Livestock Management

This four-part series is from a two-day virtual convening hosted by the Pasture Project and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) on grazing public lands.

This 43 page guide introduces the Who, What, and Why’s of rotational grazing. It covers plant growth, animal needs and grazing, setting up a rotational grazing system, and animal health on the pasture. This resource is part of Section 9: Fences, Lanes, Systems, Watering in GrassWorks Grazing Guide, a comprehensive guidebook on managed grazing systems. GrassWorks is a membership organization that provides leadership and education to farmers and consumers for the advancement of managed grass-based agriculture to benefit present and future generations. Learn more about GrassWorks Grazing Guide here. Read the Pastures for Profit: A guide to rotational grazing …

Grass Based Meat Marketing is a series of three short Soil Builder Videos featuring three farms experiences with beef and goat direct marketing. Building Relationships and Running a Business at Wholesome Family Farms in Southwest MN Raising and Selling an Exceptionally Good Product at Earth Be Glad Farms, Fostering Connection in a Digital World at Cylon Rolling Acres This series is within Land Stewardship Project’s Soil Builder Videos, short videos that highlight what farmers are doing to build soil. View the full video collection …

From planting garlic to pastured turkeys, SFA’s Dirt Rich podcast brings warm conversations with farmers and land professionals about research, on farm experiences, and food. View the podcast archive …

Brad Heins, researcher with the University of Minnesota West Central Research and Outreach Center, discusses the potential to offset fossil fuel dependence via ground mounted solar panels as shade for cattle. The project explores energy audits, solar for co-location with livestock and agriculture, and education for farmers and industry professionals. Facilitated by Karl Hakanson, the webinar is followed by a Q&A session. Read Agrivoltaics to Shade Cows here. View the SFA youtube channel …

The Savanna Institute partnered with Farm Commons, Wisconsin DATCAP, and Midwestern farmers to develop the Managing Food Safety Liability Risks when Integrating Livestock with Specialty Crops guide. This guide details three strategies to reduce food safety and liability risks and suggests a fourth strategy to build a legal framework that prioritizes food safety while considering farms that utilize agroforestry or mixed crop livestock operations. Additionally, the guide summarizes how featured farms implement harvest and worker training, exclusion periods, record keeping, and preserving farm flexibility. Download the Guide. View additional resources on Food Safety in …

Marshall Johnson shares Audubon’s pioneering work on the market-based Conservation Ranching Program which brings farmers, ranchers, retailers and consumers together with grasslands, herds and birds into win-win alignment.

Meghan Filbert of Practical Farmers of Iowa shares their approach to the 2021 event season

Dr. Jasmine Dillon and Dr. Megan Machmuller get in the weeds of soil carbon science and the potential for regenerative grazing to sequester carbon.

The pasture management course is a training program in basic cool-season pasture management and guides the creation of a personalized pasture management plan.

This resource library consists of grazing resources curated by UW Madison Division of Extension.

This calculator is appropriate for cow-calf, stocker, finishing, or direct market enterprises and includes five year cash flow projections and a value calculator for purchase and sales decisions. It is designed for beef but can be modified to be appropriate for any pasture-based animal production.

This video tutorial series on grazing cover crops features a set of 14 videos with expert tips and advice from farmers and adaptive grazing expert, Dr. Allen Williams. The videos cover everything from the benefits of cover crops to fencing and watering systems to animal nutrition when grazing cover crops.

In this Fencing 101 video series, fencing expert Kent Solberg, with help from organic dairy farmer Kevin Jahnke, describes the principles and pitfalls of energized fencing in a series of 13 practical how-to videos.

This video tutorial series includes a set of 35 tutorials from adaptive grazing expert Dr. Allen Williams on topics such as assessing the degree of finish of cattle, determining optimal stock density, and what to do about endophyte-infected fescue

Integrating cattle grazing on winter cover crops can provide significant soil health and on-farm economic benefits. This project studied three years of cover crop and livestock integration on 8 cooperating farms in Minnesota and Iowa.

Dr. Allen Williams, one of the foremost experts on grass-fed genetics, developed this comprehensive guide to selecting cattle genetics for a grass-fed program.

Read Pasture Project’s how-to guide on grazing cover crops, focused on helping farmers get started with the practice to leverage soil health and economic benefits through winter livestock grazing.

This paper explores the current state of cattle grazing for beef and, to a lesser extent, dairy production in Illinois resulting in grass-fed and grass-finished products that serve markets in and beyond the state.