All livestock farmers want to reduce costs. Generally, taking everything into account, grazing is the lowest cost feed and increasing dependence on grass and forage is a way to minimise costs. Once growing season grass management is sorted out, it’s time to think about the winter. Labour and housing costs are significant so extended grazing or out-wintering for beef can be attractive. Out-wintering depends on availability of herbage or forage for grazing and on how much damage to sward and soil is likely and acceptable. All of these vary from farm to farm and good planning is essential. There are three ways to out-winter: graze grass, strip-graze brassica forage crops or use a sacrifice field with supplementary feeding. There are good advisory booklets covering these options, available at the EBLEX web site. 
In all of these systems, the great enemy is mud. Years ago, working on a Devon livestock farm on culm clay with four feet of annual rain gave me a lasting respect for mud. Where you get it, there’s soil and sward damage to some extent. It gets on the animals and can provoke complaints from the public. It indicates a risk of phosphorus getting into watercourses. It’s not good for cross compliance. All practical steps must be taken to minimize the production of mud.
Everything depends on choosing the right fields. Poorly drained, heavy clays in high rainfall areas should be avoided. So should fields with a significant slope or that are alongside a watercourse. Light textured soils with good drainage and some shelter for the cattle are best. A risk assessment is essential. If a sacrifice field is used, feed bales should be put out while the soil is dry and kept at least 10m from any water. Stock density should not be excessive. The total hoof area of a cow is around 350 cm2 and they walk around 2.4 km/day while grazing. Taking account of step length and overlapping of prints, 44% of the pasture area is trodden at least once after 100 cow days/ha and 13% more than once. Pressure on the ground in a hoof print is greater than 14 t/m2. There’s plenty of scope for poaching if the ground is wet. Tractor movement across the field should be kept to a minimum and ATVs used where necessary. When strip-grazing, start at the top of any slope as run-off will be collected by the growing crop. All this should keep the mud at bay. 
Ian has over 30 years experience in fertilizer use and crop nutrition. He now runs his own consultancy, Ecopt, involved in all aspects of nutrient management, including provision of the FACTS technical information service and he is also a member of the steering groups for revision of RB209 in 1999 and the Fertiliser Manual from 2007.
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