Finding the best management intensive grazing suitable for your needs isnt easy. With hundreds of choices can distract you. Knowing whats bad and whats good can be something of a minefield. In this article, weve done the hard work for you.

Best management intensive grazing

Related posts:

Best management intensive grazing reviews

1. Management-intensive Grazing: The Grassroots of Grass Farming

Feature

Ships from Vermont

Description

I like to say that when you buy an acre of land you get 43,500 square feet of solar panel. When you start thinking about your farm in these terms, the importance of having every acre covered with green, growing grass becomes apparent, Jim Gerrish writes.

Gerrish coined the phrase Management-intensive Grazing (MiG), putting the emphasis on management of the growth of the grass. The animals are merely harvesters, like lawnmowers. In Management-intensive Grazing, The Grassroots of Grass Farming, he uses vivid images and detailed explanations to take graziers step-by-step through the MiG system.

Written for those new to MiG grazing, Gerrishs insights and personal experience can help experienced graziers fine tune their grazing operations for added income. He begins from the ground up with the soil and advances through the management of pastures and animals, and covers how to manage the water cycle; how to work with legumes; how to stockpile forages for low cost wintering; how to plan and utilize permanent and perimeter fencing; and how to use pasture weaning for health and weight gain.

Gerrishs lively chapters explain how to make pasture fertility pay; the power of stock density; how to match forage supply with animal demand; how to judge maximum intake of forage; and how using pasture records offers information, not just data.

2. Kick the Hay Habit: A Practical Guide to Year-Around Grazing

Feature

Ships from Vermont

Description

With todays management systems, the cost of making hay far exceeds its value to grazing businesses. Studies have shown that winter feed costs are the largest single factor limiting the profitability for most livestock operations. In virtually every area of the USA, year-around grazingwithout hayis possible, yet many graziers continue making hay.

Kick the Hay Habit: A Practical Guide To Year-Around Grazing by Jim Gerrish will show you how much it really costs to produce a ton of hay. He explains how to use nature as your guide for low-cost winter grazing; how to conduct a pasture inventory; how to select the optimal breeding and birthing seasons; how to custom design your own winter forage system; and how to make the transition from hay feeding to grazing.

Wouldnt you rather spend your time monitoring pastures and moving livestock than making hay?

Both the beginner and the experienced grazier will benefit from Kick the Hay Habit. Gerrish shares his personal experiences as a grazier in Missouri and Idaho as well as insights he gained as a researcher at the University of Missouris Forage Systems Research Center. As a grazing consultant he has helped farmers and ranchers throughout North and South America.

Wouldnt you rather Kick the Hay Habit, dump the heavy metal, and start collecting the profits?

3. Greener Pastures On Your Side Of The Fence: Better Farming With Voisin Management Intensive Grazing

Feature

Used Book in Good Condition

Description

Tired of cash flows that leave little money in your pocket? If you're feeding livestock in confinement rather than on pasture, you're working too hard and spending too much money. Your permanent pasture is a valuable resource that up till now has been wasted. Forget about how pastures are. Think of how they could be if they were managed with the same amount of attention that you give to your other crops. Voisin management intensive grazing takes into account the needs of both animals and plants, rather than animals alone. Its use can at least double or triple your pasture's productivity. This book explains why and how to use management intensive grazing, and what to expect from its use. It shows a way to simplify your farm operation, reduce its labor needs, increase its productivity, and improve your quality of life.

4. The Art and Science of Grazing: How Grass Farmers Can Create Sustainable Systems for Healthy Animals and Farm Ecosystems

Feature

Ships from Vermont

Description

Grazing management might seem simple: just put livestock in a pasture and let them eat their fill. However, as Sarah Flack explains in The Art and Science of Grazing, the pasture/livestock relationship is incredibly complex. If a farmer doesnt pay close attention to how the animals are grazing, the resulting poorly managed grazing system can be harmful to the health of the livestock, pasture plants, and soils. Well-managed pastures can instead create healthier animals, a diverse and resilient pasture ecosystem, and other benefits. Flack delves deeply below the surface of let the cows eat grass, demonstrating that grazing management is a sophisticated science that requires mastery of plant and animal physiology, animal behavior, and ecology. She also shows readers that applying grazing management science on a working farm is an art form that calls on grass farmers to be careful observers, excellent planners and record-keepers, skillful interpreters of their observations, and creative troubleshooters.

The Art and Science of Grazing will allow farmers to gain a solid understanding of the key principles of grazing management so they can both design and manage successful grazing systems. The books unique approach presents information first from the perspective of pasture plants, and then from the livestock perspectivehelping farmers understand both plant and animal needs before setting up a grazing system.

This book is an essential guide for ruminant farmers who want to be able to create grazing systems that meet the needs of their livestock, pasture plants, soils, and the larger ecosystem. The book discusses all the practical details that are critical for sustained success: how to set up a new system or improve existing systems; acreage calculations; paddock layout; fence and drinking water access; lanes and other grazing infrastructure; managing livestock movement and flow; soil fertility; seeding and reseeding pastures; and more. The author includes descriptions of real grazing systems working well on dairy, beef, goat, and sheep farms in different regions of North America. The book covers pasture requirements specific to organic farming, but will be of use to both organic and non-organic farms.

5. Mark: Gospel to the Gentiles

Description

Mark was likely the first gospel written. It is the shortest gospel and the one full of Jesus' action. Since it was written especially for Gentile people, it is a very appropriate book for most people to study in our day. The author of this commentary is not only a pastor, Christian teacher and writer but one who lived a total of sixteen years in the land of the Bible. This work thus has an "Israel flavor" that is unlike most other commentaries.

6. The Independent Farmstead: Growing Soil, Biodiversity, and Nutrient-Dense Food with Grassfed Animals and Intensive Pasture Management

Feature

Ships from Vermont

Description

With in-depth information on electric fencing, watering, and husbandry for ruminants, poultry, and pigs, plus butchering, dairying, and more

If we work hard, we sleep well.

Twenty years ago, when authors Shawn and Beth Dougherty purchased the land they would come to name the Sows Ear, the state of Ohio designated it not suitable for agriculture. Today, their family raises and grows 90% of their own food.

Such self-sufficiency is largely the result of basing their farming practices around intensive pasture management. Pioneered by such luminaries as Allan Savory, Greg Judy, and Joel Salatin, the tenets of holistic grazingemployed mostly by larger-scale commercial operationshave been adapted by the Doughertys to fit their familys needs. In The Independent Farmstead, The Sows Ear model for regenerating the land and growing foodthe best you ever tastedis elucidated for others to use and build upon.

In witty and welcoming style, The Independent Farmstead covers everything from choosing a species of ruminant and incorporating it into a grass-based system to innovative electric fencing and watering systems, to what to do with all of the milk, meat, and, yes, manure that the self-sustaining farm produces. Within these pages, the Doughertys discuss how to:

  • Find and improve poor, waste, or abused land and develop its natural water resources;
  • Select and purchase the appropriate ruminant for regenerating your farmstead;
  • Apply fencing strategies and pasture management basics;
  • Implement basic, uncomplicated food processing, including large and small animal butchering and cheese making; and
  • Integrate grass, gardens, and livestock to minimize or eliminate the need for off-farm inputs.

As the Doughertys write, more and more people today are feeling the desire for clean, affordable food, unmodified, unprocessed, and unmedicated and the security of local food sourcing for ourselves and our children. The Independent Farmstead is a must-have resource for those who count themselves as part of this movement: both new and prospective farmers and homesteaders, and those who are interested in switching to grass-based systems. Best of all its the kind of rare how-to book that the authors themselves view not as a compendium of one-size-fits-all instructions but as the beginning of a conversation, one that is utterly informative, sincere, and inspiring.

7. Intensive Grazing Management: Forage, Animals, Men, Profits

8. Does God play favorites?: Exploring God's plan for Israel

9. Greener Pasture on Your Side of the Fence: Better Farming Voisin Management-Intensive Grazing (4th Edition) by Bill Murphy (1998-07-31)

10. Comeback Farms: Rejuvenating Soils, Pastures and Profits with Livestock Grazing Management

Feature

Used Book in Good Condition

Description

Many folks are hesitant to try Holistic Planned Grazing because of what they think it entails. Greg Judys book responds to such hesitancy with enthusiasm and positive attitude and by articulating the basics in a very simple way, demonstrating to readers that it is possible to make these changes without a lot of infrastructure investment.

Judy shows how to add sheep, goats and pigs to existing cattle operations. He explains fencing and water systems that build on existing infrastructure set up for Management-intensive Grazing. Sharing his first-hand experience (mistakes as well as successes), Judy takes graziers to the next level. He shows how High Density Grazing (HDG) on his own farm and those he leases can revitalize hayed out, scruffy, weedy pastures, and turn them into highly productive grazing landscapes that grow both green grass and greenbacks.

If you have six cows or 6000, you can utilize High Density Grazing to create fertile soils, lush pastures and healthy livestock. Greg Judy, the master of custom grazing, shows how to earn profits with little risk while using other peoples livestock on leased land. Judy details how to work with Nature without costly inputs, and how to let the animals be your labor force.

Comeback Farms covers multi-species grazing; developing parasite-resistant hair sheep flocks and grass-genetic cattle; and how to select, train and care for livestock guardian dogs. It includes High Density Grazing fencing techniques, diagrams for HDG fencing and paddock moves; and how to calve with HDG.

By following Judys examples, youll keep your neighbors talking and wondering how you keep your fields green and your livestock grazing year-around. In the process youll be pocketing your profits.

Conclusion

All above are our suggestions for management intensive grazing. This might not suit you, so we prefer that you read all detail information also customer reviews to choose yours. Please also help to share your experience when using management intensive grazing with us by comment in this post. Thank you!
Jaime Gordon