The other day, my nephew was giving out about how stupid I must be to let my cattle ruin the field. Didn’t I know any better than to leave them in an acre section and let them churn it all up–wasn’t I supposed to be a smarty pants grazier? Why wasn’t I moving my beasts around the fields instead of ruining one?

Thirteen year old boys know so much! My daughter told him to come ask me why I was destroying all the land in the known universe, but I still haven’t seen him. Instead I offer my apologies and explanations to the world as to why I would allow hallowed ground to be churned to mud.

Here in our own dot of the Pacific Northwest, grass grows almost all year around. During the months of November through February it slows to an almost imperceptible crawl, but it is still green and creeping along. Depending on what sort of summer we’ve had and how long it stretched into October, this winter crop of grass can be long and dried out, short and recovering after being grazed a bit in the autumn, or cropped to the ground.

Grass grows not just in stimulus to warmth and light, but also as a by-product of cutting–those leaves want to grow bigger to catch more sun rays. Of course, with an absence of all three of those elements in the winter that grass just sits there waiting to burst forth in the Spring.

I have limited grazing lands available to me. In order to get the most out of my pastures for my animals I must manage them to the best of my ability, factoring in weather, cattle pressure and season. If I let my cattle graze all of the pasture in the winter, they would destroy all of it making it slower to get a start and regrow in March. Not only do cattles’ hooves impact the ground when it is damp or thawing from a freeze, but they also tend to crop the grass down quite low at a time when it is powerless to recover. Additionally, during frosts or snows, the cattle can snap, break and otherwise damage the grasses they require in order to live. Like I have said–I only have a limited amount of land for my animals, I don’t have the luxury of moving them to greener pastures while the one they’ve destroyed recovers.

And so, in the picture above, you can see what happens–and why my nephew was being such a wiseacre. Rather than letting the cattle destroy all of the pasture, plugging it up, making in difficult to mow in the summer, and slow to grow in the spring, I only allow them to ruin a portion of the fields. As we feed hay during the winter the hay seeds help restore this piece of ground, and if it needs mechanical remediation, it is small enough to only take a few hours to set right.

So there you have it–destroy some to save the rest. It’s the middle of January now–we’ve had frosts and freezes, but little snow. The hay is abundant and the cattle are looking well fed and happy. In another month or so, depending on the rains, I will move the cattle and allow them to begin to graze on some of the recovering pasture as it bursts into growth in March. Our prime grass season here is from April to July. So during those months I have to capitalize on grass growth and will be busy daily moving the cattle so they always have fresh, lush grass before them.

As for the churned up paddock? This year I think I’ll be lazy with it–it’s covered thickly in manure. After harrowing it once, I might just see how a crop of corn or barley does in it, maybe a stand of sunflowers–hate to waste the cattle’s hard work getting it ready over winter.

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