Sheep grazing system performance under continuous stocking or cell grazing management during an unusually dry grazing season in Devon

摘要

Under extreme dry weather conditions the cell grazing system allows pasture to recover from defoliation, maintaining herbage mass at desirable levels and preventing removal of animals from pasture.The aim of grazing management is to supply the quality and quantity of forage required for grazing animals which is best achieved by moving livestock among smaller grazing units to regulate grazing pressure (Badgery et al., 2017). Cell grazing divides pastures into equally-sized cells which are rotationally grazed based on pasture growth, herbage mass, forage quality and animal performance. Here we report on the first year's results from a long-term experiment aimed at comparing the performance of different pasture systems under continuous stocking or cell grazing treatments.