What Moves In When a Pasture Rests

Michelle recorded this early on the morning of Wednesday, November 11, while we moved the calves.

The same field, ten days on

This is the same pasture from Michelle’s November 1 update. We let it rest this year instead of grazing it, and now that the calves are moving through it, we’re seeing what else has been using it.

Who else lives here

There’s a small thorn tree in the middle of the grass, and rabbits have been chewing the bark. We can see where deer have been bedding down in the tall grass. That part is normal. We’ve also been seeing good flocks of wild turkeys. Leaving this pasture alone for the year has made it good habitat for all of them.

For more on how we move the herd, read Rotational Grazing: What Is It? Why Do It?

Transcript of the video

Good morning. We’re out here early this morning moving the calves. It’s the same field, but we’ve noticed, since we had let this area be dormant from them using this pasture, I don’t know if you guys can see it, but we’ve got a small thorn tree that is in this area, and we’ve got rabbits chewing on the bark of this, and we can see where the deer have been laying in here, and of course that’s normal, but we’ve been seeing good flocks of turkey, so the habitat is just getting a great area too in our area.