At Home in Nature

Pasture rotation is key to the success of your animals.Animals will selectively graze, eating their favorite foods and leaving what they don’t like.This is how good pastureland turns into good yucca plantations!The cattle eat everything but the yucca, and the yucca remains.Then, all that is left to do is till up the soil and start over.

However, the rancher may rotate their animals through pastures faster than they destroy the grass.By allowing the grass time to recover, they may keep their pastures in good condition.

Another option, which works better on small and micro farms and ranches, is to preventively till up and reseed pasture every year.By establishing three pastures, the rancher ensures that their animals have plenty of pasture to eat.

The first pasture is for springtime, and the animals graze on it until midsummer.Then, the animals are moved to winter pasture, while the spring pasture is tilled and reseeded.The third pasture, rested for the entire year, becomes next year’s springtime pasture, while the winter pasture is brought to rest… the first year’s spring pasture is next year’s winter pasture.

The pasture that rests actually can be hayed in the autumn if the rancher uses quick growing grasses, especially rye, or other animal feeds (like sunflowers).But most ranchers prefer turf, and turf means grass.Let the rye mature, and harvest both grain and grass for a high energy supplement.Or, if you don’t like rye, plant crops that overwinter, like wheat.Wheat needs less water than rye, too.