Regenerative Grazing: Your Spring Grazing Strategy Could Be Dead Wrong

now why on Earth am I stalling my cows right here when they've got plenty of green grass right over the fence all right I'm leaving hey guys welcome back to the Stony Ridge Farm Channel today we're going to be talking about the cows in springtime spring is about to hit the flushes on the grass is starting to Green up I'm going to tell you why you shouldn't move your cows onto that green grass just yet so come along we're going to give a little bit of regenerative farming lessons this is regenerative farming or just any kind of farming or ranching we're talking about growing better grass for your season here in 2025 let's have some [Music] fun Stony [Music] Bridge Stony [Music] Bridge all right guys welcome back to the Stony Ridge Farm Channel this is your first time here please hit the like button subscribe I'd love to have you back here on the farm we do a little bit of farming and a little bit of this and and a little bit of mooing so where we're at is in the cow pasture right now and we're in that transitional period between winter and spring where all the flowers start to bloom the red Maples are starting to bloom the fruit trees are starting to bloom and the grass is starting to Green up we call this the spring flush but we're just prior to the spring flush so so we got our finger on the flush button we're just prior to the spring flush here what that means is the grass is not plentiful enough to sustain the animals alone and what we need to do is we need to wait and it's so hard to wait the cows don't want to wait I don't want to wait I want to move these animals out on green pasture now I move these cows out here two days ago on this pasture we're going to take a little pasture walk here and let me show you real quick how green and beautiful this pasture is and why they want to move they really really want to move over here as compared to what we have on this side of the fence I'm going to kind of take the camera and we'll turn it around so you guys can see this is where they've been grazing and this is where they want to graze we don't want to put them over here yet we want to stall them over here and what we're doing this is a section of pasture that has less than optimal grass we have less than optimal nutrition out here in this pasture and what we're trying to do is stall the cows for a little bit and put down more manure in this area now why on Earth am I stalling my cows right here when they've got plenty of green grass right over the fence well think of this green grass as a miniature solar panel the bigger the solar panel the more sun it will absorb and the faster it's going to produce energy and energy means growth and growth means we're going to have better p pastures if we graze this entire pasture we got a loud one here if we gra oh shush it up lady you stinker if we graze this entire pasture over here just like we've grazed this one down to the nub we are going to get slower regrowth and what that's going to do is it's going to stall the growth of your pastures and what we want to do is fill in any be spots that are out here so that the earthworms can do their work what we've done here over the winter is roll out hay on various sections of pasture and they have not had time to recover we have no stockpiled forage on this pasture and therefore we don't have the earthworm load that we need to adequately air rate and make our pastures grow better so we're doing this for the solar panel that's in the leaf of the plant we're also doing this for the earthworms and the microbes that are in the soil so when we strip our soil bare which is pretty much bare right here we need to cover it back up and that's what the hay bals are there for so we've got 20 more hay bals we're here in late March mid April will be out here and this grass will be kneed deep but you need to make sure your grass is about 10 to 12 to 14 Ines high before you move your animals out on them all summer long we rotate the cows every 12 hours on a different one acre section of grass there's 90 different individual paddocks throughout the farm and each padic gets 45 days of rest we save some hay because we may have to stall them again because dry spells hit last June and the June before we had to feed about 15 bales of hay to let the grass catch up so you've got to plan for drought and you've got to plan for your pastures to thrive this is a thriving pasture and we're about 10 days away from getting our cows out on here this was a thriving pasture two days ago and you can see just how much they've taken all that green material off guys the lesson here is don't jump the gun don't get out there don't move your cows onto that fresh green grass just yet because you're going to stunt the growth this is a sacrifice padic for me right here this will get much much more rest and as soon as I move the cows off here I'm going to come in with a drag herrow and I'm going to drag out all this manure all these manure pets that's right I know the cows we're not going to move you we ain't going to move you the cows get grumpy this time of year they want to move they want to get over to that fresh green grass guys but realize what you're doing by moving them onto fresh green grass that's this tall is cheating yourself out of better summer forage now you'll really be able to see from the Drone footage that I'm going to show you right now what the difference is in the grass and The Paddock that they're in now and the grass and The Paddock that they're going to be moved to see how much Greener that is that's your solar panel that's what's feeding those plants that's what's making energy and that's what's going to make better pastures that's what we had to talk about today I'm stalling the cows over here this is Food For Thought if you're thinking about raising cows if you're thinking about having livestock I really welcome any feedback any questions you guys might have I think it's super important that we learn from each other and the lessons that I have learned on this Farm is don't let them on the green grass just yet don't do it don't listen to them they're like your babies you hear them crying they're like oh I want green grass just wait we're going to stall them for about four more days over here then we're going to move them down in the in the valley down there we call it the holler around here and we're going to stall them down there for about six more days and then our grass will be ready guys thanks a lot please hit that like button join me back here on the Stony Ridge Farm this is a first generation Farm project in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and these are my girls and my boys we'll see you next time on the Stony Ridge wo somebody's gassy over here somebody stink oh you stinking boy which one of y'all poed I knew it was you 22 oh I just tripped over a massive oh man that's bigger than my whole foot dollar dollar bill y'all we're going to put a camera on you big bud you want to what are you doing dude jumper you're the fence jumping you're a fence jumper aren't you hey Donnie tickle tickle tickle hey guy what you doing this first time you let me ever touch you hey bud big bud let me get that ear let me get that ear bud likes his ears rough good morning bud head let's sprits that hair up a little bit