Become a Successful Grazier, Seeing the Big Picture
Author’s Note: I am presenting a series of articles in this publication
based on my experiences of grazing in an unconventional
way. I have been ranching all my life and have had experience in
both feedloting and extensive ranching, and all types in between.
At the age of 50 I learned about Holistic Management, and this
opened my mind to the fact “there is another way” of managing
animals — that you can achieve healthy animals with minimal
input.
Unfortunately, because of the way we are taught, from kindergarten
to university, our minds can only contemplate “parts”
and not the “whole.” This means we have had success with linear
things — mechanics, computers and sending people to the moon
— but when it comes to ranching, farming and the environment,
which operate with “wholes within wholes,” with interconnecting
parts, we have failed.
Holistic Management decision-making puts a complex, multidimensional
problem into a step-by-step format, enabling us
to make the best decision possible and lead us toward our goal
(Holistic Goal), making sure we have a full understanding of the
impact that decision will have on the environment, our finances
and the social aspects within which we live.
I am grateful to those people who had an impact on my
learning: Allan Savory, Mark Bader, Dick Richardson, Elaine
Ingham, Betsy Ross, Christine Jones and Ray Archuleta, to name
but a few. I have made mistakes, and all the practice I have done
has been with my own money, so the learning curve, at times,
has been extremely steep. Unfortunately there are no silver bullets.
Many of the practices I discarded when starting out I have
brought back, since beginning to understand the “whole.” I do
not wish anybody to make the same mistakes I have made and
so I travel, teaching groups how it is done. These articles are not
intended to take the place of attending one of my trainings where
I am able to deal with individual problems and perceptions,
particularly the comment, “it might work for you, but it won’t
work where I live.”
What I teach has been successfully practiced by ranchers, farmers
and dairymen in all environments; they have been able to
achieve good animal performance, improve soil life and increase
the diversity of plants growing on their properties.
It is impossible to write about all my experiences, but I hope
these articles will help people, who have attended or have yet to
attend one of my schools, from making some of the mistakes I have
made. Use them like a set of notes to remind you what to do next.
My passion is to keep people on the land, not just making a
subsistence living, but living comfortably and getting a return on
their investment (the land) which is comparable to, or better than,
their colleagues in town.
There is another way. It is possible to be happy, have fun and make money from ranching.
THE WHOLE
The grasslands of the world did not develop in a
vacuum. There has always been a symbiotic relationship
between the animals, soil surface, grasses and plants and
soil life. This was enhanced by the predator/prey relationship
that existed with the herds of wild animals that grazed
these areas. Allan Savory observed this and developed the
process of Holistic Management, which enables us to look
at complex, multi-dimensional situations pertaining to the
environment.
Use of the Holistic Management process puts
all the complexity into a linear, step-by-step format which
we can comprehend and enables us to research aspects
with which we are not familiar. This enables us to make
decisions, which will lead toward our Holistic Goal, taking
into consideration the environmental, social and financial
aspects that relate to that particular situation.
The reason many farmers and ranchers are interested
in planned grazing, rotational grazing, MIG, mob grazing,
compost teas, fertilizer and breed selection is simply because
of a desire to make more money. Some of these cost
you and some help you. The best program is the one that
considers the “whole” of the farm or ranch. The definition
of the “whole” is the animal genetics, the diet (multiple species
of plants) the animal eats, the growth and health of the
plants and the bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, worms,
insects, etc. that are associated with the plants (as well as the
finances and the social aspects of the farm). It is not only
the diet of these organisms that needs consideration, but
also the living conditions they require.
In our educational system we are taught to look at parts
not wholes, and this has led to problems when making decisions
relating to agriculture and the environment, which are
so complex. Conventionally this focus on parts has tended
to be on animal performance at the cost of the environment.
For those that are introduced to Holistic Management
thinking, the focus tends to shift to the management
of the soils, as it is easier to see change here. Unfortunately,
before the discipline of looking at the whole becomes internalized,
we tend to monitor the land and forget about the
other parts.
The animals are the financial part of the whole and,
in order for the rancher to survive on the land, animal
performance needs to be constantly ensured. This will
lead to high conception rates, enabling the herd to grow,
keeping the rancher financially viable. With greater animal
numbers, the tools of animal impact and grazing achieve
quicker results. The most important part, though, is that
the person managing needs to make a profit to survive and
only then, with others, can he/she save the world!
People making a living off the land are, by default, in the
energy business. Yet we are the only people in this business
who pump the energy back into the “well.” This is because
energy is money, money is energy and time is money. We
willfully pour soluble chemical fertilizer (money) onto our
land and kill soil life and oxidize carbon by turning the soil,
using more energy. A gram of carbon, when burned, releases
9,000 calories per gram. Take a soil sample and test it for
organic matter and then calculate the number of calories
you have just “burned” by ploughing your land. It would
have been easier to withdraw a couple million dollars from
your bank and burn them. This does not even include the
time spent sitting on the tractor (which is money) and the
gas/energy used.
The land is merely a solar panel and we manage the
tools, which we have available, capturing the energy coming
from the sun to produce a product (grass, timber, corn,
etc.), which we graze/feed to animals, and produce food for
human consumption.
The energy, which is captured by the grass, is what
makes animals fat or dairy cows produce more milk. In
terms of nutrition, this energy (hydrogen) is the illusive
part of the equation. Because of the way we have managed
our land in the past we have lost many of the better species
of grass that capture energy efficiently (loss of diversity).
These plants have been lost because of burning, overgrazing
and other management practices.
Overgrazing is a factor of time and not numbers. As the
palatable plants are overgrazed, nature grows plants which
are less palatable just to try and cover the soil. When
grasses fail then woody plants begin growing (sagebush
and other less palatable plants) in a desperate bid to cover
the soil. Fortunately the seeds of the palatable plants are
still in/on the ground waiting for us to change our management,
cover the soil and hold rain where it falls. Once the
conditions are right these seeds will germinate and grow.
The animals, soil, plants and management are all reliant
on each other.
To cover the soil (and create the right
conditions for the palatable grasses) we need management
— to get the animals to trample much of the grass onto and
into the soil to feed the soil. Soil life is dependent on covered
soils to prevent big fluctuations in temperature and
prevent the sun and wind from drawing out the moisture.
Trodden plants and litter are eaten and incorporated into
the soil by worms and also feed the Azotobacter which
take nitrogen from the air and incorporate it into the soil
in a form available to plants. The carbon (plant material)
prevents erosion and acts as a sponge, holding the water
where it falls and is food for bacteria and fungi in the soil.
This is achieved by manipulating the stock density and
movement of the animals (through management).
All life requires energy. The life in the soil gets its energy,
firstly, from the action of grazing when a shock of
energy goes down the plant; secondly, from energy which
is beaten through the soil surface by hooves (kinetic energy);
and thirdly, by what I call symbiotic energy, which
is the energy around each animal, where one plus one
does not equal two but five. This canbe observed
on a summer evening when there is no wind. A large herd
of animals will have what looks like a dust cloud over
them.
Birds will be feeding in this cloud, and it is an energy
field, which does not stop at the ground, but
continues down through the soil surface.
This all requires planning, monitoring and re-planning.
The result of planning, monitoring, and then re-planning properly will be
an increase in the carrying capacity of the farm or ranch. A more direct way
of saying this is: with proper planning and monitoring and re-planning
a farm or ranch that can support one cow with calf per 3 acres for one year
will now be able to support three cows with calves and not run short of
feed. It is like buying two more farms to increase your herd numbers by
three without paying for those extra
two farms. How much would those
two extra farms cost? How much
time would you be willing to spend
planning, monitoring and re-planning
to get two additional farms and not
spend any money?
The next article in this series
will address how to manage for fat,
healthy animals.
Ian Mitchell-Innes is a South African rancher
practicing various types of ranching from intensive
to extensive and everything in between. He practiced
Holistic Management for 17 years and now
teaches HM and mob grazing and how to get and
improve animal performance while increasing productivity
of soil and grass. He can be contacted
at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Planning for Successful Grazing
If you have been a rancher or
dairyman and have used conventional
methods, it probably means you
stocked at the stocking rate recommended
for your area by the U.S.
Department of Agriculture.
If you are making money off the
land, then by default you are in the
energy business, as it is true energy
(hydrogen) which makes animals fat
and gets dairy cows to milk well. This
energy comes from the sun.
The land is our solar panel, but
because of the way we have managed
it, we have destroyed the efficiency of
that panel by destroying the life in the
soil. We have lost most of the efficient
plants that captured this energy, plant
spacing has increased, and bare soil is
being exposed to the sun, wind and
rain. There is less organic matter in
the soil (organic matter holds moisture),
more capping of the soil, hence
more runoff of rain, more dry spells
and droughts. The overall result is
less volume and lower quality of feed
being produced.
If “energy is money, money is
energy and time is money,” then the
amount of energy you are capturing
is X, which is enough energy to do
what you were doing, in terms of animal
performance or milking, with the
number of animals you had. It is now
known and accepted that if the manager
is prepared to change, this loss
of efficiency of the land (solar panel)
can be reversed by practicing Holistic
Management planned grazing and
“mobbing” animals.
The use of Holistic Management
planned grazing will result in the
return of efficient energy-capturing
plants, covered soils and increased
organic matter in soils, resulting in
more water-holding capacity and less
erosion.
If one looks at the environment and
agriculture, as influenced by weather,
they are totally unpredictable and can
be described as chaotic. Ranchers and
dairymen have to manage this chaos.
The easiest way to manage chaos is to remain as flexible as possible, with
ongoing monitoring. We know all
systems will ultimately fail at some
point, when pertaining to the land or
the environment.
To enable people on the land to
understand what to do, I recommend
a process which is calculated using
known figures and then building flexibility
into that process with ongoing
monitoring. It is not necessary to buy
any additional fencing. All that is
required is the existing infrastructure.
Figure 1 (above) is an example of
how planned grazing works using the
existing infrastructure on a hypothetical
property.
Draw in the days grazing on the
grazing chart, as the Holistic Management
Grazing Aide Memoire (obtain
chart and Aide Memoire from www.
holisticmanagement.org) explains, estimating
weather during that time of
the month and when you expect
slow or fast growth or anything in
between. In the spring put all your
animals in one herd and start moving
them as indicated on the chart. The
weather must be monitored every day
(temperature and rainfall), and if you
have started out with relatively slow
growth, the day you wake up and it
has rained or it is warmer, start moving
faster. Slow growth, slow moves;
fast growth, fast moves.
Do not force the animals to graze
or tread the undesirable plants; if you
do, you will lose animal performance.
These ungrazed plants will die over a
couple of years as no sunlight will be getting to the growing points at soil
surface level. The dead plants leave a
massive amount of carbon in and on
the soil, holding water and enabling
a desirable plant to germinate and
establish itself.
This planning will make sure that
the condition of your 420 animals
is the same or better than before, as
the animals’ selection (units of energy
grazed) are the same. Do not look at
the ground and think there is more
grazing left and leave the animals in
that paddock longer. It is desirable to
have grass left, standing or trodden
on the ground — this protects the soil
from sun and wind and prevents capping
from rainfall. When back in the
paddock where grazing started, all
plants would have had a good recovery
and the area should have grown
more grass than previously. Fewer
plants would have had more than
one bite taken, so the leaves would
have been exposed to sunlight longer,
capturing more energy. Make sure the
animal rumen is always full.
The recovery period required is
different for all areas, as rainfall and
brittleness varies, and the manager
will fine-tune this over time. Ask graziers,
dairy or beef, what the required
recovery period is in your area. For the purpose of this example, I have
used a 30-day recovery period.
For each and every paddock on the
property, use this formula, which will give the average stay in each of the
paddocks so that the animals will be
back in paddock number 1 on the 31st
day: Size of Paddock ÷ Size of Whole
Property × Recovery Period = Average
Stay (Graze Period) (see pg. 29).
The total days in this column for all
the paddocks should add up to 30, or
very close to it. Now build in flexibility
for fast growth and slow growth.
Fast growth (hot and wet conditions)
requires faster moves and the
days for all the paddocks should add
up to, (or very close to), 20.
Slow growth (cold and or dry conditions)
requires slower moves and
the days for this column should add
up to, (or very close to), 40.
Enter all the figures onto a Holistic
Management grazing chart, estimating
when you would expect fast or
slow growth or anything in between,
and plan the moves. Use the Holistic
Management Aide Memoire to make
sure you take all other considerations
into account to ensure that you get the
animals to the right place at the right
time, for the right reason.
Ian Mitchell-Innes is a South African rancher
practicing various types of ranching from intensive
to extensive and everything in between. He practiced
Holistic Management for 17 years and now
teaches HM and mob grazing and how to improve
animal performance while increasing productivity
of soil and grass. He can be contacted at
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Patience Critical Factor to Planned Grazing Success
by IAN MITCHELL-INNES
There is no doubt, based on my
own experiences and the experiences
of others, that the processes we have
been discussing throughout this series
of articles work. I have helped people
on the land in different environments
and on different continents. The only
limiting factor I have experienced is
patience. This is not surprising, as in
today’s world we want everything to
happen yesterday. Results in nature
tend to take time, as we are working
with chaos, in different environments
and with different amounts of carbon.
Change may take longer in some
years compared to others and in some
environments compared to others,
but as long as the movement is in the
right direction you can achieve what
you want. Ongoing monitoring (plan,
monitor, control, re-plan) is key, but
beware of continually chopping and
changing decisions — be patient with
the process.
Working with nature, instead of
trying to take her by the throat and
forcing her in another direction, is
rewarding and less costly. Remember,
“Energy is money, money is energy
and time is money.”
Using the Holistic Management
Testing Guidelines, and particularly
the Marginal Reaction test, will keep
you on track. What is the return you
can expect from time and money
spent, or the limiting factor for the
enterprise?
In a previous article I recommended
that extra animals should not be
brought onto the property to graze the
extra grass grown until the manager
and animals have gone through the
initial learning curve. The extra grass
grown is not wasted if it is not grazed;
it is banked, improving soil fertility
and soil life, by trampling it into the
ground through higher stock density.
It does not matter what brittleness
scale you live in, just bring extra animals
in when you are comfortable.
The first change that will happen,
through the implementation of
planned grazing, is the form of the
existing grasses, whose leaves will get
broader, and the color will darken. As
the life in the soil and the water-holding
capacity improve (less stressed),
the plant species will start to change.
Often plants which have never been
seen in the area start showing up,
because of the change in environment
at the soil surface level. The recovery
period required for the new species
needs to be monitored and changes
made. It is important to plan for the
species you want, not just for those
that are already present.
It is always better for animal nutrition
to graze grass in a vegetative
stage. Any life, animals or plants, will
try and breed when stressed. This is
the way nature makes sure that species
continue to exist. The way we
have managed grasses in the past has
kept them perpetually stressed, allowing
for a short period to graze them.
The stress is induced by overgrazing
(factor of time), drought conditions
(due to exposed soils) and depletion
of soil life (fertility). As this is remedied
by planned grazing, as described
in these articles, plants remain in a
vegetative stage for longer and so
the window of opportunity to graze
them is longer, taking stress off the
manager.
The longer recovery period
(time), enables the leaves to grow
longer, exposing more leaf area to
the sun and capturing more energy.
This will lead to more volume of feed
and fatter animals, through increased
energy, which is the elusive part of
the nutritional equation.
As the growing season progresses,
the haystack (stockpile of standing
grass) increases in volume. Before the
first frost an assessment is made of
the amount of feed available for the
non-growing season (described in the
Holistic Management Grazing Aide
Memoire). The tonnage of grass is
calculated and equated to the number
of tons required to graze the animals
through the non-growing season, plus
the drought reserve. If you have been
in the habit of making or buying hay
bales, I would suggest you gradually
wean yourself of this expensive habit.
The animals actually prefer the stockpile
(standing grass), and if it is what
they choose, it must be better than
the bales.
I am always confronted with the
comment, “Oh but you don’t get the
snow and cold like we do!” That is
true, but then I am not influenced
by the convention that it cannot be
done. All I can do is share some of
my experiences with ranchers in these
areas. Historically, some of the Bison
in these areas used to stay in the area
for the whole winter and survived.
Nature’s selection of these animals
over time ensured an animal that
would survive in such conditions. We
have lost most of that breeding in our
animals as, with technology, we have
been able to change the environment
by providing bales, supplements and
shelter. This is the challenge we face
today!
I do not recommend that you wake
up one morning and just decide you
are no longer going to feed bales. Be
patient and gradually improve the
situation by feeding bales for fewer
days/months and get the animals to
eat the stockpile instead.
After practicing planned grazing for
some time, as described above, you
will have changed the environment
at soil surface level, under the snow.
The organic matter in the soil will
increase and the litter on the soil will
be high. Both of these boost carbon,
and carbon is an insulator. The standing
grass (stockpile) is also a source of
carbon, which means that the soil is
insulated from above and below, from
large temperature fluctuations. Over
time the condition of the grasslands
will get to the stage where annuals and
cool season grasses will grow under
the snow and the animals will eat the
green with the brown (stockpile) and
do very well. I was delighted to hear
Dr. Elaine Ingham say once that some
of the highest soil life recorded has
been under snow. Every day that bales
don’t have to be fed lowers the cost of
production and, I for one, would
appreciate nothaving to go out in that cold.
Ian Mitchell-Innes is a South African rancher
practicing various types of ranching from intensive
to extensive and everything in between. He practiced
Holistic Management for 17 years and now
teaches HM and mob grazing and how to improve
animal performance while increasing productivity
of soil and grass. He can be contacted at
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.