Grazing in Michiana
I've often tried to make the point in the years that The Farmer's Exchange has featured articles on rotational grazing that this method of managing livestock is not new, but rather hundreds, or even thousands, of years old. Jerry Perkins, retired NRCS grazingland specialist, always incorporated a quote from Scottish agriculturalist James Anderson that sums up the gist of management intensive rotational grazing quite well, a quote dated 1777, into his "Grazing 101" presentation. The quote, as you may remember, goes something like this "... Animals delight most to feed on fresh plants. Cattle supplied with this kind of food would be quickly fatted. If a farmer divided his land into 15 to 20 equal divisions, have the number of beasts so great as to consume the best part of the grass in one day, give them a fresh park every morning to repeat the same repast, have so many parks as days required to advance the grass to the proper length after being eaten fair down ... so the first field would be ready to receive them after going over all the others, so they might be carried round in a constant rotation."
This quote almost perfectly describes the major concept behind management intensive rotational grazing, and it is 246 years old. Rotational grazing, however, as a livestock management strategy is far older than James Anderson. In the first book of the Bible, Chapter 13, we read of another early grazier who lived 4,000-5,000 years ago.
Starting in verse 6 of that chapter, we read that Abraham and his nephew Lot moved into (modern-day) southern Israel, "between Bethel and Hai," where there was strife between the herdsman of the two men because their herds were so great that the land could not support them all—not enough water and forage to go around. They met, discussed the matter, and Abraham and Lot agreed that they needed to part ways.
In other words, their stocking density was too great for the land to adequately support their livestock. Lot ended up settling in the Plain of Jordan in the East (near the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah—that's another story!) and Abraham dwelt in the land of Canaan.
That took care of the immediate problem at hand, although it gave rise to some other serious issues that don't really relate to rotational grazing. The point is that raising livestock by grazing is almost as old as recorded human history. To quote country music, "They say the old ways are still the best, and I do not deny it." Methodology, however, has changed tremendously over the last several thousand years.
Our June 2023 Pasture Walk, held at Green Meadows Farms (owned and operated by Steve and Marcia Hooley), is a good example of an old system-rotational grazing-adapted to brand-new cutting-edge technology. The Hooleys started utilizing management intensive rotational grazing on their roughly 250-acre dairy farm back in 1991. Steve was among the first to manage his dairy operation in this way locally.
Green Meadows makes extensive use of temporary electric fence, with almost no permanent fence structures found anywhere on the farm. Forage renovation is done on long intervals, with pastures being left in production for many years before substantially changing forage plantings. Rare for dairy operations, grazing is done more on the "tall grazing" model than the "intensive" one.
The cutting-edge technology was introduced in 2019, when the Hooleys discontinued traditional twice-a-day milking and installed two robotic milkers. The idea was to reduce human labor requirements. When asked, Steve's response indicated that the robots may not have reduced labor so much as changed the nature of the labor required to keep the dairy farm operating. Now, instead of two labor-intensive periods of milking every day, someone on the farm must spend time monitoring the dairy herd to make sure that the cattle participate in milking on their own frequently enough to keep themselves in good production as well as an adequate supply of milk in the bulk tank!
Cows are incentivized to report for milking by being issued a treat following a milking cycle. Some cows apparently try to report more often than necessary to get extra treats. The system does not allow this to take place. Others don't report for milking often enough, and steps must be taken to correct this problem as well. Steve mentioned that new cows added to the herd usually take a couple of days to be trained into the new system.
Since the cows have to be around the barn to be milked, and not necessarily all at the same time, this obviously impacts the grazing sequence. To adapt to the robotic milkers, cows are rotated on pasture on Green Meadows Farms now mostly at night. This also makes water piped to the grazing paddocks less important, since the cattle can drink when they are at the barn during the day, waiting to be milked.
All these factors are a good example of how new technology can be adapted to traditional methodology to make everything work better.