The reason I'm so interested in mob grazing (even though we're unlikely to have large livestock any time soon) is the potential for renovating poor soil.  Next week, I'll cover a few other ways that mob grazing can improve pastures, but today I want to focus on trampling.

Remember how I mentioned that Greg Judy plans for about a third of the grass to be trampled into the soil during each grazing session?  If you're renovating poor soil, you may need to trample a lot more.

Greg notes that degraded pastures will generally produce very seedy, poor quality grass the first year they are managed by mob grazing.  He recommends using a very low stocking density so that your livestock can subsist on the bit of high quality grass present, then make sure they trample the rest.  Next year, the grass will be more palatable.

The same theory applies if your pasture has grown up in poor quality weeds.  Greg regaled us with the tale of how he tried to manage a field of cockleburs by grazing hard every spring in hopes of eradicating the problem.  The result?  The cockleburs did better and better each year.  However, once he started ignoring the weeds and managing for grass, cockleburs were trampled down into the litter and eventually wiped out.

You might be tempted to let some paddocks lie fallow if they're very problematic, but Greg recommends against this.  Remember, your livestock are the ones improving the soil, both with their manure and by trampling down weeds and grass to enrich the ground.  If you have to, give your livestock supplementary feed that they can eat on pasture, but keep them on the problematic ground if you want it to improve.  (And, whatever you do, don't mine out the few nutrients you have by haying!)

Finally, plan your paddock's shape based on the quality of your pasture.  Livestock trample more in rectangular paddocks since they have to mill around to find the food, so make your paddocks long and skinny while you're in the soil improvement phase.  Once you've build up organic matter and your pastures are thriving, you can switch over to square paddocks so your livestock can utilize as much grass as possible.

This post is part of our Mob Grazing lunchtime series.  Read all of the entries: Greg Judy on mob grazing Recovery period and trampling define mob grazing Stockpiling winter forage How to stockpile pasture Trampling grass to renovate poor pastures How to start mob grazing Managing animals with mob grazing Starting slowly with pasturing Pasturing with nature Mob grazing vs. Voisin grazing

Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.

Or explore more posts by date or by subject.

About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.

Powered by Branchable Wiki Hosting.