https://usaregenalliance.org/regenerative-grazing
They have a picture at the bottom of the page that shows what happens to the roots when you graze the grass.
- Grazing less than half of the blade leaves the roots intact, and the grass will rapidly recover.
- Grazing around 70% will kill half of the roots. The grass must focus on growing more leaves to keep the roots that survive alive.
- Grazing 90% will kill all of the roots. The grass will focus on trying to grow its leaf back before investing in roots again. At this point, the grass is very easy to kill.
- Grazing twice in rapid succession, the “Second Bite”, will stress the grass so that it sheds its roots to focus on re-growth of the leaves.
From this, we learn this principle:
- Only take one bite, then move on. Leaving cows in an area long enough to nibble on the same piece of grass will kill the grass.
- Only take less than half of the blade. Taking too much of the blade requires a second bite, or the grass just isn’t long enough to support grazing. The grass will lose its roots and become weaker and more susceptible to dying.
My principles (as of November of 2023) are the following:
- Twice daily moves. Constantly give the animals fresh grass that hasn’t seen an animal for at least 3 weeks.
- No back-grazing. If the cows are tempted to back-graze, then I put up a back-fence. Also, I do not allow the cows access to back-graze after 3 days.
- Don’t graze what you don’t have. If the grass is tiny, then it can’t be grazed.
- If I have nothing to graze, I move the cows to a sacrificial lot, feed them hay, feed, whatever to keep them alive while I wait for the rest of the field to recover. I rotate this piece of ground to prevent the second bite as much as possible, but I know that I will overgraze it eventually.