This is a public-interest archive. Personal data is pseudonymized and retained under GDPR Article 89.

Re: D.B.Sullivan prairie

On Wed, 11 Mar 1998, Austin Moseley wrote:
> 
> On just 17 acres, any large grazing animal will be a problem - cows, horses,or
> bison - there is just not enough land to support a "herd" which is 5-6
> animals with bison, or 2-3 with cows or horses. I would discourage anyone


	I probably didn't state clearly what I meant when I said the
appropriate number of animals for the appropriate amount of time shouldn't
be a problem.  What I had in mind that would be appropriate for a small
area was having grazers present for only a portion of a year.  On one of 
the restoration projects that I'm involved with in Nebraska, we have
four horses grazing a six acre field (warm season grass mix + low
diversity forb mix) plus about four acres of the neighbors pasture (he
owns the horses) and they will be there until early-mid June. Last
year two or three adults (I don't remember which) and one colt were
confined to this six acre field following a March burn until
mid-June and the warm season grasses got ahead of them.  They didn't
appear to be eating much western wheatgrass either because the only plants
I saw were un-clipped. They did nail the brome hard, which is why we have
them there.  
	Our other neighbor has five or six horses and four to five head of
cattle (numbers vary each season depending on if a bull is present or if
he has sold any) and we have used them to graze separately or in various
combinations a six acre prairie, a 2 acre old-field restoration and a four
acre warm season grass planting.  We have moved fences around at different
times of the year to target different parts of these fields.  We have used
these animals to really hit the brome hard (they do at such high
densities), to reduce the amount of litter so we don't have to burn as
often, and to disturb the soil.  But because they are moved off the field
at mid season (mid-June to mid-July) the dominant warm season grasses are
vigorous (they are spreading in the old-field site) and I assume the late
growing forbs are doing well also. A case could be made that with such
high densities I'm not only hitting the brome hard, but I'm nailing the
porcupine grass and other early growing species.  That's why we don't do
it every year. 

	I think a lot of small restorations could be grazed using novel 
grazing schemes.  I especially think horses would be useful.  I can easily
see people being upset about the sight of cattle at a prairie preserve (I
don't think a negative reaction is entirely justified, but I realize
that's how a lot of people would feel), but I can also envision a lot of
those same people being very comfortable with the presence of horses at a
preserve.  In reference to the concern of a lot of people of whether
cattle and horses are an appropriate substitution for native herbivores, I
heard a person indicate (sort of) his opinion on this question at a
conference recently when he asked (it was probably more like a comment) 
the question "were bison an appropriate substitute for the megafaunal
community of camels, rhinos, horses, mammoths, mastadons and numerous
species of bison and antelope which they replaced?"  I thought that was a
very provocative question/comment, and it has influenced how I approach
the question of how, and why, plant communities are managed.

Steve


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@mallorn.com with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE PRAIRIE
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index