Have you ever just sat and watched an animal graze? We don’t often take time to slow down and observe the details of things that we take for granted. Watching to see how a cow eats is probably the last thing on your to do list.

I remember the first time I slowed down enough to observe what each bite contains was on a back country hunting trip in the mountains. I took the horses out to graze one afternoon in October and just sat and watched them eat. There was some lush green undergrowth, some course dry leaves, and some mature seed heads. I noticed that the horses alternated between all three types of forage a couple bites at a time.

Sunday morning, I watched these cows alternating bites just like those horses did. A couple bites of undergrowth and a couple bites of stems and a couple bites of the seed heads. I’m certainly no expert, but I have noticed that in a set stock grazing plan, the cows tend to cherry pick the best forage first, leaving the less desirable until there’s no other choice. One of the benefits of rotational grazing is that the cows learn to eat all the forage, mixing the whole variety of choices together, consuming the entire plant and maintaining a more constant plane of nutrition from day to day.

Popular rotational grazing systems wear many different names, but they all share some common benefits: increased forage production, improved health for plants, soil, and animals, as well as more complete utilization of all the resources.

I hope you have grass to graze this summer, and I hope you take a minute to do a little observation along the way. I’ll see you next time on the Herd Quitter® Minute.