Make plans to prepare for grazing season, forage shortage

URBANA, Ill. — Sheep producers who have a shortage of hay stocks or are concerned about pasture conditions should take action now to prepare for the year ahead.

“This is a good time to be thinking about your options and making plans,” said Josh McCann, associate professor in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois.

“Last year was the fourth year in a row with a very dry August and September,” said McCann during a presentation at the Illinois Lamb & Wool Producers annual meeting.

“In the fall, we should get some grass growth, but that has not been true,” he said.

Although drought may not be a problem in 2026, McCann said, replacing the deficit in rainfall is not a one-year kind of fix.

“Take note of where you are at and think about your last grazing event and your pasture conditions,” he said. “How hard you grazed the pasture in the fall and the timing of the grazing will impact green up.”

In Illinois, the ecosystem is built for regular rainfall.

“Ideally, if we choose actions before the drought happens, we have some more choices,” the professor said. “Effective responses to drought are early responses.”

McCann identified several risk areas for drought, including reduced forage production.

“With reduced moisture, we see reduced plant growth, and even though we are not grazing the pasture, it is not growing which means we have less protective cover on the soil,” he said. “The plants are not capturing as much energy, so they have less vigor and less root growth.”

All these factors are compounding.

“That is how drought is sneaky,” the university professor said. “Think about how it impacts your system.”

Drought doesn’t last forever, McCann said, but there could be long-term damage to the pasture without extra attention.

Determining the best time for spring turnout of sheep to pastures is important for all shepherds.

“Use the three-leaf rule for the best time to turn out on cool-season grasses,” McCann said. “If you turnout too early, you will probably slow down the root development, the tillering and some yield potential.”

Many times, sheep producers purchase hay for their flocks that has been harvested by cattle producers.

“The reason sheep don’t do really good with cattle hay is because sheep jaws are about 10% as strong as cattle jaws,” the professor said. “Expecting sheep to digest cattle hay is never a recipe for success — it is a recipe for waste.”

For shepherds that harvest hay, McCann said, they should strive to make high-quality hay from the first cutting.

“Don’t wait for maximum tonnage,” he said. “Get it made and then you will have more time to catch another earlier rain.”

Another option is to plant summer annuals to get a bump of forage production that can either be grazed or harvested and stored to feed later.

“The top four on the list are forage sorghum, teff, sorghum-sudan and pearl millet,” McCann said.

“You can easily convert the bad parts of your pasture into summer annuals,” he said. “Then you can plant a winter annual and reseed it as a pasture for 2027.”

To decide which feed is better to purchase for a flock, McCann advises shepherds to evaluate different options by putting them on a cost-per-total-digestible-nutrients basis.

“Ewes need about 1% of their body weight in hay and then the rest of the ration can be grain,” McCann said.

“When we are supplementing, we are always buying energy, not just what the feed price sticker says,” he said.

Most shepherds don’t want to reduce their flock size during dry periods; however, it can be considered an opportunity.

“If you sell the worst 20% of your flock and reinvest in a set of ewe lambs, you can make some genetic progress,” McCann said. “The goal is to avoid emergency liquidation.”

If conditions are dry during the growing season, pastures may need more rest between grazing periods.

“The magic of rotational grazing is not grazing regrowth,” McCann said.

“If you don’t rotate the sheep faster than seven days, you are not really rotational grazing,” he said. “After that, there will be regrowth and sheep are going to graze the regrowth instead of what they should be grazing.”