Grazing Bites by Victor Shelton, Retired NRCS Agronomist/Grazing Specialist There’s an old saying that goes, “Droughty weather makes you worry, wet spells will make you starve.” This year, it sure feels that way. Some areas were too wet, making it tough to make hay or even get into the fields. Other areas stayed dry and struggled to grow much at all. Now, with some much-needed rain, pastures have bounced back and cool-season forages have turned greener almost overnight. It’s a welcome sight, but one thing is still clear: forage growth is slowing down with shorter days, hay quality is all over the board and the choices we make this fall are going to carry right into next spring. When grass greens back up, the temptation is to try to get as much grazing in as possible by grazing pastures tighter. I get it – we all want to stretch what’s out there. But grazing down to the nubbins usually does more harm than good. Plants need four inches of stubble to keep a solar panel working, to catch dew and to keep the plant alive and healthy. If you graze it too short, the plant has to dip into root reserves, and that slows down recovery and reduces what you’ll get in the future. Once those forages go dormant, you can come back and graze them with less long-term harm, but right now they need rest. Protecting that leaf area and soil cover is the best investment we can make in our pastures. So, what can you graze instead to buy that rest? If you planted any late summer annuals, those fields could really help. The amount of growth depends on when you planted and how much soil moisture you had during planting and after. Warm-season annuals like sorghum-sudan, sudangrass and Johnsongrass are another option if present, but be careful around frost. Those forages can produce prussic acid, which is toxic to livestock. They’re best grazed before frost or two weeks after a killing frost once they’ve dried down. Millets and certain new sorghum varieties don’t carry that risk, but it’s always worth being cautious. One of the best opportunities we’ve got this fall is corn residue. A dry fall is perfect for grazing stalks and doing so not only stretches out grazing but also takes pressure off pastures that desperately need recovery. When cows are turned into a stalk field, they’ll go straight for any grain left, then husk and leaf and lastly the stalks themselves. The nutritional value follows that same order, starting out fairly high and declining as the weeks go by. Stalks typically begin around 8 percent protein with a relative feed value (RFV) of 80-90, and over the next 60 days drop to about 5 percent protein with an RFV in the 60s. That makes them suitable for dry cows or mid-gestation cows, but growing calves or lactating fall cows will need supplementation to meet energy and protein requirements. Figuring out how much stalk ground you’ll need isn’t too hard and it’s worth running the numbers. An average cow eats about 3 percent of her body weight in dry matter each day. For a 1,100-pound cow, that’s 33 pounds per day or about 231 pounds a week. If you’ve got 50 cows, you’re looking at 11,550 pounds of dry matter each week. On the supply side, a 180-bushel corn crop will leave around 4,032 pounds of usable dry matter per acre. Divide demand by supply – 11,550 divided by 4,032 – and you come up with right around 3 acres of stalks needed each week for 50 cows. That’s a good conservative number, and in practice, you may stretch it a little more with good management. How you manage stalk grazing makes all the difference. If you just open the gate and let them have the whole field, they’ll clean up the grain first, leave a lot of residue behind and spread manure in a few favorite spots. Strip grazing with a polywire gives you a lot more control. By only letting them into a portion of the field at a time, you keep the feed quality more consistent, lower the risk of cattle gorging on leftover corn, spread manure more evenly and extend the grazing season. Step-in posts and a reel of wire make this pretty simple and moving the fence once or twice a week is usually enough. Of course, for stalks to be practical, a few things need to line up. Cows need water, whether that’s already in the field or brought in with a portable system. Fences have to be good enough to hold them where they belong – neighbors and drivers don’t appreciate loose cows. Dry falls are ideal for grazing stalks and reducing any possible impact of compaction. If you can, follow up with a cover crop like cereal rye or wheat to trap nutrients, reduce erosion and improve soil health. On highly erodible land, make sure you’re maintaining enough residue to stay in line with your conservation plan. Don’t forget the mineral program. Corn stalks are low in calcium and phosphorus. A good free-choice mineral is essential and should include sufficient potassium if grazing lush fall forage. Depending on the class of livestock, you may also need protein or energy supplements. Keep an eye on body condition and adjust as needed – it’s cheaper to keep cows on track than to play catch-up later. Hay is the other big piece of the puzzle this year. With the weather extremes, quality is all over the place. Some hay may have issues drying and lost feed value; some may have been cut too late and is stemmy and low in protein. Guessing isn’t good enough. A simple forage test will tell you exactly what you’ve got and an idea on what you’ll need to supplement. One number that helps put hay quality in perspective is RFV. Think of RFV as a “miles-per-gallon” rating for forage: the higher the number, the more nutrition animals get per pound. Good hay will often run 120 or better, fair hay may be closer to 100 and anything much below that is just belly fill. This year, with so much cloudy, wet weather, many hay fields grew tall and stemmy, which pushed those numbers down, sometimes 20 to 40 points lower than normal. That drop means animals get less usable energy, so you’ll likely need to supplement with some extra protein or energy. For cows on low-RFV hay, a couple pounds of something like corn gluten feed each day can often make up the difference. Your local nutritionist or veterinarian can help you figure what you need. This season has tested all of us. It may be too wet in some places, too dry in others and now timely rains have brought a much-needed rebound. The best path forward is to protect those pastures from overgrazing, use annuals and crop residues to buy rest time, make the most of corn stalks with smart allocation and test hay so you can balance rations instead of guessing. Every day we can keep cattle grazing instead of eating hay saves money, keeps nutrients cycling and gives our pastures the breather they need. If we carefully manage our pastures this fall, we’ll be setting ourselves up for healthier forages and better livestock performance when spring comes back around. It’s not about maximizing a single grazing event but optimizing the entire grazing season. Observe, plan and keep on grazing. Reminders & Opportunities Greg Brann’s Regenerative Farm-Pasture Walk – Oct. 16, 2025 - 683 Blankenship Rd, Adolphus, Ky. – 11 a.m.-5 p.m. ET - $45 per person for the event. https://gregbrann.com/pasture-walk-2025/ Please send comments or questions to grazingbites@gmail.com. |
