Mob Grazing.

the oldest form of grazing.

What is mob grazing?

  • Mob grazing is a method of rotational grazing
  • Instead of having 10 cows permanently in a 10-acre paddock, you might split the paddock into 10. With the ten cows spending three days in each one-acre paddock, you now have a system where each of the ten acres is being rested for thirty days. Taken even further, if you split the 10-acres into 30 x 0.3-acre paddocks, you could move the cows each day.

Benefits

  • Simpler way of farming (less mobs to check, feed, move, etc.)
  • Biomimicry in action (mimicking the herds of bison being chased by predators)
  • With more cattle in a smaller area, they feed differently. Instead of spending time browsing for the sweetest of grass, they will eat a more balanced diet. Analogous to a diet of ice cream vs a balanced diet
  • With more cattle in a smaller area, the concentration of shit on the pasture is going to help fertilise the patch with less need for harrowing
  • If we are moving cows quicker than every twelve days, we are keeping them ahead of their parasites
  • If we are moving cattle quicker than the grass is growing back (~4 days), we are avoiding their eating of high nitrate, ice-cream grass
  • With more of the pasture getting longer rest times, the grass is able to grow a solid root reserve before being re-grazed, all the while putting nutrients into the soil through root exudates (plant pumps)
  • Rather than spending fuel travelling to different parts of the farm each day, there is only one or two places you need to be

Limitations

  • Requires more electric fence gear to create strips within existing paddocks
  • Requires you to move cattle more regularly, ideally every day
  • Having less mobs will cause you to have cattle ready to sell all at once, creating a very infrequent income stream (with more mobs, you can better control when cows calve, when calves become ready, when the money comes in)

more content on mob grazing: