Introduction to Grazing Management

1
Introduction to Grazing Management

• Blaine E. Horn, Ph.D.
• Rangeland Extension Educator
• Big Horn Mountain Area

2
What is Grazing?

• Grazing is the process whereby animals consume
  plants to acquire energy and nutrients to be used
  for growth and maintenance.
• It is an ecological process in that the energy
  captured and stored by primary producers is
  consumed by primary consumers.

3
What Grazing is

• Grazing is also an agricultural process in that
  the grazers themselves and their byproducts are
  often used by humans as either foodstuff or items
  of comfort.
• Thus, grazing is a form of animal agriculture and
  the primary form of rangeland agriculture.

4
What is Grazing Management?

• Grazing management is the process whereby grazing
  and browsing animals are manipulated so as to
  accomplish a desired result.
• Desired results may range from single goals
• Production of livestock products or picturesque
  aesthetics
• Or multi-use goals
• Acceptable levels of livestock production coupled
  with maintaining quality wildlife habitat and
  ample recreational space.

5
Goal of Grazing Management

• Regardless of short- or intermediate-term goals,
  the ultimate desired result is the sustained
  use of the rangeland resource.
• The challenge to the grazier is, as Aldo Leopold
  stated, is to live on a piece of land without
  spoiling it.

6
Grazing Management

• Because grazing management is as much art as it
  is science.
• It should be based on both the knowledge of
  science and the wisdom of practical experience.
• Effective grazing management requires a
  comprehensive plan to secure the best practicable
  us of forage resources.
• Such a plan must provide for the daily, seasonal,
  and annual grazing capacity needs of the
  livestock and/or big game.

7
Grazing Management

• Grazing management must also seek to match the
  quantity and quality of grazing animal unit
  months (AUMs) produced on the ranch or grazing
  land unit with the AUM needs of the grazing
  animals associated with it.

8
Why is Grazing Important?

• Range is the largest land resource, encompassing
  about 50 of the land area of the earth.
• Approximately half of the land area of the United
  States is used for grazing.
• 42.5 rangeland and pasture
• 7 pastured cropland

9
Importance of Grazing

• In Wyoming nearly 90 of the land area is used
  for grazing
• 88 rangeland and pasture.
• 2 pastured cropland
• Over 40 of Wyoming cropland is in hay.
• Value of rangeland livestock gt 57 M.

10
Importance of Grazing

• Livestock products provide the major economic
  return from most rangeland and pastures.
• Compared with harvested feeds whether forages
  or grains grazing provides a relatively
  inexpensive and energy-efficient feed source for
  livestock production.

11
Importance of Grazing

• Beef cattle, sheep and goats are raised primarily
  as a means of marketing forages, especially those
  forages that have limited alternative markets.
• Grazing of standing forage on range and pasture
  is the counterpart of machine processing of
  harvested forage crops.

12
Benefits of Grazing to Plants

• Removes older tissue that is less efficient
  photosynthetically than young tissue.
• Increases light intensity to lower younger
  tissue.
• Increases stomatal resistance promoting water
  conservation.

13
Benefits of Grazing to Plants

• Recycles nutrients available in urine and dung.
• Speeds senescent forage breakdown by trampling.

14
Benefits of Grazing to Society

• Low fossil fuel expenditure per pound of
  livestock weight gain.
• The utilization of otherwise mostly idle
  nonproductive land.
• Production of animal protein necessary for
  meeting nutritional needs of people.

15
Benefits of Grazing to Society

• Increase rural income.
• Release of feed grains for human consumption.
• Soil productivity, as well as water and air
  quality, is better maintained under the permanent
  vegetative cover of well-managed grazing lands
  than virtually any other land-use system.

16
Principles of Grazing Management

• Grazing management is principally involved in
  managing and manipulating the grazing
  animal-forage plant-soil complex to obtain
  specified objectives.
• This is accomplished by blending ecological,
  economic, and animal management principles, i.e.,
  rangeland and ranch management.

17
Principles of Grazing Management

• Common to the management of all grazing lands
  must be forage plant considerations
• Plant growth requirements
• Plant vigor and reproduction
• Defoliation and other animal impacts
• Seasonality and fluctuations in forage production

18
Principles of Grazing Management

• Equally high in priority are animal
  considerations
• Animal performance
• Animal behavior
• Nutrient intake levels
• Forage quality relative to animal needs
• Forage palatability/animal preference

19
Principles of Grazing Management

• Ecological principles
• Energy flow
• Nutrient cycling
• Primary and secondary succession
• Plant-herbivore relationships
• Plant competition
• Abiotic factors
• Climate, topography (aspect and slope), soil
  (chemistry and texture)

20
Principles of Grazing Management

• Ecological challenges
• Necessity to balance solar energy capture and
  harvest efficiencies to maximize productivity on
  a sustained basis.
• Primary productivity is inherently low because
  rangeland environments seldom provide an optimum
  plant growth environment.
• Temporal and spatial variation in climatic
  conditions.
• Selective grazing.

21
Principles of Grazing Management

• The fundamental principle of grazing management
  is to control the frequency and severity of
  defoliation of individual plants.
• The principle factor controlling such is grazing
  pressure which is defined as the ratio of forage
  demand to forage available for any specified
  forage at any instant.

22
Principles of Grazing Management

• Management tactics to alter grazing pressure
  (control forage demand) are
• Stocking rate
• Season of use
• Livestock distribution
• Kind/class of grazing animals
• Grazing system or method

23
Principles of Grazing Management

• Stocking Rate
• Number of animals/unit of land/over time
• Forage demand increases or decreases in direct
  response to increasing or decreasing animal
  numbers and length of time animals are present
• Goal to provide adequate forage for each animal
• Leave adequate leaf area to ensure regrowth
• Frequency of defoliation
• Intensity of defoliation

24
Principles of Grazing Management

• Season of Use
• Variation if forage availability over time
• Environmental conditions
• Soil moisture, temperature, day length
• Stage of plant growth
• Vegetative or reproductive
• Growing season rest
• Allow time for growth or regrowth
• Facilitated with use of a grazing system

25
Principles of Grazing Management

• Livestock Distribution
• Even utilization of the forage resource
• Hindered by differences in forage production due
  to spatial differences in plant species
  composition and/or plant densities and/or growing
  conditions.
• Cross fencing
• Strategic placement of salt, mineral, and
  watering facilities

26
Principles of Grazing Management

• Kind/class of Grazing Animal
• Grazers or browsers
• Mature or young stock
• Preference for various plant species and/or plant
  parts vary widely as a function of above
• Affects forage demand and thus grazing pressure
  on any given stand of forage
• Topography influences animal use patterns and
  landscape utilization patterns vary depending
  upon kind and/or class of animal

27
Principles of Grazing Management

• Grazing management tactics designed to assist in
  balancing forage supply and forage demand center
  around controlling grazing pressure by altering
  the kinds and numbers of grazing animals over
  both time and space.

28
Principles of Grazing Management

• The essence of grazing management and the
  long-term success or failure of any and all
  grazing management strategies hinges upon
  managements ability to control the frequency and
  severity of defoliation of individual plants over
  time and space in such a manner so as to meet
  desired goals.

29
(No Transcript)