A PASTURE HAXDBOOK 53 



may keep on eating the more palatable plants down to the very 

 roots. Consequently, it is generalty best to turn several kinds of 

 livestock on a pasture and to give them only as large an area as they 

 need. When they have too large an area they not only waste feed 

 but travel too far in getting what they eat. 



GRAZING PRACTICES 



A common farm practice is to use whatever pasture is available or 

 can be most readily supplied for the kind of livestock to be kept. 

 Usually the pasture supplements other feed. But in cases where 

 grazing is the chief source of feed for livestock, as in the South or on 

 the western ranges, or wherever the bulk of the farm or ranch area is 

 in pasture, the problem of major importance is to choose the Idnd or 

 kinds of hvestock best suited to the pastm'e. In most cases, greatest 

 returns will be obtained from the forage available and the pasture 

 will be kept most productive if two or more kinds of livestock are 

 grazed, either at the same time or at different times during the sea- 



FiGURE 12. — Good grazing on a rocky hillside. This pasture is so steep that the animals have formed paral- 

 lel ledges by tramping from side to side year after year. Cattle and sheep together make better use of 

 such land than either alone. 



son (fig. 12). Where large areas of several kinds of pasturage are 

 available, such as are common in the West and in the South and 

 East on cut-over land, or where so few animals are kept that it does 

 not pay to provide separate pasture, all kinds may be turned on the 

 same area. 



On farms where considerable numbers of several kinds of livestock 

 are kept and the pastures require intensive grazing, it is much better 

 to have several pastures and separate the various kinds of livestock 

 and oftentimes the various ages of livestock. Young horses and 

 mules are most likely to disturb and mjure other livestock. Then 

 moving the different kinds from one pastm-e to another several times 

 a year may reduce the danger from certain parasites and make 

 possible a more complete utilization of the feed available. 



More uniform grazing is obtamed if the droppings are scattered 

 several times during the season. This practice is most important on 

 pastures of high carrying capacity, such as those supporting one head 



