Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-pdxrj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-11T17:14:47.205Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
Accepted manuscript

Optimizing intensive grazing: A comprehensive review of rotational grassland management, innovative grazing strategies, and infrastructural requirements

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2025

Paul J. Maher
Affiliation:
Teagasc, Animal & Grassland Research and Innovation Centre, Moorepark, Fermoy, Co. Cork, Ireland. Department of Process, Energy and Transport Engineering, Munster Technological University, Cork, Ireland.
Michael Egan
Affiliation:
Teagasc, Animal & Grassland Research and Innovation Centre, Moorepark, Fermoy, Co. Cork, Ireland.
Michael D. Murphy
Affiliation:
Department of Process, Energy and Transport Engineering, Munster Technological University, Cork, Ireland.
Patrick Tuohy*
Affiliation:
Teagasc, Animal & Grassland Research and Innovation Centre, Moorepark, Fermoy, Co. Cork, Ireland.
*
Corresponding author: Patrick Tuohy, Email: [email protected]
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Grazing is a crucial component of dairy farms across many regions of the world. This review explores challenges related to grazing infrastructure and opportunities for future improvement. Farmers who aim to increase pasture utilisation face heightened inter-animal competition necessitated by pasture restriction to achieve target post-grazing sward heights. Increasing the frequency of fresh pasture allocation beyond once per day has been observed to reduce milk production in primiparous animals, due to intensified competition for limited feed resources. Implementing grazing paddocks tailored for 24 to 36 hour allocations helps to mitigate inter-animal competition while concurrently preventing the grazing of fresh regrowth. Crucial to this approach is establishing farm roadway infrastructure, that allows access to all sections of the grazing platform. However, the development of these roadway networks has often occurred without a comprehensive assessment of their impact on the efficiency of the dairy herd’s movement between grazing paddocks and the milking parlour. The efficiency of the dairy herd’s movement is most significantly influenced by the location of the milking parlour within the grazing platform. Extreme walking distances or challenging terrain on farm roadways may have an impact on milk production per cow. Factors such as farm roadway surface quality and width significantly influence cow throughput on farm roadways. Recent studies have highlighted inadequate roadway widths on many farms relative to their herd size, while surface condition may also be limiting cow throughput on these farms. Enhancing roadway width and surface condition of farm roadways may improve labour efficiency on commercial farms.

Type
Integrated Crop-Livestock Systems Review Paper
Copyright
The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press