What I've Learned About Quality Pasture-Part X

A few things to note that I found intersting along my journey of learning this game of growing grass are one, management involves much more than just rotating your animals. It takes a skillful eye to observe the animals and their habbits, to know your grass species, how long to stay in a paddock and how to manipulate the soils and circumstances to get the desired effect. In our case this is producing milk and chicken from grass with as little input as possible.

In hot months, it is suggested that we graziers concentrate on high TDN plants (Total Digestible Nutrients) that grow well in the heat. These might include White and Red clover, cowpeas, Kudzu, chicory and warm season annuals like dwarf millet, sudangrass and crabgrass. I know I can get crabgrass to grow here. In other words, a warm season grass should be selected to fill in the gap left by the played out cool season grasses.

Alfalfa is high in protien but low in carbs (energy). Animal production may not stay as high on grazed alfalfa in the hot, summer months. A higher energy plant is needed. Grain is also high TDN. It should be noted that cows on grain will not produce more and it will dramatically cost more.

In hot weather, cows will prefer grain to even the best tasting grass because it is "cooler" to eat. The concensus is that to beat the heat and grow animals in summer heat is to use animals adapted to the conditions and to plan peak breeding around your local climate.