Improve Your Triple Bottom Line Through Better Grazing
Grazing is more than simply turning livestock out onto a green pasture and hoping for the best. With sound grazing management, you can reduce your workload, keep your animals happier and healthier, and improve the overall productivity and profitability of your farm. Well-managed grazing systems also provide greater environmental benefits and enhance habitat for many wildlife species.
In this course, you’ll learn the key concepts of successful grazing operations that can be adapted and successfully implemented on your own farm. The course focus will be on grazing ruminant livestock, but most of the information will be relevant to non-ruminant animals as well.
Target Audience
All levels: You will get the most out of this course if you already have livestock, or have at least a basic knowledge
of the grazing behavior of livestock. But anyone is welcome to participate, even if you don't already have animals.
Course Objectives
At the end of this course you will:
- Know common grazing terminology, systems and methodology
- Be able to articulate the fundamental principles of every successful grazing system
- Have confidence in implementing or enhancing a grazing system for your farm
- Know how to monitor, evaluate and refine the grazing system
Webinars
The bulk of the course happens on your own time, with discussions, readings, and assignments in Teachable, our virtual classroom. To add to the experience, webinars will be woven into the online interface of the course to allow you to meet on a weekly basis to learn from presenters and ask questions in real time. If you miss one, they are always recorded and posted for later viewing.
Webinar Schedule
In 2024, this course will be offered live for 6-weeks on Thursdays from 6:30 - 8:00 PM (Eastern) from February 29 – April 4. While we encourage live attendance, so you have the opportunity to engage with presenters and ask questions, all webinars are recorded and posted in the online classroom to watch anytime. Once enrolled in this course, you will retain access to all materials indefinitely, and can return to participate in the live webinars in future offerings of the course if you wish. Join us!
Your Instructor
Betsy Hicks is a Dairy Management Specialist with the South Central NY Dairy & Field Crops Team with Cornell Cooperative Extension. Her background is in nutrition. She helps farmers on topics including herd health, cow behavior, cow comfort and calf care. Betsy and her husband operate a registered Black Angus cow-calf operation in Cortland County, NY, where they incorporate about 100 acres in their grazing plan.
Rich Taber is an Agriculture, Grazing, and Forestry Educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Chenango County. He owns a 165-acre farm with his wife Wendy in nearby southern Madison County. They manage about 40 acres of rotationally grazed pasture for their beef cow calf herd of Angus-Hereford crosses. He has also been a long-time contributor to the Cornell Small Farms Quarterly.
Course Curriculum
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StartWeek 1 Webinar Join Link, Slides, and Recording
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StartFORUM: Introduce Yourself - Get to Know Your Fellow Graziers
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StartGrazing Basics: Fact Sheets and Video
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StartACTIVITY & FORUM: Make a Grazing Map
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StartACTIVITY for Extra Credit: Make a Grazing Chart!
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StartOptional Grazing Articles and Video Resources
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StartWeek 2 Webinar Join Link, Slides, and Recording
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StartWhat is Management Intensive Grazing (MIG) and What Can It Do For You?
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StartVideo: Basic Fence and Water Infrastructure for a Grazing Sheep Dairy
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StartFence and Water Development for Winter Grazing
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StartFORUM: Your Fencing Experiences and Questions