Winter can be a challenging time for managing slow pasture growth rates, wet soils, short day lengths, cold weather.
In this video, we’ll discuss five tips to help you manage your winter grazing.
Hi, I’m Oliver from Pasture dot i o. Let’s get into these five tips.
The first tip is to get on top of your grazing management.
The two most significant areas to focus on are pasture leaf emergence and growth rate.
So, determine the days required to bring your pasture to full leaf emergence and plan your grazing schedule accordingly. Your pastures will be vegetative throughout the winter, and this is the time to grow pastures to full leaf emergence without sacrificing quality. Not only will your animals be happy, but maintaining your post-grazing residuals will set you up for a bumper spring flush.
Match your livestock's pasture growth rate demand with the growth rate of your pastures. This will ensure optimal pre-grazing cover and post-grazing residuals, resulting in maximum plant recovery and growth rates.
If you’re wondering, these tools are in Pasture.io and are free to use to help you get on top of your area allocation and grazing rotations.
Okay, the second tip revolves around the quality of forage.
Because of the colder temperatures, forage quality can deteriorate. On top of additional animal requirements, adverse weather can increase forage wastage. This means that grazing animals must consume more forage to meet their nutritional requirements, which compounds the need for high-quality forage.
Here are some pointers to help you make sure your animals are getting enough forage.
Ensure your pasture is managed correctly by following the suggestions I mentioned. Overgrazing can harm grasses, making them less nutritious and more difficult for animals to digest, and this is exacerbated by plants struggling to produce enough feed, leading to further overgrazing.
Select forage plants with high quality and digestibility. Lucerne, alfalfa, clover, and grasses like ryegrass and tall fescue are all excellent choices.
Moving onto the third tip of supplementary feeding.
Feed your animals fodder to relieve stress on your forage system. Hay, silage, and other supplemental feed are excellent sources for supplementing the feeding system.
When your forages or pastures are too wet, prepare a standoff area where cattle can safely loaf and consume fodder and other supplements. Choose an appropriate grazing area. Avoid heavily trafficked areas and areas with a lot of standing water, as these can cause health problems for your cows while significantly increasing the wastage of expensive supplements.
It is critical to supplement your animal's diet with hay or other forage or supplements when grazing in the winter. This will assist your livestock in maintaining a healthy body condition while enabling you to match demand with the pasture growth rate.
And remember, these tools are in Pasture.io and are free to use.
We’ve focused a lot on feeding animals. Now let’s look at the fourth tip, which concerns the drinking water supply.
A readily available, clean drinking water supply is essential for all livestock. Make a plan to keep your animals hydrated, whether using permanent stock troughs, transporting water with portable troughs, or getting creative with temporary fencing.
If you use temporary fencing, ensure that the temporary front and back fencing can easily work around the drinking points. This is critical for enhancing pasture utilisation. In other words, providing water points in strategic locations will reduce the amount of walking livestock must do over pastures and laneways.
This is part of your fencing and area allocation plans and brings us to the fifth tip, strategic fencing.
Fencing or temporary fencing made of standards or pigtail posts and nylon wire is essential in allocating the proper area for your livestock.
Make sure that the grazing area is securely fenced. Cows can be very destructive when grazing, so you'll need to keep them under control. You'll want to ensure your livestock don't break out and ruin the subsequent feed allocations. This will only delay and harm your grazing strategy.
Check that your fencing is in good shape and can withstand winter weather. And make sure your fences are carrying enough electrical current to deter livestock from pushing the fence over. In saying that, your livestock shouldn’t be that hungry.
Plan your grazing carefully so that your pasture is rotated correctly and no areas are overgrazed. Back fence with temporary fencing to allow your grazed pastures time to recover.
Keep an eye on the weather forecast and graze accordingly, giving your pasture a break if it rains heavily. Pugging and muddying pastures will result in damaged soils, wasted pastures, and reduced pasture growth rates.
So that is how you can use temporary fencing to avoid and mitigate the pitfalls of grazing during the cold and wet winter.
Until next time, happy grazing!
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