Now remember you may want to try to graze your cows for an entire year. That means that if I have 10 cows, I can have around 12.5 to 15 acres of grazing space for those cows from the grazing season lasting from May to September. Up here in Alberta, in my area, the stocking rate for cattle on good quality pasture is an average of around 1.25 to 1.5 acres per cow per grazing season. For your area, that seems a bit out-to-lunch for me. If you want to divide your pasture into quadrants, that means dividing it up into one acre quadrants for your animals to graze in for that grazing season.īUT, if the figures mean one acre per cow per month of grazing, that means you may need five to six acres per cow per grazing season. This means you just need around four acres for your entire cow-herd for that grazing season for good to excellent pasture. Let's say we use the figure of 1 acre per cow per grazing season. But I think we can figure it out using a little common sense: Now, you've already mentioned your stocking rate for your area, which is around 1 to 1.5 acres per cow, but you never mentioned whether this was per month (like I assumed it may be and may be wrong) or per grazing season. And that's year-round.not in a 4 to 6 month grazing season. HahaĬlick to expand.There's a guy on that other forum you mentioned that lives in NC and is able to rotationally graze over 100 head of cattle on only around 120 acres of pasture land. And i was thinking that was a lot of land. I was going to do 7 acres per paddock, with 28 acres all together. I was hoping to do rotational grazing, into 4 different pastures.

It is if you're buying only a few head, grazing them for a couple of months then selling them. (I was REALLY out to lunch when I wrote that first post.sorry! ) Ten acres isn't a whole lot for a handful of livestock, not if you're keeping them throughout the year from one grazing season to the next and need room for a sacrifice area to keep them off the pasture until grazing season's on again. No, no, I meant 10 acres in total for all your animals, not per head. That means i'd need 50 acres for just 5 cattle? I'm in Ohio, which i know can be a big difference in animal to acres, but 10 acres seems like A LOT. I have a 5.5-6 acre pasture split into two paddocks and they aren't even making a dent in the new growth.' That was information I was finding in Homesteading Today, with a person in PA. 'I have 3 adult Highland cows, 3 yearling bulls and one new calf. I think without the drought we might have made it a bit longer but you have to plan on the worst happening anyways and be happy when it doesn't.īTW.I love highland cows! Cows with bangs! Everything came back nice but I kept them dry lotted in Jan, Feb and most of March to keep them from picking it clean. We also had an early growing spurt which gave us grass early. I live in MO and we're having a rainy season that is making up for our loses last year. Really I ran out sooner than that but they would still pick at it without leaving dirt and I didn't feel I had to pull them off to save my pastures till about Jan. I ran out of anything to eat about November and had to supplement till April. This spring I had 25 lambs with those ewes and like you they aren't making a dent. They naturally rotated from the cool weather clover field in the spring and early summer to the one with the warm weather grass later. I ran 13 ewes and 2 rams on 17 acres with no fencing but 2 separate fields, one warm weather grass and 1 cool weather grass. And I'd bring them off so that you didn't over graze as needed. No matter what, when you hit your dry season and winter with those numbers and that small a spot you are going to have to supplement.

If you watch closely, move them as quick as you need to, as soon as you see them eating more than is growing. Which isn't that bad a thing if you can find cheap hay. I'm thinking 10 acres cut into 2 tracts might get you a while if you were letting them graze 1 tract per week but then you'd get to the summer slow down or winter no growing and you'd be left supplementing your cows.

You might not be making a dent in it now but in a few months they will pick each lot clean rather quickly. Let's say you have 10 acres for 4 cattle and cut it into small 1 acre plots.

Scotch highland cow