Total grazing pressure

Improved management of total grazing pressure is key to ensuring grazing does not exceed stocking capacity.

Managing total grazing pressure is important to help maintain the proper functioning of ecosystems and maximize profitability and sustainability.

Why manage total grazing pressure?

Total grazing pressure (TGP) is the combined grazing pressure exerted by all grazing animals (domestic, native and feral) on the vegetation, soil and water resources. TGP management is about being aware of the balance between grazing mouths and feed supply and having the tools to effectively create this balance.

The aim of total grazing pressure management is to control all grazing pressure in order to preserve the land and improve profitability.

Total grazing pressure is a particular issue on agricultural land with large populations of feral goats or rabbits, or high kangaroo densities.

Benefits of managing total grazing pressure

There are significant benefits in effectively managing TGP for the environment, livestock production and business viability:

• Pastures respond quickly. Once areas are protected from uncontrolled grazing, landholders can manage stocking pressures and spell country without unwanted grazers.
• Groundcover, pasture yield and grass species diversity increase significantly. Grasses other than speargrass appear.
• Spelling gives palatable plants a chance to recover and re-establish.
• Improved groundcover slows runoff during rainfall, resulting in better infiltration. Grasses respond better to lighter falls of rain. Perennial grasses remain established, ready to grow.
• More perennial grasses, better groundcover and improved runoff retention increase resilience to drought.
• As the condition of the country improves, its productivity increases, generating more options for a sustainable and productive managed grazing enterprise.
• Options for managing invasive scrub increase. Fuel becomes available for controlled burning.
• Management of kangaroos, pigs and possibly wild dogs becomes easier.
• Managed goats can be turned off more consistently.
• Meat sheep enterprises become feasible.
• Biodiversity visibly improves as habitat for seed eating fauna increases.

Strategies for managing total grazing pressure 

Some general farm management strategies for controlling TGP are:

• use of mesh-type or electric fencing to control feral animal movements
• trap yards around water points to capture and remove unmanaged goats
• control of water points by mesh-type fencing around ground tanks or using poly tanks and troughs
• turning-off water points in de-stocked paddocks
• control of kangaroo populations
• coordination of feral pig, wild dogs and fox baiting programs
• ripping of rabbit warrens, even when calicivirus is working, to prevent rabbits reinfesting warrens and breeding up to previous numbers.

Establish infrastructure to control domestic, native and feral animals

Improving fencing infrastructure is usually the first step towards TGP management and is also the most costly and time consuming. When making this decision, you should look for the most strategic approach.

Steps to consider

Assess your existing infrastructure. Developing a property map is a worthwhile step as it not just a visual tool, but can also help you look at the costs involved and determine where the best place would be to start.

Look at where you can link in with existing TGP fencing or take advantage of structurally sound fences that can be upgraded to TGP standard without the high cost of a new fence. There are several alternative TGP fence designs including mesh fencing such as HingejointTM, multi-strand electric or new multi-species mesh products.

Identify your priorities within the landscape and consider what will give you the best management outcome. Ask yourself these questions:

• Is there highly productive country that would benefit from TGP control?
• Are there ranges/areas that harbour high unmanaged goat, kangaroo and rabbit populations?
• What fencing best matches land type?
• Can pastures be better managed based on land type?
• Why fence to the same lines that currently exist?
• Can fencelines avoid erosion risk areas such as drainage depressions?
• Is the internal infrastructure appropriate to gain control of unmanaged grazing pressure?

Gain control over grazing animals

When creating large scale TGP zones, you will need to remove unmanaged grazing stock from a paddock before you can implement a grazing plan. This can mostly be done by controlling access to water, trapping on water points or actively mustering paddocks.

Limiting access to artificial water points in the landscape is one way of encouraging unmanaged grazers to move on, and improve your ability to manage total grazing pressure.

Also consider seasonal and market variables, particularly when gaining control of unmanaged goats, as both may have a considerable impact on how you carry out your management.

• Will you carry out intensive trapping during summer or also consider mustering during the cooler months?
• Are you committed to selling all unmanaged goats even when the markets are weak?
• Will you remove underweight goats even if they are unmarketable?

Implement a grazing management plan

Once you have gained control over the country, the key to effective TGP is in creating a balance between the needs of regenerating pastures and the management of domestic stock to maintain production and profitability.

Developing and implementing a grazing management plan can help in establishing this balance. A grazing management plan can operate at several levels:

• Short-term planning (approximately 3 months) based on day to day decisions around current growth response,
• Long-term planning based on proposed development of infrastructure and implementation of systems such as rotational grazing.

Consider what you actually want to achieve through your management and set objectives. Both long and short-term goals can help. These should consider:

• What is the greatest priority? Determine where the greatest grazing pressure is coming from so you can balance mouths to feed.
• Assess individual paddocks to identify key pasture species, their abundance and how they are being grazed.
• Consider what species you should maintain or restore.
• If your pastures are close to their best potential for animal production, how will you maintain them in this condition?
• What can you do to restore your pastures if they are currently in a condition below their potential in terms of groundcover and forage production?

Develop a strategy to achieve your objective

A grazing strategy needs to be flexible enough to take advantage of opportunities (such as good seasons) and minimise the negatives such as drought.

It is important to be familiar with the plants on your land and to identify which species are preferred by livestock. Identifying key palatable species allows landholders to monitor those plants that will be overgrazed first.

Points to consider:

• Use the grazing level of these plants to set trigger points for destocking (eg remove stock when 50% removed).
• Are desirable grasses present? Are they abundant? If so, are they being heavily grazed?
• Are remaining species of low productive value to livestock? Less desirable species may remain in large quantities and be deceiving in terms of the percentage of groundcover and potential forage production.
• What is the type and number of livestock and what impact are they likely to have in a short time frame?
• Is there a mix of species? Having a diversity of plants will increase the pasture’s ability to tolerate and recover from drought.

By using trigger points you should also be able to determine when a paddock requires rest from grazing. A TGP approach to managing rested paddocks is essential so the paddock achieves true rest. Even if a small number of unmanaged grazers remain, the most palatable species will remain grazed, not rested. The length of time needed for rest will depend on how grazed the pasture is, species composition, rainfall and temperature conditions, seasonal forecasts and market factors.

Risk of not managing total grazing pressure

• The true productivity of pastures is lost. Grass growth is like compound interest: the less you have in the bank (groundcover, roots, leaf area), the less interest (pasture production) you earn.
• The impact of even short-term droughts can be significant and reduce the ability of pastures to respond even once the season has improved.
• Significant overgrazing leads to damage to soils and pastures that is difficult to reverse.

During a drought, costs associated with land degradation and stock feeding can be significant while the quality and the return per head of stock can decrease (reduced profitability).