Pasture and Forage Link

[Honeycreek Dexters]

www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/forages/rotational/index.html

This is a link that I posted on another site, just thought some here might like it also. It has a bunch of good information on pastures and forage, backed up with research and expert opinion.

If it doesn't turn into an active link just cut and paste to a search engine.

[wileycoyote1]

This IS a very good link. Most of the grasses of course are native to Indiana. But it does give good info on pasture control and seeding.

Last spring right before a 3-day steady rainfall - pre-cow purchase - I walked the pasture, bucket in hand. I seeded the less-growth spots with a grass/legume mix that included sweet clover. The downhill slope closest to the house greened up very nicely, even became a little overgrown, and everything went to seed nicely in fall. Our soil is VERY sandy - we live in a region called the Sandhills! - and mainly supports prairie grass and wild red oat. The Angus around us fatten very nicely on it in spite of the integrated cactus and 'needle and thread' desert-like plants. Hoping that the Dexters now in pasture will eat and help reseed, especially with the alfalfa hay we have been feeding all winter. Also with the two cows and bull, hopefully two calves this spring, and the horse, the pasture will be ok. They are currently in winter pasture, the one closest to the house; in summer we will put them in the summer pasture, which has lain fallow for two years, except for my re-seeding (recovering from the earlier owner's mismanagement and renting of the pasture to too many head).

Although I did find the recommendation for water to be 600 feet of walking distance for the cattle to be interesting; the local ranchers have ponds and windmill tanks set up often, but nowhere near within 600 feet of walking distance in some pastures.

[Honeycreek Dexters]

Thanks for taking the time to respond, yes frost seeding clover has been an economical way to introduce legumes for a very long time. If wild oats will grow in your soil I wonder about feed oats, they reseed from bales I put out in the winter here. I use them each time we start a new pasture as a cover or nurse crop. That gives me a few hundred bales to spread out over the winter, The cows love them. I read everything on that page a few years ago and if memory serves me the 600 ft to water number was used in a stocker situation. I don't think it matters much for year round cattle that you would keep for the life time of the animal.

Again thanks for taking the time to respond with valuable incite.
HCD