Beefing up production
In a world of competing imperatives, it is difficult to satisfy everyone. However, Dr. Larry Berger describes a management system that is doing just that. He believes that the weight-gain efficiencies of grain-based feed lots and the ecological and agronomic benefits of natural grazing don’t have to be mutually exclusive approaches. The ideas behind these feeding system can be combined into a management feeding approach that takes the best of each. It’s called rotational grazing and is described in detail in Larry Berger’s article, “Salt and Rotational Grazing,” which appears in the July, 2007 edition of the Angus Journal.
Rotational or management-intensive grazing, can increase beef production per acre by 30% when compared to traditional grazing. All it takes is good, hands-on management and a bit of common sense technique. Rotational grazing requires the division of large pastures to several smaller paddocks which are grazed in short (2-4 day) intervals before moving the cattle on to the next paddock. When 10 or more paddocks are involved, grazing cycle repeats itself at roughly 30-day intervals.
The benefits are self evident, but we’ll list them anyway. First of all there is increased beef production per acre, then more uniform grazing which prevents bare spots, then the animal waste is more evenly distributed across the paddock and finally, the improved nutrient recycling increases forage production, which brings us back to increased beef production per acre. Pretty nifty, isn’t it?
But it doesn’t stop there, because cattle that graze lush forages have an increased appetite for salt. In fact, they will usually consume twice as much salt as those fed high cost, high-concentrate diets and salt is an excellent carrier of essential micronutrients as well as ionophores such as monensin. Feeding studies report that self-feeding a salt-monensin-supplement gave the same daily gain as hand-feeding the monensin supplement without salt. Salt, the most reliable intake regulator can be made even better when combined with monensin leading to increased beef production. But, it doesn’t stop there either.
A deeper knowledge of cattle and their grazing habits prompted the use of salt feeders as management tools to accomplish other objectives aside from meeting the cattle’s nutritional requirements. For instance, fly populations are a major challenge to grazing animals. The Noble Foundation found that combining the salt feeder and cattle rub in the same tool, was one of the most effective ways to control flies. Recent research show that weight gains were increased 27 lb. per head for weaned calves and by an average of 17% in yearling grazing cattle when flies were controlled. 
To sum up, rational hands-on grazing management, using salt and rotational grazing leads to increased beef production per acre – or did we say that before?
You can read Larry Berger’s latest Salt and Trace Minerals Newsletter, “Factors Affecting the Trace Mineral Status of Feeder Calves,” along with a full library of practical nutrition and feeding papers at the Salt Institute salt and trace minerals in animal nutrition
