Reseeding pasture

Located in Ohio, going to plant a field for pasture what's the best thing to use? It was a corn field last year...

How soon after planting before you will turn out cattle?

I wouldnt suggest Kentucky 31, It was created in 1931, and It is cheap for a reason, many people in our area use that stuff, and do not see the best results.  Also where in Ohio are you located?

Glenstory said:

How soon after planting before you will turn out cattle?

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We flash graze where we have seeded (no till drilled) until the plants are tall enough for the cow to get her tongue around and pull them out. It depends on rain and growth; but we seeded about 2 weeks ago and will pull the cows off the pastures this weekend. The new seedlings are about 1 inch tall. Then you have to leave the cows off the pasture at least 45 days or longer. We will hay those pastures and not run cows till the fall (we stockpile the grass after the hay cutting). The flash grazing keeps the older grass short so the new seedlings can compete before it gets to big.

Just whenever it is high enough. I am in NE Ohio. Akron canton area. I hear people talking about new genetically superior grasses to be planted for pasture, anyone know what they are? Or used them?

  I would add to this thread that I like the idea of having at a minimum 5 paddocks B/C that gives sections 1 month in between rotaions and you only need to rotate herd once per week to achieve this.
  I would be somewhat Cautious about using too new of a "great" grass. There are PPL who's job it is to come up with "new" things all of the time for a large variety of reasons. I would rather someone else be their guinea pig. I have paid for trying out new in the past!!

After somewhere between 5 and 10 years of splitting pastures with step-in posts and polywire, we finally felt comfortable enough with paddock size/layout to put up permanent division fences.  Water was the big limiting factor - have installed over a mile of waterline and 10 or 12 'tire waterers' over the past few ears.  Currently have a little over100 acres of pasture, divided into 16 five-acre paddocks and two 10-acre 'sacrifice' paddocks(cows spend the winter there, limit-fed hay and distiller's grain product). 70 head of brood cows/heifers + calves.
Cows rotate through each paddock at a rate of 1-3 days/paddock, depending upon forage height and rate of growth; you always want to keep it in a vegetative state, without the cows re-grazing new growth as it recommences.
Cows come off pasture here in mid to late September, go back to stockpiled grass in Feb. Even during fastest rotation, at 1-2 days per paddock, they rarely come back to a previously grazed paddock in less than 30 days.

Tall Fescue/Orchardgrass/white clover works best here(along with crabgrass, johnsongrass and whatever else is growing naturally) - but I'm in southern west-central KY, just north of the TN line, hundreds of miles south of you.  This mix may or may not be best for you in northern OH. 
Check out some of the stuff on Fred Owen's Owenlea Farm page(link below) he was a long-time grass-based dairyman in OH - and a staunch booster of bluegrass/white clover as the ideal pasture mix for that area.  He's got some good stuff about management-intensive grazing and setting up pasture water systems - and some humorous stuff as well.
http://userpages.bright.net/~fwo/sub14.html

We currently do not use the rotational/small paddocks system, but I have a question for Lucky_P-- when you have the small paddocks- 5 or 10 acres and you are moving cows 1 to 3 days- how do you keep your bulls separate and with the correct group?  Do those movable paddock fences hold up to bull pressure?  That is one reason I am hesitant-- I love my boys and usually they are very well behaved, but sometimes during breeding season and they are out feeling their "oats"  we get into fenceline brawls-- the regular fence can sometimes come out pretty bad-- how do you keep the brawls out with temporary fence?

Shorthorns4us said:

We currently do not use the rotational/small paddocks system, but I have a question for Lucky_P-- when you have the small paddocks- 5 or 10 acres and you are moving cows 1 to 3 days- how do you keep your bulls separate and with the correct group?  Do those movable paddock fences hold up to bull pressure?  That is one reason I am hesitant-- I love my boys and usually they are very well behaved, but sometimes during breeding season and they are out feeling their "oats"  we get into fenceline brawls-- the regular fence can sometimes come out pretty bad-- how do you keep the brawls out with temporary fence?

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very hot wire

Currently only have one bull, though I do have a yearling we saved from last year's crop, for possible use as a terminal sire on ANxSH heifers.

Bulls stay in the 'sacrifice' paddocks after the cows go to grass in spring,  until we do a round of synch and AI service on the mature cows in late May - they get one service and then the bull goes out to them.  During the spring breeding season, virgin yearling and weanling heifers are rotated separately through paddocks close to the barn so I can heat detect and get them up to breed; separated from the bulls by two or more 'hot' fences - they get up to 3 AI services, if necessary.  Since we're moving toward a mostly Fall calving herd, if a heifer doesnt' breed in spring, we just roll her to the fall breeding herd - but she'd better be good, and stick on the first breeding in the fall. Once the breeding season(60 days) is over, we pull the bulls and combine both groups of cows/heifers.

Cattle are in the sacrifice paddocks during fall breeding season - spring-bred cows/heifers accompany the bull(s), Yearling and weanling heifers and cows getting bred AI are held in the other pasture - again, separated from the bulls by two hot fences.  As we AI the cows, we move them and their calves to the 'bull' pasture, and move spring-bred cows/heifers back over to the paddock with the heifers.

A good 'hot' fence is essential.  The bulls have been separated from any cows here since mid-Feb, but the cows have rotated back past them twice already, and in one paddock, they're just separated by 4 strands of electrified HT wire.  Bulls won't challenge the hot fence, but they look longingly at the cows and hope for a power outage.