Rotational Grazing 2 - First Paddock to Paddock Move 

Our reels go out to 1320 feet each, so we can build a paddock of any size, up to about 4.25 acres if we use our permanent fencing as one of the four sides. We'll never need a 3.5 day paddock of that size...not even for our four cows. We adjust the paddock sizes each paddock move with the reels of twine based on 'animal units' (one animal unit = 1,000 lbs. of animal). As a rule of thumb, one animal unit requires about 1320 sq. ft. of grazing area per day. Naturally, this varies based on pasture quality, and many other factors, but it's a good place to start and then you can tweak the next paddock size based on how much your animals eat it down. Hoping to do a video on paddock size calculations soon. It will, however, bore anyone who isn't a newish rancher, but that's fine.

We've come a long way in rotational grazing since this video. This paddock was clearly too small for the full 3.5 days. Ideally, in the spring especially, we'd have them only eat it down to a height where it still remains in premium growth phase (about 3-6 inches in this case), and that's what we strive for now. A good rule of thumb is about 1320 sq ft of paddock a day for every animal unit (1,000 lbs. of animal). This is, of course, dependent on an incredible number of variables, such as forage growth phase/height, forage variety, forage species/nutritional value, forage density, and whether or not the animals are pregnant or nursing, just to name a few. Moisture plays a role as well since it makes the flock/herd more susceptible to parasites, and that's another big reason why we move them so frequently, dry or wet, despite larger paddocks. In any case, we have a lot more animals now and the paddocks in the spring were nearly 2 acres in size this year. Still, we moved them about twice a week for nearly 3 months, basically until prime growing season was over. In addition to all the other considerations above, we managed to keep a lot of our pasture from going to seed and losing nutritional value as forage, and we got a lot of re-growth during 30ish day paddock resting periods. Thanks for watching. Enjoy the rest of summer.