From the Barns: Grazing behavior

July went by so quickly. We were fortunate to have weekly rains during the month. What a change and completely unexpected. Our grazing has been affected and there has been some pugging in the sorghum-sudangrass fields. The row-crop farmers in this area have a wonderful crop growing. In fact, I have said after short road trips that I have never seen a crop this good in my lifetime.

The crop was planted early, germination was near perfect, no wet spots are visible, maintenance practices were carried out without interruption, pollination occurred without excessive heat and with some moisture, plants are well rooted with the early dry period, and now rains are pushing yields. I am sure I am open to criticism on this analogy, but from a spectator’s viewpoint I will stick with that.

So, that brings me to our grand experiment here at River Oak with all sorghum-sudangrass on our row-crop acres. Can we match or exceed returns of row crops with our custom grazing operation? I wrote last month that we were not without a few issues, mainly the excess trample from the 245 steers we have doing the grazing.

We think now in our second rotation that things are improving, not just from better practices from us, but from the steers perhaps having less anxiety about what and where they are grazing. That may sound unusual, but we have definitely noticed a different demeanor from the steers than heifers or cows.

In a conversation with University of Illinois Extension beef specialist Travis Meteer, I was offered the higher anxiety explanation, which is making more sense to me the more we observe. In this second rotation, with forage above their heads, the steers seem to have adapted to a more logical pattern. Instead of plowing through and walking without knowing where they are going, it seems they are more tactical, starting on the edge, walking a few steps in, as they walk the edge of the field.

I had a conversation about this with a neighbor who provided another example. Cows had escaped into a cornfield, but instead of walking all over the field, had just walked the edge and moved just a few rows in doing minimal damage over several days. If this makes any sense, our trample issues may be considerably lessened as we go. That is our hope.

We need to use less than the four acres per day that we achieved in the first rotation. I calculated that at 16,000 pounds of dry matter available in the four acres and consumption at 3% and a total of 5,500 pounds per day, we were using about 35% of the growth. That 65% trample figure is somewhat high. And maybe my figures are way off. Cows would eat a lot of the trample, but stockers not so much. We will see how much this can change as their behavior changes and we also add some distillers to their diet.

And our regrowth was quick and impressive and trample has value in soil building. Also, my principles of paddock size have not been effective here, as size has not seemed to change the trample results. And we have decided to clip the escapes to about 8 or 9 inches, as those have popped seed heads too quickly in the regrowth. Overall, we are learning and working through these issues, with the results hopefully improving as we go.

The Illinois Grazing Lands Coalition is planning two September grazing schools. The northern school will be Sept. 12-13 near Cambridge. The southern school will be Sept. 26-27 near Waltonville. These are two-day schools with a ton of good information for all levels of producers. To register, go to ilgrazinglands.org.

Hope you have time to enjoy the rest of our warm days and take in some good events. We will soon be complaining about cold days. Stay safe and sane.

Trevor Toland

Macomb, Ill.