Cold Weather Ryegrass

written by

David Fischer

posted on

January 7, 2022

The cold weather doesn’t stop our ryegrass grazing.  This year with the army worms attacking in September and other issues, our ryegrass didn’t get as tall by December 1 as we’d like (usually 24” tall).  So we waited until now to start grazing larger calves & cows on it.  We have about 200 young calves that have been ryegrass grazing since November, they slip under a wire to go graze while their mommas stay behind eating silage.  

This week we moved 135 head of cows & large calves out onto the ryegrass and plan on moving another 150 head next week.  I absolutely love this winter grazing, cows and calves out grazing in January instead of in a barn or eating hay.  Had a restaurant visitor this week and he saw the huge contrast, “I can’t get over how green everything is!”  Hopefully we will have plenty more ryegrass growing days (above 45 degrees) in Jan/Feb.

Ryegrass

Grazing

Rotational Grazing

cows

calves

mother cows and calves

winter crops

winter

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