During my time working with graziers, I’ve found that even the most experienced management intensive graziers may have problems with animals rejecting certain plants in the paddock. Rejection can happen under many different pasture management scenarios. Typically, graziers manage rejection by either clipping weeds at their most vulnerable stage or making them into hay when they harvest excess spring growth.

Graziers have another option to manage weeds in paddocks. They can turn cattle into weed managers, according to Kathy Voth, who I heard speak at several seminars a few months ago. If you read The Stockman Grassfarmer, you may be familiar with some of her work. The Loveland, Colo., grazier and researcher has been refining weed grazing since 2004.
Here is Voth’s recipe for getting cattle to clean up weeds in a pasture.

1. Know the chemical makeup of the weeds you want your animals to eat. All plants have a mix of nutrients and toxins; even alfalfa contains toxins of some sort. The level of toxin in a plant helps to regulate intake, allowing animals to process the toxin(s). A variety of forages in a pasture often provides a diverse enough sward that an animal can choose and consume plants that have varying levels of nutrition and toxin, essentially balancing their diet. Some weeds, such as jimsonweed, just cannot be grazed.

2. Never train animals when they’re hungry. If an animal’s belly is full of familiar foods, they won’t overeat a plant that may have a high level of toxin. Also, younger female stock is easier to train and can pass along learned behaviors to their offspring. However, any class of livestock may be trained; this process isn’t breed or specie specific.

3. Begin training animals to weeds by exposing the group to feedstuff not normally part of their daily diet but that you know they’ll eat. For example, cottonseed hulls could be an option for cattle whose daily diet is pasture and soybean meal supplement.
Place samples of the new feed in small tubs in the paddock after cattle have grazed a while. Animals will be curious and perhaps eat some. After some time they’re likely to clean up the unfamiliar food. Repeat this process daily until animals clean up the new food. They form an association between the tub and the new food – this is good.

4. Place fresh clippings of your pasture weed into the same tubs. Mixing in some of the new familiar food is often helpful. The cattle will begin to pick at and eat the weeds you have placed in the tubs.

5. Transition the contents of the tub to weeds only. Do this one weed specie at a time over several days. Remember, know the weed you’re feeding. Move the tubs along with the cattle during their paddock shifts. Clipping fresh weeds is important, but it can be time consuming, depending on the weed and number of cattle you’re trying to train.

6. Remove the tubs and notice changes in the sward’s weed-plant vegetation, such as stripped leaves, flowers gone or tightly grazed. Plants, weeds included, tend to be most succulent and immature in the spring. Depending on specie, weeds are vulnerable at this time and easier to control. This makes spring an opportune time to start to train livestock to manage weeds left after your first rotation of the season.
You will need some patience; as you know, animals can’t be forced. They need time to learn to be weed managers – with your help of course. With any luck your cattle will be cleaning their paddocks!

To learn more…
Mike Dennis is the small farm and agronomy issues educator based in Seneca County. Contact him if you would like more information on helping your animals to become weed managers. Phone: 315-539-9251. Email: mgd3@cornell.edu
Check these websites for information on animal behavior:
http://behave.net/ hosted by Utah State University. The site, hosted by Utah State University, is an acronym for Behavioral Education for Human, Animal, Vegetation and Ecosystem Management. Also Kathy Voth’s site
www.livestockforlandscapes.com/ Kathy Voth’s website has resources related to cattle grazing weeds. For example, there’s information on plant species and techniques as well as technical articles.
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