species of forage plant have different mature heights; and in any case some plants will be grazed harder than others, some areas taken shorter. If you are only grazing a single animal (and consequently there is no competition to keep her moving or make her hurry), impact will be more focused in places where the animal found an especially tasty bite. The smallness of the paddock helps to reduce over-localized impact like this, but some is bound to happen, and that's okay.

One way to make impact more generalized is to make sure your water and minerals are in different parts of the paddock. And if you've included shade in the paddock, avoid putting either water or minerals in the shady spot; spreading out the places where you can expect your animals to linger means impact is spread out, too.

Other observations:

1. Forage height will be reduced by trampling as well as grazing. In general, more trampling is better than less (always assuming a short grazing period; long periods of hard impact are not beneficial). Grass that is stomped down will shade the soil, keeping it biologically active while new growth is happening; soon, stomped forage stops growing and decomposes, returning its organic matter to the soil.
2. Trampling will also have impacted the soil surface. If the ground is not very hard there will be footprints. This is fine and dandy for as little time as the animal will be on this paddock; these divots hold water and encourage seed germination.
3. Manure and urine will be spread over the area. The more the better; the more evenly scattered, the better.

Long rest and recovery

Once a paddock has been grazed it needs time fully to regrow before it is grazed again. Topgrowth must be renewed for another bout of solar energy capture. New roots must be sent down; stores of energy in the roots must be replenished. Baby plants need time to establish themselves.

The time it takes for a paddock to recover depends on a lot of factors like temperature, soil moisture levels, and day length. No one can tell ahead of time exactly how long a paddock will take to recover, so this part is a matter of observation. In warm weather with plenty of moisure, recovery is faster than in a cold or dry season.

To get some general indication of paddock recovery time in your area you may need to talk to an experienced grazier (your local natural resources conservation service should be able to help you here; or reach out via social media on a grazing forum). Very dry climates, or areas with a long dry season, take special handling; but where rainfall is intermittent through most of the year, you can expect recovery to happen fairly quickly. Remember that there are no hard-and-fast rules here; you just want a general idea of the length of a rotation (single grazing cycle: the time between two grazings of the same paddock).

For comparison, in our own zone 6 latitude, temperate climate, a rotation might be as short as three weeks (early spring) or as long as three months, or even more(during periods of very slow growth, as in a hot, dry period, or winter time).

Parts of North America's western prairies actually have rotations that last two years.

You can see that timing like this allows for a longer recovery period for forages in a season of slow growth.

It's all good You don't need a PhD to be a good grazier; a few hints will get you started, and the land, plants and animals will teach you the rest.

Timing: A basic rule of thumb will get you a long way on determining grazing cycles: When the grass is growing fast, move fast; when growth slows down, make your rotations slower. Translated, this means big paddocks during periods of fast growth (to get you around the pasture more quickly); smaller paddocks when forage growth slows down (smaller paddocks means more paddocks; hence more days in the rotation).

Recovery: Don't be afraid that, because you're not an 'expert', you're going to do this part wrong and cause irreparable damage. We don't mind saying it again: living things are not machines, and there isn't one 'right way' they need to function. Your best education is to get in there and just start grazing. Trust the earth, the plants and animals; they all want to live, and they're going to help you help them.

So, some things to look for in a recovered pasture plant: New leaves. Some graziers would say that a grass plant should have at least three new leaves before it is grazed again. 'New' leaves on a previously grazed plant can be identified by their sharp new tips, standing out from the nipped-off leaf tips of older growth. Legumes like red clover generally have a shorter recovery time than grasses, so by the time the grass is ready for another go, so are the legumes.

Another rough and ready rule is to go by plant height – don't graze until the pasture is at least eight inches tall. This is just a rule to get you started; there is no 'right height' for a pasture, and in a mixed species pasture, there are going to be a whole variety of plant heights. 'Eight inches' means that the bulk of what's growing out there looks like it's that tall or taller.

When in doubt, remember: There is no bad rotational grazing, only 'good' and 'better'. Don't worry about getting things perfect, just get going. End text box

Paddock design

Modern humans tend to think in right angles, but there's no requirement that your paddocks should be square. Build paddocks to suit your topography, your forage, and your obstacles.

Some tips for paddock building:

Long, narrow paddocks encourage trampling – this is one way to maximize impact on weedy or overgrown pasture plants.

More centralized paddock shapes encourage more efficient use of forage – more is eaten, less is stepped on and 'wasted'.

It is possible when grazing near surface water like streams and ponds to use these as stock water sources, but access to any single area of the bank should be kept brief. Short-term trampling of creek or pond banks encourages more dense plant coverage and discourages erosion, but lengthier access can mean trailing (bare soil, eroded pathways), with resultant washing away of soil.

Keeping forages and topography fairly consistent in a paccock helps maintain even impact. Avoid building paddocks that are half scrub, half clover, or half flat, half steep; livestock will tend to hang out where it's tastiest or most comfortable, resulting in too much impact in one place, not enough in another.

Text box: Temporary fence, temporary pasture With portable electric fencing all sorts of places become potential grazing land: orchards, vineyards, lane verges, and so on.

Garden green manures and cover crops can be used as ad hoc pasture when fences are temporary and quick to set up. Instead of tilling in a stand of buckwheat in your vegetable patch, let the chickens/sheep/cow turn it into eggs or milk, and manure; or run the animals in a quick pass over a winter cereal grain cover crop. If your soil type can tolerate some heavy impact, pigs or ruminants can self-harvest root crops like turnips, mangel-wurzels or Jerusalem artichokes directly from the garden patch.

Portable solar fence chargers let you take power pretty much anywhere. Ask permission to graze unused land on neighboring parcels, as well. Your farm is bigger than you think!

End text box

How do I know it's working?

Good grazing is about the grass, and it's about the grazing animal. Both will benefit from regenerative pasture management.

The grass: First of all, because in a rotational system the animal or animals only have access to a limited area, two things are inevitable: one, the paddock itself will be thoroughly grazed and/or trampled, manured, and urinated on; secondly, all the rest of the pasture will be undisturbed – and growing.

In successive days and weeks this contrast will only increase. Pastures will grow taller – and denser – than before good managed grazing began.

Meanwhile, the area that has been grazed – the old paddocks – will be doing some amazing things too. Unless you are in a period of dormancy, new growth tips will be appearing almost right away. Large, possibly woody forbs (broadleaf plants) will have been knocked over, trampled, and grazed. Forbs left standing will provide a pattern of intermittent shade and wind break to the grazed paddock, preventing overheating and dessication of the soil, so seeds that were forced into the soil by animals' hooves will be germinating now. Manure decomposes; insect and animal life will be attracted by this concentration of nutrients. It will be obvious that this area has begun renewing its plant life.

Meanwhile the ungrazed portion of the pasture is continuing to grow, and some of the plant material may be woody and brown before you get there. Not to worry; what may not look choice to you is still dinner to your ruminant. 'Perfect' pastures of perfectly green, perfectly consistent, perfectly nutritious forage only exist in an agronomist's dreams. Nature, on the other hand, prefers diversity and cycles of maturity. Trust nature.

Continue moving; encourage trampling. Leave lots of litter.

The animal. What about her? There are ways she can tell you about the forage she's getting; whether it's nourishing, whether it's enough:

1. A full rumen. The rumen is the first chamber of the ruminant's stomach. When the hollow under the left hip bone is filled out, she has a full rumen – that is, she's getting plenty to eat.
2. Manure consistency. Cow pies that are neither very runny nor very firm – not splashed everywhere, not standing up tall like the crown of a ball cap – indicate a good balance of protein, carbohydrates and fiber – good nutrition. Goat and sheep droppings should be individual pellets, not wet and runny, but not too firm. At times you'll be grazing/trampling paddocks that are long on overmature, woody plants, and contain a smaller percentage of nutritious greenstuff. In this case you can let your animals manage their nutritional intake by enlarging the paddock so they can be more selective about what they eat. Building these as long and narrow alleys allows greater selectivity while still encouraging thorough trampling of the larger area.
3. Behavior. When she takes a good, luxurious stretch when she gets up; cavorts when she's turned out of her paddock.; eat with a relish – these things indicate a well-nourished animal in good health.
4. Appearance: Bright eyes, alert glance, shiny coat, clean tail (not caked with muck). Ears up, active; an animal that is taking an interest in its surroundings.
5. Milk quality and quantity: In a dairy animal, good forage is indicated in part by volume of milk produced, in part by its 'components' (fats and proteins). Volume varies a great deal over a lactation, and is partly seasonal, so this variable requires some experience to interpret; but components can be approximated by looking at the volume of cream – the 'cream line' – in a jar of milk. In a pastured cow, plenty of cream indicates a nutritious diet (for more specific information on milk and cow nutrition, see our field guide Milking for Beginners.)

All of these things are characteristic of a ruminant with a satisfactory diet, a ruminant being managed well on good pasture.

Times and seasons

Grass management is as much art as science – as much observation and response as it is calculation and planning. Its most important requirements are presence and observation – being there and paying attention. We may plan grazing patterns weeks or months in advance, but actual paddock moves – their size and location – are dictated by day-to-day events, rainfall patterns, and weather extremes. Real grazing is done in real time, with decision making taking both the long- and the short-term into consideration.

Forage will be changing every day; grasses will grow, mature, and become lignous (woody); forage volumes vary over time. How much an animal eats will be in part a function of what she is eating and how nutritious it is. Be comfortable enlarging or shrinking paddocks to maximize trampling (forage 'waste') or utilization (a greater volume of forage eaten).

Where a breeding animal is kept, expect to see forage use shifting over time, from the demands of a 'dry' (non-lactating) animal to those of a mother producing milk; from the nibbling of a newborn calf, lamb, or kid, to the generous appetite of a half-grown beast. Realize that growing animals have increasing impact over time on forage consumption: the newborn of the spring, nibbling a few grass tips but primarily supported by his mother's milk, becomes the burly calf of September, eating perhaps one quarter or one third the forage of a dry adult animal. In the spring he'll begin eating for more rapid growth, with an appetite that will increase the whole of his second summer. Animals will be bred, milked, culled; these shifts in state, size and number of animal will dictate changes in paddock size over time.

Vacations

Intensive grazing does not have to mean you can never leave the farm. While daily moves make the most efficient use of impact and forage, life is not all about efficiency. Because the grazier has a good knowledge of his animals' nutritional needs, he or she can plan a week's grazing ahead of time. Either include all the necessary forage in one paddock – with some overage to allow for the extra trampling that will occur in a long-term grazing area – or set up fences in advance for a week of paddocks and have an obliging neighbor simply reel up the necessary fence each day to allow the animals to move forward.

Neither does a milking animal have to mean that you never leave the farm. For the family that takes advantage of the wonderful benefits of a lactating ruminant, vacations are still possible. Milk sharing with a calf – that is, letting the calf maintain a nursing relationship with his mother for twelve hours of each day, while humans collect milk produced in the other twelve – lets a family take get-aways in the simplest possible manner. Just leave the calf with his mother full-time; he'll turn the extra milk into meat and manure, with no benefit to the farm being lost (see our field guide Family Cow Basics for more on milk-sharing).

Grazing wisdom

Turning your farm into a grass-powered farm brings more benefits than we can calculate. The savings in food and in feed are tremendous, of course; and the increased fertility and improved hydrology mean long-term natural health for the whole ecosystem. On top of this, you can expect many cascading benefits, all of which belong under the heading health, wholeness. When a natural system is set on a sound footing, all sorts of things begin to go right.

Animal health improves. As soil becomes biologically active, plants, in intimate relation with the soil, take up a wider range of minerals and develop more complex metabolic compounds. Health becomes more vibrant in both plant and animal life. Parasites lose their advantage and drop to the level of symbiotes. Grass-wisdom in the herd directs animals to self-medicate by consuming select parts and doses of 'toxic' forages like horse nettle, white snakeroot, and the milkweeds, resulting in natural parasite resistance, and additional metabolic and gut benefits.

Grass cows, producing natural amounts of milk, generally enjoy natural health. Mastitis is rare, and easily corrected by the nursing calf or milking human. Birthing problems are avoided because young animals don't reach sexual maturity before their biological systems and skeletal development can support pregnancy, and because calves, when they are born, are not so large as to cause issues. On natural foods, cows live longer, not burned out prematurely by the strain of a high-performance diet on their pancreas and liver.

Even this partial list illuminates the many, many benefits to the farm of proper grass management.