Setting Up Cattle Grazing Paddocks

Video is from Greg Judy at Greg Judy Regenerative Ranch. Check out his Channel on YouTube.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Find Your Food. I wanted to share this video with you that I came across a few years ago by Greg Judy on how he runs his livestock through a section of land. Some things to keep in mind with this video, and he addresses this in the video but it doesn't hurt to bring it up again, the amount of cattle you can run on an acre of land with vary greatly on where you live if you get a lot of rain in the year your grass will typically grow faster and be able to support more cattle.

Greg also explained and pointed out why he likes to keep as much permanent fence off the grazing area. The main reason is cost. If you are looking at getting started with grazing and don't have a lot of money to get started this is the way to go. Remember, we want to be able to generate cash flow! The only thing we want to be permanent is the perimeter fence. With the perimeter fence being permanent and having 3, 4 or 5 wires is to keep the animals in. I grew up on a farm and without fail we would have an event happen that would spook the cattle. This may have been a variety of things but when cattle get spooked they tend to run around as a herd and if they know that there is a permanent fence that never changes, they will be less likely to test it out. Greg pointed out in some of his other videos, that we are liable for our cattle, if they get out and are hit by a vehicle we are at fault, we didn't keep our cattle in. This is very important especially in today's day when everyone is very quick to sue. Now that being said, are you going to be able to keep your cattle in 100% of the time and never have one get out? No. It is bound to happen at some point, but we want to greatly reduce these instances or address instances where there are patterns. Is there a certain area the cattle are always getting out or a certain cow that is always on the wrong side of the fence? If so, add another wire in the trouble area or make sure there is nothing over the wires or grounding the wires that are hot. if it is the same animal that is causing you trouble give it 2 or 3 chances and if the problem continues get rid of it. you do not want to be liable or if you plan on breeding the animal, you do not want her genetics to be passed on to her offspring

Another point that Greg makes in regard to having as little permanent fence as possible is the fact that there are different growing seasons and sometimes the grass is growing very quickly and you need to move the animals over the total pasture in a short amount of time and vice versa during the dryer, less productive times of the year. Along with this point, he mentioned the importance of not grazing the land the same way each time to prevent cattle trails from forming. When a cattle trail is formed it collects rain and does not infiltrate properly. When there is sitting water the cattle can make a muddy mess. The last point he made about the temporary fence and changing up the design was the distribution of manure more evenly over the land which will help the grass grow better and provide a better overall stand throughout the year.

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