Hello, I'm Chuck Coffey
Today I'd like to show you how to use a grazing stick
To establish stocking rates on winter pasture
One of the tools we use to calculate the amount of available forage for grazing
is just simply a yardstick
We like to refer to this is our grazing stick
It's a simple ruler in inches
And with this stick you can look up conversions on here
That will allow you to make calculations to show us
How many pounds of available forage there might be per acre
And will eventually allow us to establish stocking rates
The first step to calculating the amount of forage
we have available for grazing in a pasture is to determine plant height
To do this we want to take 15 to 20 random samples across the field
In this instance, the forage is laying down a little bit
So we want to make sure that we pull it up
Place your stick to the ground
And determine plant height
where the majority of the leaves are at their maximum height
For this example, it's about ten inches
And so we would make that recording
and then continue to take another 15 to 20 samples across the field
Once we determine the average plant height across the field
We can then make the calculations
that will allow us to determine the amount of available forage we have for grazing
For example, if the average plant height were ten inches
We would simply subtract three inches
because we always want to leave three inches of residual forage
that we do not graze
so that would leave us with seven inches of available forage for grazing
We would multiply that by a factor of one hundred and fifty pounds per acre inch
To give us a little over a thousand pounds of available forage per acre
for grazing
Once we calculate the amount of forage we have available for grazing
We'll use this number to either calculate carrying capacity for a given length of time
Or we will use the number to calculate the number of reserve herd days
that we have left for grazing
Both of these calculations we will do in the office using our af tools
One of them is our reserve herd day calculator
The other is our carrying capacity calculator
Hello, I'm Hugh Aljoe
Earlier, Chuck talked about using the grazing stick
in order to determine forage production
He referenced two calculators in which we're going to look at next
One being the carrying capacity calculator
and the second one being the reserve herd day calculator
The first one we want to look at is the carrying capacity calculator
If we look at the different fields that we need to complete, which are all in white
We look at our forage type
The pasture Chuck took his samples in was winter pasture
and being fall-phase
We have specific default values that will pop up in our pounds per acre-inch
We see that a hundred fifty pounds per acre-inch
is the default value that fills this field
You can manually change this if you determine your pasture is
either better or worse than what you typically would expect
Now, we'll use the values that Chuck collected out in the field
Starting with pasture height
His average pasture height was ten inches
We'd like to allow for about three inches residual
because we're not going to graze it completely
We've already determined that our pounds per acre-inch is adequate
And we go on to the number of grazing days
Between spring and fall phase
We'd like these cattle to go out to about the end of March
So, from January 15th, which is today's date
To the end of March
That is approximately 75 days
that we know that these cattle would be consuming this pasture
Consumption -- since it's a high quality forage
We're going to put three percent of their body weight into this field
Our next field is the average weight
Let's say in our example that we have 550-weight steers that will be grazing this pasture
We know these cattle are going to be growing during this period
So, let's take those calves and give them an assignment of 600 pounds
As their average weight
Then we'll hit "calculate" to determine our carrying capacity or our stocking rate
In this example that Chuck had taken samples and measurements on
We can carry about 467 pounds of beef per acre
Or about 0.8 head per acre on this pasture
The next calculator that we wanted to look it is our reserve herd days
With this calculator
We can determine the duration
That we can run a set of calves on a particular pasture
These fields look very similar to our carrying capacity calculator
We want to begin with our forage type
And we hit our drop-down boxes
And we will identify the forage type
Winter pasture, fall phase
Again, we identified that this pasture was going to be, on average,
Was ten inches tall
We want to change our default value residual height up to three inches
Which is the desired height at the end of our grazing period
Chuck identified that the pasture that he observed was
approximately 150 pounds per acre-inch, which meets our default value
If in the field you determine that you pasture is better or worse
We can adjust this field either higher or lower
The next field that we need to complete is the number of acres
In the field that Check was in there's approximately 80 acres of
Winter pasture available for grazing
In this instance
We have 60 head of calves
that we know that are going to be consuming this pasture over this period of time
Again, as this is high quality we're going put 3 percent for consumption
And in our last field that we need to complete is the average weight
If the calves weigh 550 pounds
Knowing that they're going to gain weight throughout this grazing period
We're going to add some extra pounds
and put in 600 pounds for the period
As we hit "calculate"
We find hat we have approximately 78 reserve herd days
Within this 80-acre pasture
The reserve herd day calculator and the carrying capacity calculator
Are just two tools that we use to better manage our pastures
Using the grazing stick and these two calculators
You as a producer can do a better job
of managing your pastures for stocking rate
As well as grazing duration