4 pics 1 word horse running sheep grazing

#4 pics 1 word horse running sheep grazing Patch

Keep in mind, this is dependent on the pasture productivity. So that’s 33 cows, or about 33,000 pounds. The MIRG approach assumes 33 AUs per acre per day. The calculations use “Animal Units” or AU’s which are a livestock standard based on a mature 1,000 pound cow. Thanks to a University of Minnesota Extension presentation, I was able to get some hard numbers and convert them for our farm. My second question was, how do I size the paddocks for the number of sheep I have? The numbers are all over the map on this, and “stocking density” isn’t a terribly popular subject online. As long as the space requirements are met, the benefits of rotational grazing applies to 4 sheep just as much as 40,000. The answer appears to be yes I have found no literature saying there is a minimum amount of animals required. My first question was, can MIRG be used with a small scale of animals? We have 3 ewes and 1 ram currently, expecting lambs this Spring. Since acquiring our sheep last Summer I have had this nagging desire to figure out MIRG and apply it to our farm. This was brought to my attention by the compelling TED talk by Allan Savory, a pioneer in the field of holistic land management. If pastures are not grazed they turn into deserts. Rather than continually depleting the soil and subsidizing with chemical fertilizers, MIRG allows me to build healthier pastures that are self-sustaining.Ĭontrary to what it may seem, grazing is necessary to healthy pastures. MIRG and techniques like it build up far larger amounts of topsoil than any other known method. Fewer parasites build up in the soil and affect the animalsįinally, perhaps the biggest benefit of all is soil health.Animals are forced to move and exercise more.

#4 pics 1 word horse running sheep grazing Patch

Animals are exposed to more varieties of forage because they cannot simply return to their favorite alfalfa patch every day.There are many benefits to the animals as well: Short grazing periods stimulate growth, long grazing periods destroy pasture. The heart of the idea stems from giving pasture the optimum amount of time to re-grow before being grazed again. Instead of pasturing animals in a large paddock for a month or two, then moving them to the next paddock, MIRG is pasturing animals in very small paddocks for just a few days at a time, or in some cases hours.

What is fairly recent is intensive rotational grazing. Dividing up a pasture into paddocks to prevent overgrazing goes back to the earliest agrarian societies. MIRG is a system of pasturing animals to maximize pasture growth.