The Kerr Center’s beef cattle program has these goals:
- balance production level with production cost
- forage-based: grazing management maintains soil fertility and promotes plant diversity
- training the next generation of ranchers
1st principle of sustainability: create and conserve healthy soils
“Grass farmer plan”: high-density rotational grazing fosters health from the ground up:
Many animals for a short time in a small area
Benefits:
- soil: concentrates animal manure/urine for fertility; reduces compaction
- plants: keeps plants vegetative and growing; increases diversity; reduces weeds
- animals: fresh and nutritious forages; reduced parasites
- rancher: reduces costs; increases profits
Learn About…
Fence
Permanent or temporary? Electric or non-? Mesh or barbed? Which is best for which animals and situations? Learn more
Pasture/Grazing
Healthy soils, healthy forages – warm-season and cool. Haying vs. grazing. The keys to management intensive grazing. Learn more
Cattle Publications
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- All
- animal health
- beginning farmer
- cattle
- fencing
- forages
- grazing
- marketing
- pasture
- ranch management fact sheets
- rotational grazing
- soil
- tractor tire watering tanks
- watering
Learn about seasonal forage availability and rotational grazing.
This is a presentation by David Sparks, D.V.M., from the 2011 Healthy Soils, Healthy Livestock conference. It covers economic comparisons between conventional cattle management and management focusing on cost efficiency.
This is a handout by David Sparks, D.V.M., from the 2011 Healthy Soils, Healthy Livestock conference. It consists of a short list of health management practices grouped by age, from 6 week prior to birth…
This is OCES publication ANSI-3283. It has been used as a handout at several Kerr Center workshops on beef cattle as a reference for body condition scoring.
This is a handout by David Sparks, D.V.M., from the 2011 Healthy Soils, Healthy Livestock conference. It is a visual guide to determining a cow’s age by looking at her teeth.
This is a report published in 2000, describing the results of a multi-year study at the Kerr Center that evaluated reproduction and calf performance of beef heifers under management with and without compensatory gain.
This presentation includes a detailed discussion of vaccines, discusses managing both immunity levels and disease exposure, and addresses the effect of difficult births.
This report covers heifer selection and nutrition, early puberty, target weight concept, proper feeding, breeding, calving difficulty, and bull selection.
This presentation covers simple soil health monitoring techniques, basic soil science, and sustainable livestock management.
This is a list of ATTRA publications related to sustainable and organic beef production.
This is an article from the summer 2005 issue of Field Notes. It explains the basic principles behind rotational or management intensive grazing.
This is a book chapter, used in the livestock track of the Oklahoma Beginning Farmer & Rancher Program, that discusses how to divide a farm into paddocks for rotational grazing. It covers soil and water…
This is a report on the Kerr Center’s experience with management intensive grazing (MIG). It defines MIG, explains and demonstrates how to calculate grazing period, rest period, and stock density, and summarizes two Kerr Center…
This is a book, published by SARE, used in the livestock track of the Oklahoma Beginning Farmer & Rancher Program.
This fact sheet explains why the Kerr Center livestock program uses old tires from heavy equipment as watering tanks, and describes the process of preparing and installing them.
This is a presentation by Brian Freking from the livestock track of the Oklahoma Beginning Farmer & Rancher Program. It covers paddock design, water requirements for cattle, lanes, stabilized stream crossings, fenced pond access points,…
This presentation covers grazing systems and their benefits, grazing terms and calculations, pasture design, and grazing strategies.
This fact sheet summarizes the Kerr Center’s experience with and recommendations for grazing management.
