Rotational grazing is a management strategy used to maximize forage growth.  Generally, the leaves of plants are much more palatable and nutritious than stems.  In order to maximize forage growth, livestock are strategically moved through a series of fresh pastures in order to provide a grazing rest period for plants to regrow their leaves; which in turn photosysthensize more plant tissue; which then grow at a faster rate because there is more leaf material.After a period of significant regrowth, livestock are rotated back to the point of orgin while plants are still leafy and have not begun building a lot of stem tissue.  Higher quality forages lead to increased palability, increased utilization of  forages and increased weight gain.

At the same time, rotational Grazing has the  potential to reduce cost of machinery, fuel, and facilities, reduce supplemental feeding and pasture waste and improve monthly pasture distribution and yield.  Dave Burge has been rotational grazing now for four years.  Each year he has continued to tweak his mamagement skills adjusting stocking density and shortening grazing periods to three day intervals per paddock while at the same time increasing utilization from 30% to 65%.  We are monitoring fields for increased organic matter content which will also increase water holding capacity.  Cattle become accustomed to movingto new paddocks and readily move to new paddocks with little to no prompting.  Rotational grazing allows for extended grazing vs continuous grazing, especially in periods of drought.  Because of rotational grazing and the fast recover times of the paddocks he has been able to harvest hay from the last two paddocks  and still maintain the required rest period for paddocks to recover properly.