Seasonal grass dairying with intensive rotational grazing provides an alternative to traditional confinement dairy farming. Confinement farming is a conventional year-round system in which all the cows are generally housed in a free-stall barn. This allows the cows to wander within the barn, rather than stand in one place as in a tie stall set-up. For milking, the cows are funneled through a series of gates and into the milk parlor. After being milked, the cows are returned to the free-stall where the farmer brings a balanced ration of feed for each cows.
Seasonal grass dairying, on the other hand, is a management plan that enhances seasonal advantages of milk production. Farm duties are arranged sequentially rather than simultaneously. In other words, all the cows calve together in a brief time farm, then ten months later all the cows are dried off together. This allows the milking facility to close for about seven weeks each year. It also allows the farmer to focus on specific tasks rather than a set of tasks as in a conventional, year-round confinement system.
For example, because all the calves are born at the same time, the farmer can focus on calf care, such as nutritional needs, weaning and vaccinating as a group rather than as individual calves.
Similarly, herd nutritional management may be simpler because all the cows can be fed as one group, since they are all just about at the same stage in their lactation. Also, the farmer can focus on dry cow care that can reduce health problems such as mastitis.
By coupling seasonal grass dairying with intensive rotational grazing, the farmer allows the cow to become the harvester of her own feed. To intensively graze an area, the cows are confined to a small pasture or paddock which they graze for 12 to 24 hours, before being moved into a new paddock. Paddocks are grazed, in rotation, 4 to 6 times during a season.
Modern fencing methods help to facilitate the division of a large pasture into smaller sections by the use of inexpensive electrified polywire and lightweight fiberglas poles. An eight acre pasture can be sectioned off into eight separate 1 acre paddocks for less than $100.00.
Grasses that are harvested in the vegetative stage contain higher qualities of vitamins and protein. The crude protein level in grasses can be as high as 18 to 20%. Whereas, grasses that are harvested at full maturity only have a crude protein level of 10 to 12%. Protein in a cow's diet is essential to milk production, and milk production is directly related to the quality of forage consumed by the cow. Animals obtain the highest feed value by eating the plants themselves; mowing, baling or ensiling all subtract from the original value of the feed.
As Jim Richmond says: "Farming is more than just my job; it's my livlihood. I live and breathe it every day and when I away it slipping way I knew that something needed to change. Season grass dairying with intensive rotational grazing provided that change."