winter grazing

Snow is not an obstacle to grazing stockpiled forage -- with fourteen inches of snow on the ground, the cows are still moving steadily across the back pasture. The area allotted to them daily is a little bit bigger than when there is no snow, less because they're going to waste some grass than because, with temperatures staying well below freezing, they'll burn more calories staying warm.

In summer on the convent farm, a dry cow's -- or steer's, or heifer's -- grass allotment is generally about fifty square paces (think 'five steps by ten steps'). Much of the year this is more than generous, and lots of the grass is stomped, not eaten.

Now, though, that fifty s.p.'s is just about enough for good grazing, with a decent litter left to protect the soil and the young shoots hiding in the grass crowns. Fourteen bovines in the dry herd, one pony, and two rams make about fourteen-fifteen SAU's (standard animal units); at fifty paces per, that would put paddock size between seven and eight hundred square paces. What they're really getting right now is closer to nine hundred paces, even a thousand some days.