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Grazing and Range/Pasture Management
Also known as pastoralism, grazing livestock have been around for millennia, ever since domestic animals--cattle, hogs, sheep, goats, horses--have been successfully domesticated. Grazing involves the consumption of forages and range or pasture management is a tool used to control grazing activities of livestock, primarily in effort to improve the quality of the land.
578 Questions
What animal is Wyoming among the leading states for the grazing animal and its by-product?
Probably Sheep and wool. Wyoming has a lot of sheep as well as cows.
Wyoming is cattle country. 78% of total agricultural receipts in Wyoming can be attributed to beef cattle and calves. The grazing animal would be cattle and the by-product is the beef.
Is there anything you can do to keep the color of a pasture kept palomino horse from fading?
Invest in a fly sheet with UVA protection, this will keep the horses coat from fading.
Do shepherds graze their sheep in December?
Shepherds would be most unlikely to have their sheep out at night in the Judean highlands, in December. In the event that this story is true, it would point to the birth of Jesus taking place in the summer months.
Technically "paturelands" are grazing lands that are managed intensively (fertilized, seeding) and often fenced.
For most of their history, the Navajo lands for sheep have been better described as "rangelands". The areas are mostly steppe and mountain landscapes. They are not seeded or fertilized. They are unfenced and the sheep are moved in different seasons, largely to higher elevations in the summer.
Why is clover important in New Zealand pastures?
Clover is important to New Zealand pasture for it adds nitrogen.
To enable the clover to be pollinated, Bumble Bees were introduced, for Honey Bees lack a sufficiently long tongue.
What way should fence post face your property or the neighbors?
depends on who payed for it. if you payed put the finished side to your property. If you shared payment alternate the panels one facing him and one facing you and so on.
In which month do the farmers bring their animals in from pasture for the winter in Bethlehem?
In Bethlehem, farmers typically bring their animals in from pasture for the winter in October. This practice aligns with the onset of colder weather, prompting the need to protect livestock from harsh conditions. The timing may vary slightly depending on local climate and agricultural practices.
When do people graze their animals in the plains?
People typically graze their animals in the plains during the warmer months when there is abundant grass and forage available. This grazing usually occurs from spring to early fall, depending on the climate and specific region. During these months, animals can feed on natural vegetation, which supports their health and reduces the need for supplemental feeding. Additionally, grazing during this time allows for efficient use of pastureland.
Does a scarlet macaw hunt graze or scaven to obtain food?
a scarlet macaw picks up food like a scavenger
Why is more ecologically friendly to eat a salad than a steak?
It's a matter of perspective. There's no doubt that it takes a lot less time, land, water, and caloric energy to grow some lettuce plants and other vegetables to get a salad versus having to raise a steer to get just one steak. However, both come with an ecological cost.
Ground needs to be broken so that the seeds of the vegetable plants can be sown and grow without direct competition from the plants that used to grow there. Soil is exposed and open to being eroded away by wind and rain, and taking even the most nutritious parts of a vegetable plant means less nutrient is being returned to the soil, even if the remnants of multiple breakfasts, lunches, dinners and suppers are composted and returned to that garden soil. Exposed soil also dries out and tends to heat up more so than if it were covered up with grass. Weeds constantly need to be removed because Nature is just trying to cover up that exposed soil to protect it. Weeds still come in even if the soil is covered in mulch.
With the steak, ecological cost is greater if it came from a grain-finished steer than a grass-finished steer. The grain-finished steer obviously needs grain in addition to grass and hay for finishing. Grain must also come from ground that is broken to expose soil so that the crop can be sown and grown then harvested. How much of that ground needs to be broken to feed that single steer? Let's use a typical finisher ration to find out.
A steer at 1000 pound body weight is expected to gain 3 pounds per day. Typically they are finished for 120 days to a target weight of around 1350 pounds finish to slaughter. So, since I prefer to use barley over corn, we will us a ration that is 20.5 pounds of barley grain and 10 pounds of barley silage per day, which translates to 2460 pounds of barley grain and 1200 pounds of barley silage for 120 days of finishing. Expected yields per acre for barley grain and barley silage are 85 bushels (85 bu x 48 bu/lb = 4080 pounds) per acre and 8.5 tons (17,000 pounds) of barley silage, respectively. That means that 3/5ths of an acre (0.6 acre) for barley grain and 0.07 acres for barley silage are needed to finish one steer. Or, in total, that's 2/3rds of an acre or 26,136 square feet.
That's quite a bit of land. That's not counting the amount of land needed for grazing and/or hay production, if you're not counting grass or forage regrowth.
Even if we were considering a grass-finished steer, the ecological cost is lower because grain isn't being used in the diet; grass is, and grass is actually more ecologically-friendly than either crops or gardens because it regrows and keeps the soil covered. Manure from the single steer fertilizes the soil so that the plants can grow. Grass can grow in places where it's not practical to grow either a garden or cropland to grow grain or silage!
We also have to remember that from one steer we can get around 500 pounds or more of ready-to-eat beef which will last a family of four for a whole year.
So the answer to the question is that both are ecologically-friendly in their own ways, provided either are raised or grown responsibly and well with the environment in mind.
What makes prairies suitable for cattle rearing?
The prairie is a grassland habitat that can only thrive if it is experience grazing pressure from any kind of herbivorous grazer, whether it's from the historical large herds of bison or the present-day large herds range cows. It cannot survive without grazing because of the impacts created on such a natural grassland by the introduction and destruction of invasive plant species--such species push out native plants and decrease overall quality of the rangeland. Such is what has happened when no grazing was allowed for several decades in the Grassland National Park of Saskatchewan, Canada.
Cattle are, just like the old American Bison, herbivorous grazers, suited for grazing open tracts of grassland--native or tame, marginal or not--under the watchful eye of the people that care for and manage their movements across the landscape: the rancher and the cowboy. The prairies offer such extensive fodder for these animals to consume, live off of and thrive off of that make it highly suitable for these domesticated animals to be raised on. Not only does the rancher benefit from such land because of the ideal fodder available, but it also benefits the prairies because they are recieving the very natural pressure put on by the animals it was adapted to rely on. It completes the whole ecological cycle by having such grazers there, such that it becomes and maintains its health the same way it had before the great bison herds were exterminated.
Standing in an open pasture are papa bull and baby bull which member of the family is missing?
The cow.
What can be done to prevent erosion associated with grazing animals?
The best thing is to begin proper grazing practices with grazing animals. While it's more difficult with wildlife, it's easier with livestock like cattle, sheep and goats.
Proper grazing starts with removing livestock from loitering around and in sensitive riparian areas and wetlands including ponds, creek and river banks, sloughs, lakes etc. This can be done by fencing off the sensitive areas to exclude livestock for long periods of time using simply a couple of strands of high-tensile electric fence (low enough that wildlife can jump over), and provide sources of water away from these sensitive areas by building gravity-fed water systems, solar-powered pumping systems, or any other system that works and fits the budget.
Proper grazing also means looking at the lay of the land more carefully and planning out a managed-intensive grazing system that takes advantage of the lay of the land and gets livestock out of the valleys where the wetlands are, and up in the hills more.
In order to perform proper grazing, you need to look at the stocking rate for your area. You may have too many animals, or too few. Either way you can invite overgrazing--which invites erosion--by not allowing enough rest to the land. (In some sensitive areas, too much rest can also be a problem.)
Preventing erosion, or rather mitigating erosion and encouraging more plant growth, means also giving the land more rest to recuperate after grazing. Selective grazing as encouraged by allowing the animals free access to a lot of acreage over several months does not allow plants significant rest, and can select for less desirable plant species. Grouping animals together and moving them as a unit to different paddocks, and allowing the area just grazed to rest for a significant amount of time (how much depends on the vegetation and the time needed for vegetation to grow back to the optimum stage for grazing, which tends to be at the 3rd or 4th-leave stage) before being grazed again is the best means to mitigate erosion and allow plants to grow back and take over the bare spots that would otherwise invite erosion.
Trees would not be a wise solution. However, if the area is such where trees once grew, then a shelter belt or a small grove can be created as new habitat for forest-dwelling wildlife. Livestock must be excluded from this area, though, for an extensive period of time to allow the saplings to grow. Cattle in particular are very good at killing trees, especially if they are allowed free-access to the forest for extended periods of time. Note though, that trees are not going to be covering the ground as quickly as grass and forbs are, thus will not be covering the soil as quickly.
How do bovines graze without upper incisors?
They use their tongues to wrap around a sward of forage, then pull it in to rip it off the stems with their lower teeth. The tongue is a very powerful and crucial tool for a bovine.
Can you put your horse out in the pasture after they are done eating hay and pellets?
Yes. Horses are browsers; they graze constantly. The only time this can be a problem is if you have a very lush field (especially in spring), in which case you may want to limit the time the horse spends out there to a few hours a day. This goes double for ponies, who have been known to overgraze and either founder or colic.
How much pasture does it take to raise a steer?
This depends on location, stocking rates, vegetation, time of year, size of steer, etc. The thing to remember about stocking steers is that they are 1/2 to 2/3 the size of mature cows with or without a calf, so you have to stock pastures accordingly. Check out the related questions below for related info on grazing cattle.
