Seeding a pasture

[tressa]

I'll moving to five acres in July (about six months ahead of my cow/calf pair), and I'd like to pasture graze them as much as possible, as long as possible. Since I'm basically starting from scratch - what should I plant. I have about two acres divided into one acre parcels and will rotate them daily. Thanks, I want to start this adventure out correctly.

As pasture fed cows will they need supplemental feeding?

[karenp]

Lower Delaware

It depends on where you are and your particular environment. Do you have a local cooperative extension or ag agent?

[zephyrhillsusan]

tressa, with that amount of pasture, I would say they will almost certainly need supplementary hay during a good part of the year. And a high quality loose mineral, too. You wouldn't need to feed grain if you didn't want, but they need hay or grass free choice all the time.

[kozzy]

As was said, it will depend on your area. It will also depend on whether you can irrigate or not. I find that with diligent and constant irrigation I can usually make it through spring and summer on about the same acreage and gobble conditions you mention but when the grass starts to go dormant for winter, it's about 5 months of expensive hay time.

One issue--part of the "secret" to keeping things going strong is large amounts of fertilizer. We're talking 50 to 80 lbs of nitrogen per acre a couple of times a year (usually early spring and early summer for me). This can get a bit spendy. It takes a couple of years to get enough of the fertilizer down into the soil that it will stay green when the summer heat starts to hit. Surrounding my place is a grass seed operation and they are able to put huge amounts of N2 down into the soil --with zero irrigation in a hot dry climate, that grass stays green and growing throughout the summer. The point is, when you see those green grassy fields that seem to last well into the hot months it's probably because of heavy and deep fertilizer application and yours might not act the same.

Talk to your extension agent about which grass mix to plant or take a shot in the dark and assume that the mix your local farm store sells is adequate. I could never get a decent answer from our extension so went with the latter and it seems to be adequate...although there is one grass in the mix that the bovines are not very fond of and a couple that they focus on and eat to stubble if allowed. That tends to swing your pasture toward favoring the less-palatable type over time.

[hoperefuge]

Mar 10, 2016 13:17:18 GMT -5 kozzy said:

As was said, it will depend on your area. It will also depend on whether you can irrigate or not. I find that with diligent and constant irrigation I can usually make it through spring and summer on about the same acreage and gobble conditions you mention but when the grass starts to go dormant for winter, it's about 5 months of expensive hay time.

One issue--part of the "secret" to keeping things going strong is large amounts of fertilizer. We're talking 50 to 80 lbs of nitrogen per acre a couple of times a year (usually early spring and early summer for me). This can get a bit spendy. It takes a couple of years to get enough of the fertilizer down into the soil that it will stay green when the summer heat starts to hit. Surrounding my place is a grass seed operation and they are able to put huge amounts of N2 down into the soil --with zero irrigation in a hot dry climate, that grass stays green and growing throughout the summer. The point is, when you see those green grassy fields that seem to last well into the hot months it's probably because of heavy and deep fertilizer application and yours might not act the same.

Talk to your extension agent about which grass mix to plant or take a shot in the dark and assume that the mix your local farm store sells is adequate. I could never get a decent answer from our extension so went with the latter and it seems to be adequate...although there is one grass in the mix that the bovines are not very fond of and a couple that they focus on and eat to stubble if allowed. That tends to swing your pasture toward favoring the less-palatable type over time.

And right there are some very good reasons to mob/strip graze instead!

Kim