Preventing Grazing Pitfalls: Learning from Our Livestock and Pastures: A workshop at the Maine Grazing Conference
Preventing Grazing Pitfalls: Learning from Our Livestock and Pastures
Grass farmers know the importance of pasture as a low cost feed source for their cattle. But part of managing pastures well is honing our observation skills to assess what the plants and animals are telling us about their health. In this workshop, we will review the key grazing principles that help your cattle maximize dry matter intake from pastures and avoid potential problems. We will also look at examples of how to observe the livestock, their manure, soils and pasture plants to determine how well your pasture management system is working. Then we will talk about creative ways that we can adjust the grazing system to improve the well-being of the livestock and increase pasture quality and productivity.