Rotational Grazing - Mowing the Grass

Feeling overwhelmed with all the rotational grazing do and don't's?

Ever notice that yards in town are repeatedly mowed and keep right on growing? Even though backyards may have the advantage of water on demand you can still aim to match lawn principles in your pasture.

When the lawn grass in town reaches a certain height you mow it. You do not mow before the grass has a chance to establish and grow a little in the spring. In the spring and early summer you will mow frequently but in mid summer to fall the grass growth slows and you will mow less frequently.

In the rotational grazing sense, your livestock are your lawn mowers. In the spring allow the stock to pass over the paddocks, moving to keep up with the quickly growing grass. In the summer the moves will slow to give the grass the time required to regrow in between mowing.

In town you may apply a little fertilizer to the lawn if required. While you would do this manually on your lawn, your livestock are providing the benefit of fertilizer for you as they graze. Graze the animals is such a manner that they evenly distribute the fertilizer for you (not spread out in too large an area and not over crowded.

When the lawn has reached a certain height you mow it again. As you rotate your stock through your paddocks you will be returning to graze a paddock again.

The trick is to maintain a ratio of enough paddocks to livestock mowers and to move the livestock so that you are keeping up with mowing the lawn.

Just as you would not return to mow the lawn immediately after you just mowed it, the livestock should not be allowed to return to graze a paddock if they have just been there. Keep them moving forward to new paddocks.

Conversely if you leave the lawn too long between mowing the lawn mower will have a difficult time cutting. On pasture your grazing mowers will skip the more mature stands, going for the easier to clip and better tasting new growth.

The mower is one unit that moves over the lawn and clips it. Whether you mow in straight back and forth lines or around and around, the point is that you mow and move over to un-clipped grass. You don't go over the same area twice and you wouldn't return to mow the grass again before the grass has reached its too-long stage.

In rotational grazing your livestock should move as a unit like your mower. If they have too much space they will thin out and miss a lot of grass. If they are too crowded they will overgraze the grass and clip it too short. In either case, if they do this repeatedly the lawn will suffer.

While some traffic on the lawn is okay and even beneficial, if you have a high traffic area you won't keep grass there for long. You will likely put in a path or patio feature in these areas.

Livestock are traffic on the lawn. On pasture if your livestock stay in one place too long or if they must take the same path to the same watering point too many times they will wear out the grass. While you're not likely to pave a path for you livestock being aware of their impact can save grass and wetland areas.

While serious grazers will take a highly in depth approach to grazing and will speak all the lingo, when we started out we found it less stressful to stay focused on a few basic principles and grow into the lingo as our comfort level expanded.

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