Calculating Grazing Paddock Size
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- čas přidán 5. 08. 2024
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You might have noticed a theme with these videos, knowledge is power! Using data to manage your grazing ensures your cows get enough feed and your pastures remain healthy.
Using simple tools like this equation on a notebook with a pen takes the guesswork out of managing your cattle. Well, at least some of the guess work. The "trick" is to be comfortable with getting it wrong, taking notes, and doing better next time.
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Just stumbled to this video and loved it. Reading the comments though, there’s a lot of people looking for “cut and paste” answers when it comes to animals, grazing, and who knows what else. Here’s something that might help you all with the math above.
First start with the definition of an animal unit. 1 unit = 1000lbs of animal. If you have 7 sheep that weight 143lbs each, you still have 1 animal unit. A cow generally weighs 1 unit.
Next we talk about a cow. A cow eats about 3% of its body weight in dry feed a day (give or take). So per AU (animal unit) that cow eats 30lbs of dry feed. You got 10 cows? Are they 1000lbs each? That’s 300lbs of dry feed per day. A sheep eats about 3% of its body weight in dry feed per day. 10 sheep at 150lbs each will eat about 45 lbs of dry feed per day.
What is this “dry feed”? Grass tends to be about 8% water. If you have 30 lbs of grass, take away 8%, you have 27.6lbs of dry feed. So your cow is actually eating more than 30lbs of grass due to the water content. About 33lbs of fresh grass.
How much grass is on your land? That’s where region specific information comes in. You will need to research what the yield of hay/grass is per acre where you live. You might know this because you harvest your fields already for hay, or ask a neighbor, call someone in your county. The Wyoming rancher on CZcams needs 30 acres per cow because grass grows so little. Someone in a wet climate down south grows a lot of grass per acre.
So now we can figure out how many AU we have, how much food the number AU’s we have will eat per day, and then how much food we can grow per acre.
Once we have this info is the video above. The skipped info that is very VERY specific to you locally. Hope this helps!!
8% water. You probably mean grass is 80% water
@@ruedaricardo no need to nit pick but you might be right for your region or a specific time of the year you have in mind. Yet the point of the statement stands. Especially since it was an example. To calculate dry matter that is correct assuming you followed the last paragraph and research what you have on Your specific land. The following is what the averages tend to be for dry matter but it’s not set in stone:
Grain = 85-89% dry matter
Dry hay = ~90% dry matter
Grain Silage = 25-35% dry matter
Haylage/Baleage = 35-60% dry matter
Fresh grass can be as dry as being 90% dry matter or 30%. That’s why I said research what you have. It can depend on time of season, species, your region, and possibly other factors i can’t think of at the moment. Is it the wet season where you live or is it basically a desert right now as it hasn’t rained in months, many things go into it.
until weaned, the calf is considered part of the 1 animal unit. Most counties or municipalities that define their stocking densities have the cow calf pair as one. Until then they go about together however you decide to put them on pasture or rotate them. Once weaned they are considered their own unit, especially if you’re going to grow them out for your own beef instead of selling them. If they are castrated, there’s no reason to keep them separate as you grow them out, unless you want to specifically control what they eat and feed grain. When it’s time to send them to butcher you can run them through a chute to separate them.
On 90 acres you can do a lot, but it always depends on specifics to your area and your own practices and land. :) Some people have 90 acres but maybe only 40 is actual pasture. Good luck to you! Hopefully it kind of answered your question. If not let me know and I’ll give it another go
If I have a 400 milking cows, and the size of grass is 2800 and the paddock is 2.89 hectares how to calculate this,how much they ate?
best video I have seen on the subject. Thanks
how much time till you can revisit a paddock?
Hi John. I'm tracking all the way with Troy on this. However, I do have one question: How did you or Troy come up with 300lbs per inch per acre? That weight would depend on how dense the grass is and I also imagine different species of grass are denser than others (alfalfa vs. clover vs brome grass etc) . So the amount of pounds per inch per acre would vary from pasture to pasture. How do you come up that? Use a grazing stick? Great videos, thanks
John, i know you are supposed to have 5-7 inches of grass in the spring before you let out cattle. At what point in the spring does this usually happen?
Very informational. Finally!
Do you do winter grazing as well? thanks
So if I have 20 or so cows, how much land I need? For pasture and for hay for the winter.
So please help me under stand where you came up with 1600 in the beginning, an what the 300 represents please. That's where your loosing me.
Thanks
How many cows can graze per .8 paddock.
Forever Permaculture 1000 lb cow eats 30 lbs of grass a day. So 30 times how many heads. So the 1600 is the total amount his cows eat per day.
@@paradoxchild01 thanks for that!
hii, 1600lbs for how many cows ? is that dry hay or wet grass ?
how do you know one cow one day is how much dry and wet grass >?
how about goat >?
appreciated.
good info calculation i need it.
i gonna use on to rabbits.
andrew
It is both. Originally it is simply dry weight.. so for 60 cows they need 1600 lbs of dry weight. However, very smart farmers have already determined that one acre of 'wet grass' is equal to 300 lbs of dry weight per inch of wet grass. So if you have an acre of 10 inches of grass, that would be 3000 lbs of ' dry weight equivalent. The 300 lbs per acre per inch allows you to convert from dry to wet grass.
Great information about the pastures for cattle. How much acreage do you need for 1 cow or more cows?
so how much land would someone need to free graze 1-2 cows?
Cows eat approx. 3% of their body weight per day. So a 1 thousand pound cow will eat about 30 pounds a day.
Hey john. Any ideas how well this scales down? How would you adapt to raising just a few beef?
So if doing the same math as you, 3 beef would need .011 acre or 480 sq feet. That is only 40 x 12. If you double the number of beef it's still just 40x24. That doesn't seem like enough room. Would it be better to go to a two or three day rotation or does this not work small scale?
+Dirt&Smiles I've never raised beef cattle but I'm pretty sure you need around an acre of space per cow give or take season length,soil/pasture quality and breed of cow/size of cow. That is one acre that won't be damaged in a whole season by grazing without rotation. There are a lot of variables to consider to really refine it though. There shouldn't be a problem scaling down all the way down to one cow it's just you need to have enough space to rotate depending on how fast your particular pasture grass grows back
How do you account for the size of your cattle
Where did the1,600 come from?
60 cows x 900 lbs each cow x 3% food consumption (cows eat 3% per day)
Where does the 1600 come from? Why is that the number? And this still doesn’t tell me how many cows per acre. Can we just tell us how many cows per acre to achieve mob grazing properly? Or am I missing something?
How do you get to the initial 1600?
Hi! Can you do some examples for us sheep folks? Average size ewes, 125-180 lbs
Thanks
In his example, 1 cow would equal 6 sheep. So since he is doing 60 cows, you could do the same paddock size with 360 sheep.
How many cows are feeding on the 1,600lbs?
hey found your video kind of helpful .....but how long do you think it would take a 900lb cow to eat an average acre of pasture? average quality pasture. how long?
Based on their math, the answer is 66 days (i.e. a cow could live "indefinitely" on the acre). A 900lbs cow would eat 3% of it's body weight or 27lbs of dry matter equivalent. In their scenario, a pasture with 10" of grass grazed down to 4" would be 6" of grass eaten... at 300lbs per inch in an acre... that's 1800lbs of forage. 1,800lbs of forage divided by 27lbs needed for one cow is 66.66 days of forage. And with grass constantly growing, it takes about 4-6 weeks (depending on season) to grow the grass back to 10" again. And without rotational grazing in that 1 acre, the cow will run all over that 1 acre and go right for the clover and leave the less palatable forage behind. It's better to create smaller paddocks and consider making hay with the surplus to keep the pasture and the cow healthy. Of course, this scenario really depends on 300lbs per inch per acre in the pasture. Some pastures are much more sparse than that and only yield 150-250lbs per acre. Used have to use a grazing stick to estimate the density of forage in your pasture.
What would be the size of a paddock for a miniature Dexter or Jersey family milk cow?
Ha, I just did that math. Assuming your cow weight is about 500lbs (pretty average for a mini).. From my math, you would need 1/100 of an acre of 10 inch grass to leave it at 4 inches ( 6 inches eaten). This equates to about 21 ft x 21 ft paddock per day of ten inch grass. Since the grass would grow back in 50 days, this means you need about half an acre for a mini, which is basically what everyone tells you anyway. Take a half acre, break it up into 50 paddocks, and rotate the cow through. But also remember, you should have chickens about 3 days behind the cows. So you should be easily be able to keep a mini and a bunch of laying hens on the same half acre.
hey john, do one more such calculation for goat... pls.
How many cows is that for?
How many cows fit in the 60×600 and eat 1600lbs/day?
Depends on the size of cows because they eat 3% of their body weight per day. Assuming they all weigh 1 thousand pounds you could fit 50 on there.
And how long does it take for the grass to grow back to 10"??
+Franklin Michael There are a ton of factors that go into that answer. Time of year, rain fall, what the area is like. Can be 30 days, can be 90.
John Suscovich Great thanks
Good vid. Always defer to the eyes.
How many cows?
Please, how many pounds per cow???
great job, guys!
Dude, you need to make the same exact video but using metrics :D
What happens if you let them graze all 10 inches?
That's what a pig could do and I'm planning on getting my pig to graze down to the roots so I can plant something new.
But what about my dairy heifers....
I am confused on how this guy came up with 300 lbs of forage in 1 inch of Pasture which is 10 inches tall.
"A million" that's me
3:30 I'm surprised at you. With all those spreadsheets and precise calculations of costs you've doing in the past, it's not a precise science? Without the proper size you're depriving certain cows of decent weight gain, and too much is just trampled feed. Improper calculations then make fencing an issue.
The reason he said its not a precise calculation is because of the variables. These calculations give you a starting point, but don’t take into account soil fertility, quality of forage and drought. The 4” residual stand of forage you leave is just as important to understand and develop an eye for as it is to know the exact square footage of a paddock per animal unit. (Actually Joel Salatin would recommend no less then 6” for optimum performance.
how is 10" of forage per inch 300 lbs...
eric firpo it is what the average YIELD of forage will be. They didn’t show it in the video but there are multiple ways to determine the pounds per inch. Have to determine the average height in inches of forage. And pasture condition and forage type affect the numbers.
1600lb? You just jumped to that......
1600 lbs for 1 cow/day? What he said at the end of calculation? A cow need to feed only 3% of its body weight.
he has 60 cows.
If only they were metric
Such a shame
Jesus, just use the metric system already
We been to the moon, so we'll use whatever measurements we want.
This video was complete trash. No offence. Just didnt help at all. Lol
This video was worthless. How did you get the 1600lbs? Boom just magically appeared from the ether I guess. How did you get 300lbs per in? Boom magically appeared. 1800/1600 is not .8 it's 1.2. etc., etc. C'mon John.....
This explains it better. www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb1167344.pdf
Boom, in the 18 total videos by John and Troy they explain it all. In the previous video troy said he has 60 cows at 900lbs each. Cows eat 3% of their weight per day. 60x900x.03=1620. So because it a guestimation they said 1600lbs per day for 60 heifers. Hope this helps a year later😁