Grasses and Grazing

Have you made your new year’s resolution yet? If not, I have one for you: Let’s all lose weight – the weight of not knowing what to do with those winter-feeding areas.

“People think rotational grazing is an exact science, and it’s not,” says Roy Boldridge. Boldridge grazes Angus-Hereford-Simmental-cross cows in Culpeper County, Virginia, and has put haymaking and grazing days to the test to find his profit center.

The winter of 2018-19 was one of the worst years in memory for winter cattle feeding in much of the eastern U.S. Near-record rainfall during the winter months kept pastures and drylots saturated and turned areas where cattle were concentrated into mud pits.

Why cover crops?

Each farm is different, and therefore the way you use cover crops can differ too.

“Farming is a business. If you try to run it just on passion, you’ll lose. You have to find the profit margins and adjust to make that work,” says Steve Pittman.

Grazing alfalfa-grass mixtures

Including legumes in a pasture mix has many benefits for cattle-grazing operations in the Midwest.