Following half-season intensive grazing on native pasture with alfalfa or sudangrass grazing and/or feedlot finishing

Alfalfa Grazing Management

Grazing alfalfa with dairy or beef animals is not a common practice in California or even in the United States. Although a limited number of alfalfa acres are grazed in the humid Midwest and East, it is rare in the West, and the ruminant alfalfa forage systems throughout the United States consist of hayand haylage-based harvest methods. However, there is increased interest in grazing in North A...

Effects of Cultivar and Distillers Grains Supplementation on Grazing and Subsequent Finishing Performance of Stocker Steers Grazing Tall Fescue Pasture

Four hundred thirty-two yearling steers grazing tall fescue pastures were used to evaluate the effects of fescue cultivar and dried distillers grains (DDG) supplementation during the grazing phase on available forage, grazing gains, subsequent finishing gains, and carcass characteristics. Fescue cultivars evaluated were highendophyte ‘Kentucky 31’ and low-endophyte ‘Kentucky 31,’ ‘HM4,’ and ‘Ma...

Reduced or Low Lignin Alfalfa: Advantages for Hay and Grazing

Lignin is an essential structural component of all land plants. It fills spaces in the cell wall between cellulose, hemicellulose, and pectin. Lignin provides the strength to plants from giant Sequoia trees to alfalfa growing in hay fields. A good analogy is that lignin is like the steel reinforcing rods in concrete. Life on earth would not be possible without lignin to allow plants to grow upr...

Pasture Deworming and(or) Subsequent Feedlot Deworming with Fenbendazole (Safe-Guard®) I. Effects on Grazing Performance, Feedlot Performance, and Carcass Traits of Yearling Steers

Grazing methods and stocking rates for direct-seeded alfalfa pastures: I. Plant productivity and animal performance.

A 4-yr study was conducted to determine the effects of two grazing methods (GM) at two stocking rates (SR) on alfalfa pasture plant productivity and animal performance and to ascertain the effect of grazing systems on subsequent performance of steers fed a high-concentrate diet. Eight pasture plots (.76 ha) were seeded in 1988 with alfalfa (Medicago sativa L. var. WL225) and divided into two bl...