Why We Practice Total Grazing

Every once in a while someone watches us move cattle and asks the same question.

"Why do you graze the pasture so hard?"

It's a fair question.

Most people have been taught that good grazing means leaving plenty of grass behind. The common advice is often summarized as "take half, leave half."

For many grazing systems, that's a perfectly reasonable approach.

Our farm is a little different.

Every Grazing System Has a Philosophy

Not all rotational grazing looks the same.

Some farms move cattle every week.

Some every few days.

Some every day.

Some use relatively low stocking densities and focus primarily on preventing overgrazing.

Those systems can work well.

Our goal, however, isn't simply to manage how much grass the cattle eat.

We're trying to manage what happens after they leave.

What Is Total Grazing?

On our farm, we practice a system we call Total Grazing.

Instead of lightly grazing a pasture, we stock cattle at a very high density for a very short period of time.

The cattle may move four times in a single day.

During each grazing period they'll consume roughly 80 to 90 percent of the available forage.

To someone driving by, it can look surprisingly aggressive.

But that's only half the story.

The other half is recovery.

Disturbance Followed by Recovery

When the cattle leave, they're gone.

Not for a few days.

Often not for several months.

That recovery period is every bit as important as the grazing itself.

The plants begin rebuilding leaves.

Roots recover.

The soil remains protected by trampled forage.

Microbial life continues working beneath the surface.

When we eventually return, the pasture has become something entirely different from what we left behind.

We aren't simply feeding cattle.

We're managing the recovery cycle.

Why We Want a "Clean Plate"

Jim, our head grazier, often says we want the cattle to leave a clean plate.

That doesn't mean we're trying to overgraze the pasture.

It means we're encouraging the cattle to harvest the forage evenly instead of repeatedly selecting only their favorite plants.

Some of what isn't eaten gets trampled onto the soil surface.

That plant material becomes what we call soil armor.

It shades the soil, reduces evaporation, feeds soil organisms, and helps the pasture capture rainfall.

The goal isn't simply eating grass.

The goal is improving the pasture that will grow the next crop of grass.

Why It Looks Different

If you visit our farm immediately after the cattle leave, you may wonder if we've taken too much.

That's understandable.

The more important question is what the pasture looks like sixty or ninety days later.

Those are the photos I enjoy taking.

It's also why you'll often hear me say that soil health doesn't happen in a season.

It happens through thousands of small decisions repeated over many years.

Some of those decisions are made with a tractor.

Some are made with fencing.

Many are made by simply deciding when to move the cattle.

Every Farm Is Different

I don't believe there's one perfect grazing system.

Climate matters.

Rainfall matters.

Soil matters.

Goals matter.

Our system works because it fits our farm, our cattle, and the conditions here in Central Indiana.

Over the past sixteen years we've continued adjusting, observing, and learning.

The system has evolved.

The pasture has evolved.

And today we're seeing more biodiversity, healthier soil, and more productive fields than when we started.

For us, that's the measure that matters.

Good food begins with a place.

And that place is shaped one grazing decision at a time.