Grazing Management

The educational materials listed on this page are about Grazing Management.

Grazing management is critical to any pasture-based livestock farming system. Rotational grazing, intensive rotational grazing and management intensive grazing are key to successful and sustainable rotational grazing systems. So, what is rotational grazing? Careful grazing strategies include stocking rates of cattle, time spent on each paddock or pasture, how many times a herd revisits that same paddock or pasture throughout the year, and incorporating multi-species grazing to reduce parasite loads. Management approaches used to increase grazing uniformity, such as water sources and fencing, improve livestock grazing distribution problems. Rotational grazing cattle may also require capital expenditures. Thus, less expensive, practical solutions, like selecting cattle with desirable grazing patterns and culling cattle without, have been suggested as tools for improving managed intensive rotational grazing. This makes a rotational grazing definition difficult to refine depending on geographic location. Key practices include holistic managementgrazing managementrotational grazing, livestock breedingstocking raterangeland pasture managementpasture renovationwatering systemsmulti-species grazingcontinuous grazing.

The Rangeland Management Strategies bulletin has information for multi-species grazing and winter grazing, and it offers advice for forage management and vegetation management, as well as practices for protecting riparian areas. SARE’s Small Ruminant Toolbox offers producers with small ruminant livestock enterprises practices that provide pest, weed and parasite control. Smart Water Use on your Farm or Ranch can be used to better understand the role of water in a farm system and in grazing management.

Showing 1-10 of 39 results

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2025–2026 Report from the Field

In Recognition of Farmers and Ranchers SARE has been around for nearly 40 years, and the impacts that our grant and outreach programs have had on the sustainability of U.S. agriculture are because of one simple thing: Farmers and ranchers are at the center of everything we do.  SARE is afunding sourcefor producers.It’s designed forproducers, […]

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Farming Strategies for Adapting to Extreme Weather

SARE partnered with PBS KVIE to produce an episode of RFD-TV's America's Heartland that highlights how farmers and ranchers across the United States are using sustainable and regenerative practices to adapt to increasingly challenging and unpredictable weather conditions. Adapting to Flooding and Drought on Hurricane Flats Farm in South Royalton, Vermont Ashley Loehr and Antoine […]

Farmer Leadership Key to Adoption of Sustainable Grazing Practices in Wisconsin

Farmers are often reluctant to risk investments of time or money to adopt research-based conservation practices on their farms. In southern Wisconsin, a creative approach to fostering informal, farmer-led learning opportunities has been key to encouraging farmers to adopt cost-cutting grazing and cover cropping practices that successfully decrease soil erosion and waterway contamination. Dane County […]

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SARE's What is Sustainable Agriculture? Now Available in Spanish

SARE’s What is Sustainable Agriculture? bulletin and companion animated series are now available in Spanish! ¿Qué es la Agricultura Sostenible? features short, translated primers of proven sustainable practices that can be used to complement more detailed training materials. The companion animation series highlights some common practices farmers and ranchers use to improve profitability, quality of […]

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Farmers and Ranchers Report Research Impacts

“This project provided a 'first look' at how legume cover crops might function in our crop rotations," says Texas A&M AgriLife Extension agronomist Reagan Nolan, discussing his search for cover crop mixes that can help meet the challenges of farming in western Texas. Nolan wanted to explore whether legume cover crops could be incorporated into […]

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2023–2024 Report from the Field

SARE grants havehelped our viabilityas a business anddemonstrated thatsmall businessescan make a positiveimpact on theenvironment when wedevelop relationshipswith each other forthe benefit of all. Jeanine SeabrookGlass Rooster Cannery Letter from the Director I have always appreciated the value of long-term research as well as the long-term impact of both applied and basic research. The core […]

Grazers learn about forage-based production in a green field with cows in the back

Grazing Networks for Livestock Producers

Grazing networks promote a mutual self-help approach to learning that is based on shared local experience and that provides several benefits to participants. This publication offers suggestions for finding or starting a grazing network and provides examples of the kinds of activities grazing networks might conduct. It also contains recommendations for sustaining a grazing network […]

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What is Sustainable Agriculture?

This award-winning report provides a sampler of best practices in sustainable agriculture—from marketing and community vitality to cover crops and grazing—as well as eight profiles of producers, educators and researchers who have successfully implemented them.