Rotational Grazing Boosts Ranch Profits

Becky Mills
Contributing Editor

If you've done much studying of rotational grazing, you may have taken a look at complex systems with tiny paddocks and miles of temporary fence and decided it wasn't for you. Plus, it seems like the answer to every question is "it depends."

Don't stress. Yes, it does take more fences and mental gymnastics, but after an almost 30-year run, Mac Finlayson said it is worth it.

"I thought it would be good for the land, the grass and increase my stocking rates. It has done all those things," said the Greenville, Florida, cattleman. Without the use of herbicides, his Pensacola bahiagrass pastures are now almost smutgrass free. Plus, he estimated the stocking rate on his 180-cow Angus-SimAngus operation is up 50%.

"There are times when I could use more cattle, like in the fall when I'm trying to get the bahiagrass grazed down so I can overseed ryegrass and clover, but the sweet spot seems to be around 180 females," he said.

However, he added, "My calves are a little lighter, we definitely lost a little bit of weaning weight. I did the math, though. The increase in pregnancy percentage makes up for it. Plus, you're selling a lighter calf. The buyers pay more for lighter calves at the sale so the dollar amount should be higher if you're selling a similar number of pounds."

PADDOCKS MADE THE HARD WAY

It's a wonder that technology -- or lack of it -- didn't change Finlayson's mind at the start. There were no handy-dandy digital maps and drawing apps then. At the time, he was in the real estate business and used a translucent piece of paper with 10 dots representing one acre. He laid that over a printed map of his existing pasture and counted dots, squiggling around trees, until he ended up with 10 paddocks of around 20 acres each.

Finlayson doesn't have an exact amount for his start-up costs. The plantation next to his farm sold their cattle and told him he could have the fence if he'd take it up and move it. His perimeter fence was already in place, barbed wire fortified with a strand of electric wire next to the highway. Then he added permanent two-strand electric fences with wooden posts to separate the one pasture into smaller pastures or paddocks.

However, he joked, "We found out they weren't as permanent as we thought when the hurricanes come through." His area, and fences, were hit by three hurricanes in 16 months, including Helene in September 2024.

At first, the paddocks all connected to a lane that led to an existing pond. Finlayson said that wasn't ideal, because at one point in the rotation, the cows had to walk three quarters of a mile to water. Past research led by grazing guru Jim Gerrish, when he was at Missouri State University, showed pasture utilization in rectangular pastures dropped from 40% to 50% at the front 100 to 200 feet of the pasture to less than 20% when the cattle had to travel around 1,100 feet (less than a fourth of a mile) to a water source.

Around 2005, Finlayson got help in the form of the Natural Resource and Conservation Service (NRCS) EQIP program. At the time, and in his location, he was able to get 50% cost-share funds to put in a well, a mile of pipe and 12 water troughs. He said NRCS kicked in around $7,000 while he supplied the same amount's worth of labor. Labor, he did. The trenching tool he rented was the walk-beside kind. He still managed to dig the ditches for the water pipe in the week he had it rented.

That still left him looking for optimal management strategies for the pastures and cattle.

ROTATION IS USUALLY EASY

Rotating them is a breeze, he just opens a gate and they come filing by. "I holler one time. They holler at me if I don't." The exception is calving season, specifically when heifers are involved. "With them, next thing you know, you've got a calf left behind. The heifer is like, I had a calf?"

Figuring out when to move is a bit harder. "When I started, I wanted to know how many days you keep them in a pasture before you move them. Nobody could give me a straight answer because there is no straight answer. You just have to learn on your own. Sometimes it is one day, sometimes it is three days, sometimes it is five days. You let the grass tell you."

With his Pensacola bahiagrass, a warm season perennial, he usually lets the cattle graze it from a height of 6 to 8 inches down to 2 to 3 inches. Bahiagrass is low-growing and forms sod so it can tolerate close grazing better than some forages. In the cool season with overseeded ryegrass and clover, he tries to move the cattle when it is a bit taller, around 3 to 4 inches.

University of Tennessee extension beef specialist Katie Mason said, "The reason we want to do that is because the leaf area above ground is essentially a solar panel to collect sunlight. For the plant to recover after it's been grazed, it needs to be able to go through photosynthesis and replenish its energy. If we leave some residual leaf area, then once the livestock have moved off that area, the plant can regenerate energy, regrow and be ready to graze again in the next grazing event.

"If we don't leave residual leaf area, it's going to take longer in between grazing events for the plant to recover," Mason continued. "Long term, if we overgraze the plant continuously, it can eventually die off and that will lead to a thinner stand, weed encroachment and overall lower production in the stand."

Finlayson also tinkered with overseeding different cool season forages on his bahiagrass until he settled on ryegrass and clover. It added months and quality to his grazing season and saved on his nitrogen bill because of clover's ability to fix nitrogen.

Before he started overseeding, he planted a small grain, such as oats, on row-crop land next to his pastures. He limit-grazed his cows for a couple of hours a day and it worked well. However, when the row-crop farmers who leased the land started growing cotton, they were later and later getting the crop harvested, which made him late planting.

Even though he found he could get a good stand by overseeding in November, it was still February before it was ready to graze.

At the time, his calving season was December through February and had even started to creep back to November. Although he was feeding hay, he had hungry, lactating cows who were going into breeding season in poor body condition. His preg rates dropped to the lower 80s. As a result, he moved his calving season to January, February and March. Now, preg rates are back up to around 90% with 70% of the calves coming in January.

BENEFITS OF ROTATIONAL GRAZING

Feeding less hay is another bonus of his grazing system. When his bahiagrass runs out, usually sometime in November or December, he stops the rotation and feeds hay in one paddock. By the time the ryegrass and clover take off, his cows usually go through two-thirds to one ton of hay each, usually closer to one ton. He's also found during droughts, while his neighbors are feeding hay, he can typically just speed up his rotation and get by without it.

It's hard for him to give an accurate picture of the decrease in weaning weights because there are a number of variables. He markets the calves straight off the cow and typically doesn't weigh them until they leave. That can be as early as October if there is a drought, or in late November or even December if he needs the calves to eat the bahiagrass down. Still, most years the calves weigh around 450 lbs. at shipping, around 10% less than when he used a continuous grazing system. He still figures the math works in his favor, though. Because of the increased carrying capacity, he has more pounds to sell even though the calves weigh less.

If he had it to do over, Finlayson said he would definitely go with rotational grazing but would try to build more flexibility into his fencing. Still, he said, "I was afraid I was really going to mess these cattle up and was reluctant to try because of that. You won't mess them up. You'll get the hang of it quick."

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