Mob grazing: making a grazing plan
Making a grazing plan
Holistic Management and mob grazing are all about building resilience into your system, observing closely what’s happening in the field and adapting your management as you learn what works. Recording what you are doing really helps with future decision making. A few general principles that are worth considering:
- Move fast when the grass is growing fast, slow down when the growth rate slows
- Move often enough to avoid that ‘second bite’ as this can stunt the plant
- Rest period is closely tied to recovery rate, so rest periods need to be longer in the non-growing season
Our mob grazers' experiences making grazing plans
Katharine Sharp says “It’s really hard to make a plan until you have information from doing it and actually seeing what happens to your land. I would say I have a much better idea now, having been mob grazing for a whole year, of what my plan is for next year.
"My advice is just to get started, record what you do, any changes, any biodiversity that comes up, and then that will inform your plan for the next year and you can target specific areas in specific ways.”
Achpopuli Farm on their mob grazing system:
Howemill on how managing for nature impacts the sward:
Other useful information
See also links to training courses and the FAS factsheet on mob grazing with beef cattle for more information on creating a grazing plan.