The semi-grassy paddock in the immediate foreground of the pictures is about 0.60 acre. Last year I threw up a single strand of electric fence that cuts the piece almost perfectly in half. Most of the time it even keeps the cows on the correct side!
The cattle had access to the right half for two days and the left for three days. I wanted two days on each side for comparison purposes, but I didn't have time to rearrange fencing Sunday morning so I waited until Monday morning. (I did say unscientific, right?)
The most noticeable thing from the pictures is the coloration change. After grazing, the grass lightens and almost yellows a bit as the cattle have bitten off the leafy green tops.
What surprised me most between the two pictures is that after a couple days of rest the right half was much greener than I expected it to be. Maybe the overcast weather affected the lighting some, but I expected both halves to look very similar at that point and that it would take a week or more to start to see regrowth.
Harder to see in the pictures, but noticeable in person, was the height difference in the top picture between grazed and ungrazed sides. Also, in the bottom picture there was small height difference--left side being just shorter than the right side. An extra day of grazing on the left, time for a little regrowth for the right side, weather... lots of variables.
There are many changes or improvements to make this paddock rotation more productive in the future. As is, it's not large enough to be a significant feed source, but after a lot of time spent reading up on the topic it is encouraging to see even tiny results with my own eyes.
The cattle enjoy being on the grass instead of the dirt lot, but without having hundreds of acres of pasture to constantly rotate through we will always have some dirt.
We are trying to add a few more acres of pasture space here on the farm, but I've had some misadventures trying to get seed to take and I need to get fence built before I let cows out there. We also have some pretty young calves right now and their curiosity combined with my lack of fence building experience makes me nervous.
Takeaways For The Future
Based on what I've read about controlled grazing or management intensive grazing (MIG), a harvest and rest rotation can produce incredible forage yields and much more feed than traditional continuous grazing or hay making alone.
In a perfect world, I would love to secure land and develop pasture to expand my knowledge and use of MIG. It's my personal opinion that a well executed grazing program could even justify paying a cash rent equivalent of what a row crop farmer pays to raise corn and soybeans here in northwest Iowa.
That doesn't mean we should cease cash crop production, but it could be an additional profit center and diversification to a farm operation.
It's my dream to someday sell beef born, raised, and butchered right here in Pocahontas County, Iowa. With an extremely productive grazing program, a person might even be able to offer that beef without a super inflated price tag that you sometimes see from local or niche marketed products.
But for now, we'll take small steps, do more trial and error with hopes of decreasing our feed costs and giving our cattle some comfortable space to be cows... or bulls!
