A Farmerama short podcast sharing insights on building soil health with grazing livestock
How do we manage grazing animals in a way that is most efficient for building soil health, growing grass and feeding livestock? Mob grazing is the answer according to Greg Judy (and many others).
Listen to this short podcast sharing the voice of Greg Judy, a cow-pat lover, full time mob grazer and regenerative agriculture enthusiast in Missouri:
“It takes 27 years to cover an entire farm with manure piles with continuous grazing. With mob grazing, where your mobbing animals up into a small area and moving them frequently it takes 1.5 years.”
Moving cattle around smaller areas of pasture on your farm ensures that a higher density of manure reaches the ground. This stimulates the microbial community below which speeds up grass growth. More grass means more food for animals!
The shorter the supply chain of manure from animal to ground the better. Keeping animals inside and collecting manure from barns lengthens this process, taking longer to return the goodness to the ground and losing some of it on the way.
Mob grazing makes a lot of sense, as using this method you could extend your grazing season significantly, perhaps to all year round. This is particularly helpful in a pasture fed system.
Want to know how mob grazing is affecting your soil? Use the Soilmentor app to help you track how your land is changing above and below ground, as well as track how much grass you have in each field. Get the app here.
