Ben Simpson does a feed budget on each paddock at the end of the growing season to work out how much grass is there for the non-growing season. Ben started by cutting 50 cm x 50 cm quadrants and drying and weighing grass, but with practice he now simply estimates what the livestock have taken out and compares this to what is left by eye. ‘After you do this a few times you get better at it,’ Ben explains.

David Curtis’ approach combines observation with understanding the specific needs of the livestock and matching these needs to the best paddock, while also managing barber’s pole worms. David aims to keep ‘100% ground cover, 100% of the time’. He explains that ‘I don’t get too hung up. I know some courses want you to keep the grass within a certain grass stage but I think anything above ground is great, especially heading into winter. I don’t want grass chewed down to the height of a beer can, I find that the taller the grass is, the less the ground is affected by wind and the more protection there is for the multispecies plantings.’

Nick Austin does pasture assessments³⁸ The terms ‘feed’ and ‘pasture’ are used interchangeably throughout this document. during both the growing and non-growing seasons so he knows how much feed is on hand. Nick uses the MaiaGrazing app to get an indication of how long this feed will last in the current conditions. He explains, ‘It is really helpful throughout the year to go out and calculate the feed on hand for every paddock to make sure you have enough grass on hand for the animals you want to run, whether it’s for 3 months, 6 months or 12 months.’

Image 12. Nick Austin demonstrating how to step out a square for feed budgeting. Source: Grow Love Project.

Rod and Katrina Butler create a feed budget by estimating how much feed one sheep will eat for one day and calculating the area of land needed to supply this. To do this, they measure out a square by placing an object in an area that is representative of the rest of the paddock, then they each step away from the object on the diagonal until they feel comfortable that there is enough feed in the area between these points to feed one sheep for one day. They then go home to do the sums. Katrina explains that they budget based on utilising one third of the feed on offer, ‘not the feed that you guess will grow’. Katrina says that this skill is built by practice over time, and that ‘ground truthing the results by monitoring after you have been through paddocks helps you see if you are accurate, which is just as important as the initial assessments’.

Ben Simpson enters the data from his feed budgets into a grazing chart so he can see ‘stock flow, grass demand and when the grass will run out’. Using a grazing plan calculator spreadsheet, he puts in how many stock days per hectare are in each paddock, the paddock size and the desired rest period. The calculator then indicates how often he needs to move livestock.

Image 13. Ben Simpson’s 2023 grazing chart. Each large column is a five day period and the shaded areas indicate the time that stock is in the paddock. Paddock numbers and sizes for each row are listed on the left hand side. Rolling rainfall and stock days for the last 12 months are recorded on the bottom of the chart. Source: Ben Simpson.

Given the scale of Ben’s property, at the moment he doesn’t see intensive management across the whole area as feasible. At this stage, he is implementing more intensive cell grazing ⁴⁰ Cell grazing is where large mobs are moved through a greater number of smaller paddocks for shorter periods to get high stock density and increase grazing impact. See: https://www.maiagrazing.com/blog/grazing-strategies on 6,000 ha and managing the remaining 16,800 ha of pasture in a less intensive rotational approach.⁴¹ Rotational grazing is where stock is rotated around paddocks to allow rest and regrowth. See: https://www.maiagrazing.com/blog/grazing-strategies

The cell grazing has more grazing impact and higher stock density. In the cell grazed area, Ben matches the grazing and rest periods to the grass growth. During the growing season, which is usually from December to March, the cell grazing rotations speed up. Paddocks in this area average 250 ha in size and get around 60 days of rest during the growing season. In a short growing season, the stock may get through the cell grazed paddocks only once. When the growing season is longer, they can get through them twice. Once the growing season ends, the rotation slows down and paddocks get around 90 to 120 days of rest from grazing. Ben aims for the stock to only graze a paddock twice through the dry season. 

In the 16,800 ha rotational grazing area of the property, Ben rotationally grazes and often moves livestock by the calendar, as he finds the large paddock sizes and scale, along with limited access due to flooded creeks, make it harder to implement a more adaptive approach. Over the last two years, the cattle have moved weekly through 1,000 ha paddocks during the growing seasons, slowing down to three to four weekly moves in the non-growing season. Ben is planning to improve access and paddock subdivisions in this area, which will enable him to move the cattle every two to three days in the growing season and weekly in the non-growing season and allow for longer rest periods. 

David and Ruth Read update their grazing chart every month to stay up to date with rolling annual rainfall and carrying capacity trends. Daily mob moves are recorded into farm record keeping software Ag Commander.⁴² Ag Commander is a farm record keeping software. See: https://www.agcommander.com/ They continually adapt as they compare the information in their grazing plan with what they see actually happening in the paddock. ‘We are constantly considering where the animals will go next, where the best grass is, and what’s going to be the most balanced feed that we can get the most out of and let the other paddocks fully recover to be ready for grazing,’ says David. David and Ruth incorporate the Grazing Naturally⁴³ Grazing Naturally is a grazing system developed by Dick Richardson. See: https://www.naturesequity.com.au/?srsltid=AfmBOorDXakQq1uPDoGEUeal8DdcV0mrZn4WIQ3mo2bQhzp7U9Fm5KEn approach of dividing the property into seven, and leaving one seventh each year for an approximately one year long recovery period in order to allow different ecological processes to take place, building soil and landscape health.

David and Ruth set a target stocking rate of 66% of their carrying capacity to give them time to respond when conditions change. This buffer allows them to finish the animals for sale rather than sell stock because they have run out of feed. ‘We like to keep our stocking rate below carrying capacity so we have flexibility and reactive time,’ says Ruth.

Image 14. Cattle moving paddocks underneath the solar-powered automatic poly wire lifter at David and Ruth Read’s, showing the impact made by grazing and the recovery in the paddock before being regrazed. Source: Michael Green, Drift Media.

David Curtis aims to keep 100% of the ground cover, 100% of the time. He moves the sheep regularly through 70 paddocks, each of which are 40 ha in size. In the summer growing season this may speed up and then slow down again as pasture growth slows in winter.

Nick and Deanna Austin use grazing charts for planning and as a recording system. ‘The grazing chart is the plan for the season ahead, showing where the cattle will be on a certain date, which paddocks you don’t want to graze, and you can include holidays and events as well,’ Nick explains. ‘It helps you see where you have had the livestock at certain times of the year so you are not coming back to the same place at the same time of year. But the plan always changes. If you start moving cattle faster than you expected, it is a tap on the shoulder to make a change.’ 

Nick also uses MaiaGrazing in combination with his written grazing charts to monitor pasture budgets. MaiaGrazing predicts how long the grass will last with the current amount of stock, estimating the property’s carrying capacity for the season ahead. The grazing chart outlines the planned livestock moves, and if Nick needs to move the cattle faster than the plan, then this is an early warning sign that the predicted carrying capacity may be too high and adjustments to the plan may be necessary. 

Image 15. Nick Austin’s grazing chart. Source: Grow Love Project.

Rod and Katrina Butler use their handwritten grazing chart as a valuable planning tool. They suggest to ‘put a lot on there, look at how things make sense for you, and keep it flexible’.

Image 16. Rod and Katrina Butler’s grazing chart. Source: Rod and Katrina Butler.

Ben and Kim Simpson were running a 1,100 head breeding cow herd before they changed their grazing management. Now they run 500 breeding cows and 1,600 trading cattle. Trading cattle give them more flexibility to adjust stocking rates according to seasonal conditions.  

The breeding cows run in the rotational grazing area. At calving in December and January, the cows go into two paddocks opened up into one larger paddock so they don’t have to move during calving. When Ben first tried moving the cows and calves he found it didn’t work well at the start, so they adjusted the method to work for them and their infrastructure. ‘The cattle were not used to moving and the paddock design with troughs in the centre of paddocks was also a problem,’ explains Ben. ‘The cattle naturally gravitate to the trough for water when moving and having water so far away in the new paddock led to more mismothering of calves and we were more likely to miss cattle in the scrub when mustering.’ After calving, when the cattle start rotating through the paddocks again, Ben moves the rotation in the direction of the cattle yards to get the cattle in for branding. Then they are moved out into a shorter loop so they are close to the yards for weaning and pregnancy testing. The rotation then loops out further from the yards for the rest of the year.

Nick and Deanna Austin have a blend of breeding cattle and trading livestock, which combines the flexibility of trading and the consistency of a breeding herd.

At the beginning, Nick worked with the late educator Bruce Ward to simplify the grazing system, allocating each herd its own area on the farm. They ran the breeding cows on the hilly country and the trading herd on the better country, as this was more suitable for growing cattle. Nick sold the breeding herd in a dry period in 2017 and was left with the weaners and trading stock. 

Nick has now changed from running the trading and breeding herds through two separate areas to a leader-follower system, which allows a longer paddock recovery once all the animals have moved through. Nick keeps the breeders in one mob all year round, taking out the steers at weaning to go into the trading mob. The breeding herd follows the trade herd, as the breeders can utilise feed that might not be suitable for the trading herd. Ideally the breeding herd would be one day behind the trading herd, but some paddocks have one trough that supplies four subdivision paddocks, so Nick keeps a few paddocks between them to avoid having them all watering on the same trough. During joining, keeping a few paddocks between mobs also helps to keep bulls out of the trade mob. The trade mob runs about 12 days in front of the breeding mob. 

Although Nick acknowledges that this creates a risk of overgrazing some plants that may already have begun to regrow, he sees this as a management compromise that makes it easier to bring the trade mob in to weigh and draft on his own, and it helps to keep bulls away from trade heifers. He also skips paddocks when necessary to get more recovery. Nick says, ‘Chasing perfection means you never get anything done,’ but being EOV accredited reassures him that the country is regenerating. In the future as he continues to develop fencing, he may be able to draft in the paddock by setting up a drafting yard in water pounds and use Optiweigh technology ⁴⁵ Optiweigh technology makes it possible to measure animal weights in the paddock. See: https://www.optiweigh.com.au/ to weigh cattle in the paddock.

When the cows are calving, the rotation does not slow down, but when Nick opens the gates to let them into the new paddock he leaves the gate open so that if a cow or calf stays behind, they have time to come through. Nick tags the calves at birth so he can find the mother if needed. Having all the cows in one mob makes this process quicker.

David and Ruth Read operate a beef cattle trading operation for flexibility. David explains, ‘Grazing management was a challenge when we had breeders. They were either pregnant or about to lamb or calve, so we couldn’t react quickly enough and overgrazed the paddocks. Then we had to put them in stock containment areas and feed them.’ 

David and Ruth manage their strip grazing subdivisions daily when they are home, and when they go away they leave the stock in a larger area and reset again when they return. ‘We are flexible because we want to do other things than just be a slave to the grazing management. One of the flexibilities is that you don’t have to do it all the time, even though the more you do it the better. We get 40% better utilisation when we manage the grazing,’ says David, ‘It has to regenerate the landscape, but it also has to regenerate us as well.’

David Curtis finds that grazing stud sheep adds complexity to his grazing planning because at times, he needs to split up his mob into several smaller ones for joining and lambing. David uses pregnancy scanning to split mobs depending on whether they are single or twins to prioritise feed for the ewes with twins, while ewes with single lambs get the drier grass paddocks. Smaller mobs at lambing increase lamb survival for twins. David explains, ‘For lambing it is important to have more access to water, with water points spread out and paddocks that have trees for privacy.’ Planning tight joinings of 35 days means that the lambs are born within a month. As soon as possible after lambing, the sheep are put back into one big mob to allow paddocks to be rested and keep the sheep moving around.

When the ewes are lambing, David moves the sheep by leaving the gate open and allowing them to move out at their own pace without any rush, being careful to go back and check that none are left behind. The lambs establish a strong bond with their mothers within 48 hours and they are okay to move.

Rod and Katrina Butler changed from organic certified grain, lamb and free-range pigs to focus on trading sheep when they implemented regenerative grazing practices. Trading sheep fits well with their goal to improve the health of the land. Rod and Katrina have found that ‘running livestock as one mob has made their farm so much easier to manage’.

Ben Simpson double checks feed estimates visually every time he moves the cattle, focusing on the growth, recovery and availability of palatable plants, which in his environment include Mitchell grass (Astrebla spp.), Queensland bluegrass (Dichanthium sericeum) and Flinders grass (Iseilema spp.), and any legumes and forbs. He then updates his grazing plan calculator and the stocking rate carrying capacity spreadsheets monthly so he can use this data to make decisions. He also does monthly updates and reconciliations to the financials and puts these into the FarmEye platform, which analyses stock flows and financials to provide business data including financial ratios, stocking rates and cost of production. Ben has found that ‘the first few times you may be out but you keep doing it and get better at it’. Ben uses this information for enterprise analysis so he can see whether trading cattle or breeding cattle is more profitable, find ways to improve profitability and watch trends over time so he can pick up issues early. 

David and Ruth Read constantly adapt their grazing approach to their changing context. ‘Every year is different in terms of the grazing and rainfall and what happens with the season, so we have to be adaptive,’ says Ruth. David and Ruth make daily observations as they walk the paddocks to wind up and put up electric fences for strip grazing. They adjust paddock sizes based on their observations of remaining pasture, dung scores and gut fill (see Animal behaviour, gut fill and manure section). They know they have grazed too far down if there are damaged plants and bare ground left behind. David and Ruth plan their grazing at least three months in advance so they can be confident that every animal arrives with at least three months feed ahead of them, and review their grazing plans at least monthly.

Rod and Katrina Butler continually monitor and adapt their grazing plan. ‘It is easy to do a check on five to six paddocks to see if you are happy with the effect of the grazing, and see how much feed was eaten compared with what you expected so you can adjust the pace of moves for the rest of the grazing plan,’ Katrina explains. ‘It’s hard to get your head around how much to leave behind to start with. That is where the monitoring comes into it, so its monitor, monitor, monitor, observe what’s happening. Are you happy with this much left behind? Go back and have another look at your grazing plan, it’s all done in pencil so you can rub it out and do it again so that’s fine. It’s worth the work of rubbing it out and doing it again rather than the heartache of another 12 months until you get the opportunity to leave cover on the ground again. A couple of hours of work in rubbing it out and doing the grazing plan again is nothing.

Nick Austin bases his grazing decisions around allowing the most desirable plant species that he wants to encourage in the paddocks to be fully recovered before he moves the cattle back in. Describing his approach to assessing recovery of desirable plants as follows, Nick explains, ‘Ideally a mature plant that has recovered from grazing will be showing no signs of the previous graze, and will have at least five tillers with leaves and enough plant matter that the leaf will hit the ground and stay on the ground when walked on.’ Nick moves the cattle more quickly when the grass is growing faster than expected.

David and Ruth Read observe ground cover daily. ’We feel our soil a lot as we are always putting electric fence posts out, which makes you look and think and feel the country a bit better,’ says David. They also capture brix readings regularly to see what sugars are in the plants, which can give an indication of how effectively the plant is photosynthesising.

David, Robbie and Sophie Curtis do regular paddock tours, where they take brix readings and dig with the shovel to see what is happening under the ground, observing plant root systems and looking for earthworms.

Image 17. Digging a hole to inspect plant root systems at Bellevue. Source: Sophie Curtis.

David and Ruth Read observe dung scores and gut fill daily and adjust paddock sizes based on whether the animals are getting enough energy and protein. ‘Manure changes quickly in response to energy and protein, and you can correct it quickly as well,’ says David. ‘You have got to be flexible, when you talk grazing it is hard to give a recipe.’ They also use animal weight gain data from Optiweigh scales to verify how the animals are going and if there is something else they need to look at.

Rod and Katrina Butler have learned to slow down and take pressure off stock, reading animals and not looking for a quick result. Rod remembers his Dad saying, ‘If the animals are spread out, the paddock is buggered, if they are fairly tight there is plenty of feed.’ Katrina explains how ‘keeping animals together in close mobs makes them easier to move around, protects them from predators and ‘the more happy the animals are being bunched together, the easier the whole system is’.

David and Ruth Read carry out photo monitoring in the middle month of each season. They keep their monitoring approach simple, taking photos at set locations looking down at ground cover and also across the landscape. They use these photographs to observe changes in ground cover and plant composition changes over time. In some paddocks, they have watched capeweed (Arctotheca calendula) disappear and observed kangaroo grass (Themeda triandra) establishing.

Image 18. A photo monitoring point recorded in 2006. Source: David and Ruth Read.

Image 19. The same photo monitoring point as in Image 18, recorded in December 2025 before grazing. Source: David and Ruth Read.

Image 20. Photo monitoring point (from Images 18 & 19) 10 days after grazing, January 2026. Source: David and Ruth Read.

Nick Austin has three 100 m monitoring transects where he has been implementing Holistic Management biological monitoring and soil tests every year to get a trend, and is seeing slow improvements. ‘This told us that we weren’t falling off a cliff by not putting fertiliser on and our soils were growing more alkaline without doing any liming,’ says Nick. When the EOV system started in 2018, he stopped his biological monitoring and started using the EOV monitoring. 

Data collected at Mundarlo through the EOV system is in its early stages with significant trends yet to emerge, but there has been a notable increase in perenniality of grasses since the EOV monitoring began (Table 6 & Figure 4). 

Table 6. Nick Austin’s biological monitoring data shows an increase in ground cover and changes in pasture composition at the Top Hut monitoring site.

Figure 4. EOV data showing an increase in cool season perennial grasses at Mundarlo since 2021–22. Source: EOV Report 2025.

Ben Simpson will do a mid year feed budget to double check where they are at so he can make adjustments to the grazing plan and stocking rates. Ben describes how feed budgeting is ‘a very powerful tool’ because it helps him to predict when they will run out of grass and then he can offload cattle early. ‘By starting offloading cattle early, you don’t need to offload as many, don’t get stuck, and more often than not if you offload early you are in a position to have grass when no one else does, giving you opportunities to buy back at a cheaper rate or agist out at a higher rate,’ says Ben.

David and Ruth Read explain that ‘monitoring their feed budget and grazing chart helps them to see a dry time coming and reduce animal numbers early’. David and Ruth use an excel grazing chart (Figure 5) to record stocking rate and rainfall and use this data and the graph to inform grazing decision making. They aim to keep their stocking rate (DDH/100 mm) above 66% and below 100% carrying capacity. It is a trigger to reduce stocking rate when their actual stocking rate on their grazing chart increases for two months in a row.

Figure 5. David and Ruth Read’s excel grazing chart. They aim to keep the blue line on the graph which represents actual stocking rate (DDH/100 mm) between the red line (carrying capacity) and the green line (66% of carrying capacity). Source: David and Ruth Read.

David Curtis says drought management is ‘all about trying to control the numbers as best you can, as soon as you can’. David goes through mobs to get rid of sheep that are not performing and pregnancy scans ewes to prioritise what class of sheep to sell when it gets dry, such as ewes scanned in lamb or dry sheep. 

David explains that he ‘makes decisions to protect the place, based on his observations. Personally I think, use your head, and use your eyes. Every environment is going to be different. You’ve got to tune into what’s happening in your environment, understand your grasses, rainfall, capacity, potential for heat, potential for drought and then as things dry off, move quickly. If you have sheep that you need to get off the place, get them off.’

David bases stock movements on how the country looks, with the goal of maintaining cover. He goes in early with supplementary feeding using advantage feeders which are moved with the sheep when it gets dry. ‘Don’t wait for them to lose condition, go in early with supplementary feeding,’ he suggests. David feeds supplements to take the pressure off how hard the animals graze. ‘Protect your pastures, your country, as best you can. The beauty of sheep is that they don’t need a lot to keep them going through a dry time.’ In severe droughts, David uses a drought feedlot to protect paddocks from overgrazing.

Image 21. David Curtis pregnancy scanning ewes. Source: Sophie Curtis.

Nick Austin has managed drought in different ways over time, and now feels he has got to a place where he feels more comfortable because he’s able to shift animals earlier. Nick remembers the Millennium drought shifted his thinking: ‘It was relentless day in and day out, feeding cattle two hours a day, seven days a week for six months, with fodder costs continuing to go up.’ Now, pasture monitoring and reviewing the carrying capacity and stocking rate helps Nick to make decisions months in advance of what he would have done. ‘When we start moving cattle quicker than expected, this indicates it is time to make a decision and do something to reduce stocking rates.’ Nick says that ‘the hard work is monitoring, constantly keeping tabs on what is happening so if something starts to slip then you make another decision’. The option of deciding to feed and continue feeding does not sit well with Nick because ‘it costs money, labour and becomes very wearing. When you buy feed you spend money and this can become addictive and lead to spending more money. I would rather have the cash in the bank, know the finances up front and feel in control of my spending, being mindful that we need to get back into the market again.’

Rod and Katrina Butler have seen a direct correlation between their grazing management and drought resilience. ‘We realised we were creating a lot of the tough times. We used to blame the weather, when it was our decision making. We decided not to blame the weather and the drought and make decisions towards keeping our cover on our land instead,’ Katrina says. Forward planning through feed budgeting and monitoring their grazing plan means ‘we are not creating our drought, and we keep cover on the land so we recover from dry times once the rain comes. We are aware of drought early, we can take action early and safeguard our money, land and relationships. In previous droughts we spiralled down the tunnel financially, emotionally and environmentally.’ 

Ben Simpson suggests starting with fence design so you can prioritise designing the water infrastructure you need. But when you start planning water infrastructure, Ben suggests to ‘go with bigger water pipes than what you think you need, you will use it later’. Ben initially thought he had used bigger pipes than they needed, but now that stock density has increased, they need the bigger pipes. 

Ben’s water system is good quality bore water, free flowing under pressure that can be delivered without any pumps or tanks. With 1,000 head in a cell grazed paddock, putting multiple troughs in paddocks, rather than relying on one, means stock can spread out and get a drink. Ben has set up water in diamond-shaped cell centres between four paddocks (Figure 6). The troughs are built up on pads with bars over the top and barriers to stop the cattle getting into the trough. These allow the cattle to only get their heads in to keep water clean, which makes a big difference to animal health and production.

Image 22. Installing water in diamond-shaped cell centres between four paddocks at Thistlebank. Source: Ben Simpson.

Image 23. Ben has installed bars over the top of troughs to keep cattle out of the trough and ensure water stays clean. Source: Ben Simpson.

Figure 6. Current property fence and water point design at Thistlebank. Source: Ben Simpson

David and Ruth Read were told early on not to rely on dams for water, as they may not fill if they change their grazing. ‘We fenced off most of our dams. A lot of them remain low, even in wetter years they struggle to fill,’ says David. Instead, they reticulate good quality underground water through troughs. Initially they had one water trough in each of their 20 paddocks, but eventually they moved some fences and water lines to locate the troughs centrally where triangular shaped paddocks join in a wagon wheel fence layout. The triangular shaped paddocks allow a central water point to serve multiple paddocks. While this design is cost effective, it can create uneven grazing impact because the widest part of the paddock is the furthest from the water. David and Ruth plan to change future paddock subdivisions to be rectangular to improve the distribution of grazing impact.

Image 24. Cell centre with cup and saucer style trough sharing water for 10 paddocks. Source: David Read.

David Curtis makes sure their sheep have access to good quality clean water, with bore water reticulated to troughs in every paddock. They use remote monitoring technology Farmbot to monitor water levels in the troughs. When subdividing paddocks, they spread water troughs through the paddock to provide plenty of access to water and reduce walking distance. David notes that the more access to water you can have at lambing the better, and spreading water through paddocks helps prevent mismothering issues.

Nick Austin pumps water from the river to reticulate around the farm into troughs, with only one paddock relying on a dam. His priority getting started was to upgrade his water infrastructure, which he has learned is critical for success when changing grazing management. ‘The simplest thing you can do when you start is to put your mobs together, but you can only put them together if you have the water to support them. When we put our mobs together, our water supply wasn’t enough so we had to reengineer a whole water supply. We got the water wrong the first time we did it, then it took a second run to get it right, so we made a lot of mistakes. Don’t mob up until you get the water right first,’ suggests Nick.  

Nick employed a consultant to help him redesign the water system to make it purpose built for one mob. ‘There are so many different techniques for how you set up water, the key is just to get the flow right.’ Nick uses a rule of thumb of a 2 litres per second flow rate for 500 breeding cows plus followers, and explains that ‘water storages need to be able to hold enough water to cover stock needs if there is a breakdown somewhere in the system.’

Image 25. Movable water trough at Mundarlo. Source: Grow Love Project.

Image 26. Water cell at Mundarlo. Source: Grow Love Project.

Rod and Katrina Butler started out carting water using a water truck with portable troughs. They are now equipped with three bores to access underground water. Bore water is pumped to a tank using a windmill or solar pump, then gravity fed across the farm through poly pipe with taps that they can tap into with three portable Kiwitech water troughs. This allows them to move water around to get the animal impact where they want it and change the grazing patterns. Poly pipe that is above the ground is easy to move and adjust, but gives them more trouble than the pipe in the ground as it can be run over, get caught up in machinery or be impacted by wild animals. They also have a 40,000-litre water tank on a trailer to cart water when they are agisting their sheep on other people’s properties.

Image 27. A portable water trough at Rod and Katrina Butler’s property. Source: Rod and Katrina Butler.

Images 28 & 29. Rod and Katrina Butler use trailers to cart water to areas of the property not serviced by troughs. Source: Rod and Katrina Butler.

David and Ruth Read have permanently fenced paddocks of 5–7 ha in size. These are subdivided with temporary electric fencing so that the stock have access to enough feed and have adequate rumen fill for each strip graze. The size of these subdivisions is adapted to the seasonal conditions with up to 1.5 ha grazed per day depending on many variables including the mob size, the amount of grass that’s there and the time of year.

David and Ruth go out once a day and set up three electric fences and use a PensAgro automatic tape lifters sourced from Argentina to move cattle. ‘They are like a pole with an electric fishing reel on the top and at a certain pre-programmed time of day, it will pull your hot tape up. The posts are about 20 steps apart, there is a 40 metre opening where the wires will come up and the cattle can walk through to the next paddock,’ explains David. ‘The automatic lifter makes an audible sound when it lifts up and the cows hear the spool winding so they are ready to go before it starts lifting up, and they are under it when it starts lifting up.’ 

The property is fenced into three secure zones that can accommodate three different mobs using an electric fence system. The zones were designed to make use of existing permanent fencing around tree plantings that were built from treated pine with five wires, two of them electric. Within these zones, the paddocks are subdivided in a wagon wheel design using star pickets and electric fence wire (Figure 8). They started with three wires because they had cattle and sheep and now they are down to one wire as they only run cattle. The secure zones mean that if any animals get out of their subdivided paddocks, they remain in the area and can’t go far. 

David and Ruth are considering changing some wagon wheels to a laneway system where the length of the electric fences required for dividing the paddock for strip grazing would be shorter and easier. They currently divide the wedge shaped paddocks by fencing across the wedge, with no back fence so the stock can walk back to the water point. ‘Some of the subdivision fences are 300 m long so if we can change the shape to make it 100 or 120 metres, when we divide the paddock up it will only take 15 minutes,’ explains David. They also envisage using electric fencing to create laneways to guide the cattle to water in the new system. This will also address the uneven grazing impact that occurs in the wedge shaped paddocks. 

Image 30. Cattle moving between paddocks underneath the solar powered automatic poly wire lifter at David and Ruth Read’s, showing the impact made by grazing and the recovery in the paddock before being regrazed. Source: Michael Green, Drift Media.

Image 31. Cattle at David and Ruth Read’s moving under the gate opened by the PensAgro solar powered automatic poly wire lifter. Source: David and Ruth Read. 

Figure 8. A property map showing paddock design at Woodcote, with green lines indicating fences. Source: David and Ruth Read.

David Curtis’s property (Figure 9) is fenced using 5-wire permanent electric fencing built from 2.5 mm Waratah Tyeasy® high tensile wire, galvanised posts and stays, and porcelain insulators. Everything is installed as per the manufacturer’s instructions. David has a full earth return system with eight energisers across the farm. It is very cost effective, quick to put up and has a very long life. ‘Do it correctly and properly the first time,’ advises David. ‘A “half-arsed” electric fence system is a nightmare. A good one is brilliant. Our sheep do not go through the electric fences as they are born and bred in them.’

Figure 9. A property map showing paddock design and fencing layout at Bellevue. Image source: David Curtis.

Image 32. Five-wire permanent electric fencing used by David Curtis. Image source: David Curtis.

Nick Austin started out by subdividing some big existing paddocks and fencing off creeks using funding available for riparian zones. Original paddocks are around 45 ha in size, and most of these are fenced with a permanent plain wire fence containing one hot wire (Figure 10). 

For subdivisions, Nick finds that electric fencing gives much more flexibility, is quicker to install and lower in cost. Nick uses the Kiwitech semi-permanent system, which consists of 1.5 mm high tensile wire with fibreglass posts. ‘Our permanent fencing costs around $6/m without labour, the Kiwitech semi permanent fence costs $1/m,’ Nick explains. ‘The Kiwitech fencing is quick to put up, you are able to drive over it, and it is not too bad to pull down and put back up again if you discover it is in the wrong spot.’ Nick used three-wire subdivisions because they had sheep and wanted to keep the place flexible. ‘I would get away with two wires for cattle, but I don’t think so with sheep, and having three wires stops calves from going under during calving.’  

Paddock sizes are now getting down to 10–15 ha. Nick says, ‘If I want to ramp it up I can use poly wire and a reel to fence off and strip graze away from the water in those smaller paddocks.’ Having a lot of paddocks helps minimise the risk of overgrazing and gives more control. Nick is planning to go from 50 paddocks at the moment to at least 70 in the next two years. The additional paddocks will be installed as part of a new carbon project. Nick does his own fencing and doesn’t use contractors.

Image 33. Cattle moving between paddocks at Mundarlo. Source: Grow Love Project.

Figure 10. A property map showing fencing design at Mundarlo. Source: Nick Austin.

Image 34. Temporary electric fencing at Nick Austin’s. Source: Grow Love Project.

Rod and Katrina Butler have permanent fences that vary in design  (Figure 11) in order to teach the sheep that not all the fences are the same and therefore deter fence breaches. Some fences have a hot wire on the bottom, some have hot wires on the bottom and top and an earthwire in the middle, while others are variations of this setup. A lot of gates are cocky gates, which they used to equip with an outrigger and hotwire to deter sheep, but they find they no longer need to. Rod explains, ‘Once the sheep trust the system, that there will be suitable feed and water and they will be moved on regularly, then they don’t try to test the boundary.’ Rod and Katrina will sometimes subdivide paddocks using temporary fencing as feed becomes abundant. In order to ensure a return on investment for any new fencing, they will only subdivide when available feed and animal numbers justify the investment. ‘Don’t spend all your money on fencing until the paddock is worthy of splitting up,’ says Katrina.

Figure 11. Paddock layout at Rod and Katrina’s property, Gimlet Ridge. Source: Rod and Katrina Butler.

Ben Simpson has an exclusion-fenced boundary to reduce external grazing pressure from kangaroos and predation pressure from dogs, aiming to ‘get some rest into the country’. He uses netting for internal fencing on bigger 1,000ha paddocks, which is needed for keeping in his 3000 rangeland x boer goats. Subdivision fences on smaller paddocks of 250 ha are four-barb construction. Ben has not used electric fencing because it is not the best fit in his management system. ‘While it is much cheaper, there is more to check on, more maintenance and more likelihood of it stopping working. In dry weather, the cracking clay soils don’t carry an earth. While the upfront costs of the permanent fencing are higher, the long term maintenance is less, and there is less labour required to manage it.’

The Curtis family plants 600 ha of multispecies fodder crops into pastures in March for winter feed. The multispecies crop is planted into the same country two years in a row before moving on to another area. They buy medic and brassica seed like tillage radish and keep their own seed from oat, vetch, barley, faba bean and field pea crops. David uses a pelletised composted fertiliser and drills the seed directly into the pasture using a disc planter with coulters. ‘We don’t kill anything, we don’t dig anything up, we just drill straight into the grass. We do it when it’s dry and we plant shallow, 10 millimetres deep to cover the seed,’ David explains.

David describes how these multispecies fodder crops ‘get a lot of plants to work in unison together who have different functions in the soil. Instead of bees being hungry in winter, they have flowering plants to live on as well. It’s like working as a team, the plants are working as a team. Our sheep get a winter smorgasbord.’ 

David makes sure that the plants are well established with secondary roots before grazing. He can tell when this is by ‘putting pressure on the plant that represents what an animal would do when biting it off, looking to see if there is resistance to being pulled out of the ground, and if it pulls out easily, the animal could pull it out and it is too early to graze.’ He likes to go in early with a quick graze when the season is dry, making sure there is enough left behind for the plants to regrow, which ‘sometimes stimulates a growth spurt’. When the season is wet, he leaves it longer before the first graze. David explains how he ‘uses his eyes and observations to make decisions, no hard and fast rules’.

Image 35. Sheep grazing multi-species fodder crops at Bellevue. Source: Sophie Curtis.

David and Ruth Read have observed capeweed (A. calendula) decreasing over time, and see benefits from changing how they view weeds. ‘We rarely see a paddock that is overrun with an undesirable plant like fleabane or thistles return for a second year, it usually does it’s job and is gone.’ David and Ruth ask two questions when they get a weedy plant: ‘What is it telling us? And what have we done? Maybe we grazed the paddock too low, or grazed it two times in spring.’

💡 Tips and Tricks: Managing weeds and toxic plants

Grazing can be a weed control strategy for weeds that are palatable to livestock. Planning grazing and recovery periods based on the most palatable pasture species also creates an environment where pastures can outcompete weeds. Improvements to ground cover and soil health tend to reduce the potential for toxic or weedy plants to establish and also help create conditions that favour perennial plants over annual weeds. 

Increasing pasture diversity can be helpful when there are toxic plants present, as animals are less likely to select toxic plants when other palatable options are available. Problems can be more likely when livestock are hungry and forced to eat toxic plants through overgrazing, when they are contained in stock yards and holding paddocks or when the country is recovering from drought or flood. Newly introduced or young livestock are more likely to eat toxic plants, but livestock can sometimes learn to avoid toxic plants when they are bred in an area with those plants.

Ben Simpson runs goats set stocked in paddocks to clean up regrowth of woody weeds and other undesirable species. The cattle rotate through as normal and a chopper musters the cattle out to move them, while the goats stay behind.

Nick and Deanna Austin have previously trialled bringing sheep into the grazing rotation as part of a flerd, which is a mixed species mob of sheep and cattle managed together as a single group. Nick was concerned the cattle might keep the sheep away from the troughs or trample the sheep, but water never turned out to be an issue. He observed that the sheep would water in the morning and the cattle would come into the water in the afternoon. The sheep would graze areas of the paddocks that cattle wouldn’t, especially the higher country in the hillier paddocks. In years with good rainfall, such as in 2020–2022, it became difficult to find the sheep in the long grass, so Nick put the cattle in a mob grazing ahead of the sheep, in a leader-follower grazing approach.

The Curtis family has been planting trees since 1992 for windbreaks and shelter and to encourage birds back into the landscape. Paddock trees are also important for providing shelter for ewes at lambing to improve lamb survival.

Image 36. David Curtis and employee Meg Millar planting trees at Bellevue. Source: Sophie Curtis.

David and Ruth Read have fenced off the creek through the middle of their property and replanted this area with tree plantations and wildlife areas. This has helped protect the creek banks from erosion and slow the flow of water down to keep more water on their farm and rehydrate the landscape. Water quality has improved as a result, so any water that leaves their property is cleaner. The trees also provide shade and shelter for livestock.

Rod and Katrina Butler are working on a rehydration project informed by local indigenous partners. The aim is to slow down the flow of water high up in the landscape in order to reduce runoff and erosion and increase soil absorption. After installing earthworks in August 2025 they are already seeing that silt and topsoil are not moving off the area, plants are emerging and the moisture is being spread out.

Image 37. Landscape rehydration works at Rod and Katrina Butler’s property, Gimlet Ridge. Source: Rod and Katrina Butler.

Ben Simpson has noticed how stock psychology has improved across the board since starting the intense rotations. ‘For the first few moves, the cattle assumed they were going back to cattle yards as that was previously the only time they would be moved, but after four moves they got used to it,’ says Ben.

Ben has set up water troughs on fence lines after seeing how the livestock head for the water when they first move paddocks. Ben encourages cattle to move themselves by turning the trough off at one end of a paddock, turning the trough on at the other end of the paddock, and then opening the gates at the troughs to move the cows to the next paddock. 

Ben finds that the trade cattle in the cell grazing system are quieter than the breeders because they are moving more often. Ben says, ‘The trade cattle don’t take long to quiet down, they get used to you being around more often and being weighed, and being in a mob of 1,000 head they get educated by the others quickly.’

David and Ruth Read believe building trust in the animals is essential. Having the right infrastructure for water and understanding stock behaviour in terms of water is a priority. ‘When the animals understand what’s happening, they don’t all rush to the water, they take it in turns and that all works if they have trust in you and trust in the water. You break that trust and you’ll have all 300 in the cell centre at once, thinking the water is going to run out, and that can really set them back,’ explains David.

Ruth sees the importance of ‘having animals that know the system and share their gut microbiome with new animals’. David and Ruth make sure there are educated animals to go in with trade animals when they arrive and then try to integrate the new stock in with their existing mob as quickly as they can. David explains, ‘We put more importance on getting animals out in the paddock than we do on quarantine. We let them out into a smaller paddock with some green grass and a trough so they can get used to our trough and our water really quickly. Then we will process them and get them back into a mob of educated animals.’

They find that some shy animals don’t like coming back into the narrow part of the wedge-shaped paddocks for water and having other cattle to follow helps train them. ‘Some animals are not good with high density. Some humans will never go to the MCG when there’s 100,000 people in it because it’s just too many, other people thrive on it. It’s the same for cattle. You can’t put 2,000 DSE per hectare together and expect all of them to be happy. One or two may push through the fence,’ explains David.

Rod and Katrina Butler observe animal behaviour and aim to keep the sheep calm. ‘It’s not all about fences, drones, virtual collars. They are just going to keep you poor,’ says Rod. Their approach to animal behaviour has come from working with educators Bruce Maynard and Fred Provenza, where animals move in mobs concentrated together, rather than spreading out. They have seen the benefits from working with herd dynamics. ‘Matriarchs are leaders who think they know everything, while the ones in the middle are important for giving different things a go and introducing it to the others,’ says Rod. ‘The animals know what you are doing, they know when you will move them.’

Rod likes to spend time drifting behind the sheep. He will use a ute, motorbike, bike or walk. He will also use his sheep dogs to shepherd the mob. All of these tactics help stimulate the predator/prey response, promoting grazing behaviour that sees them graze tightly together and offers resilience against dingoes. They have learned from working with Noongar loreman Clinton Hansen that dingoes prefer smaller food than sheep and this would be their preference in a healthy ecosystem. 

Training sheep to trust the system and know they will be moved also makes using electric fencing so much easier, so the more Rod and Katrina learn and incorporate animal behaviour into their management, the more valuable it becomes. ‘Change takes a bit of time, you have to want to do it, you have to be ready for it,’ says Rod.

As a stud, The Curtis family breeds resilient sheep. ‘We always say the bottom 5% of the sheep cause 100% of the problems, so as a stud we need to remove those sheep that are poor doers,’ says David. They go through lambs early and pull out the bottom 50% and the ram lambs, which go into their commercial line of sheep to supply butchers.

Nick Austin explains that ‘having fewer mobs and being out moving them more regularly means that you are observing the stock a lot more, seeing if they are sick, seeing how content they are’. Trading cattle are drenched on arrival and that is the only drench given whilst on the farm as longer recoveries between grazing helps break parasite life cycles.

Ben Simpson realised that he cut back on nutritional inputs for the cattle, including lick molasses and fodder supplementation, too hard and fast initially. This impacted animal production in terms of reduced pregnancy rates and weight gains. Ben has started working with animal nutritionist Desiree Jackson to address this and work towards balancing inputs to production and keeping it profitable.

David and Ruth Read explain that ‘our soils have a low CEC (cation exchange capacity) and are low in nutrients so we put out mineral licks and blocks for the stock.’ In order to get the fat score needed and turn over enough cattle to remain viable, they also put some animals through a feeder system to finish them for sale. 

David and Ruth also time their strip grazing moves for 10 am, 1 pm and 4 pm each day. Waiting until 10 am allows the plants to have sugar from the morning sun and there will be less nitrates. ‘We make sure the pastures have a better sugar level and are more balanced,’ says David.

The Curtis family finish lambs with feeders in the paddock, if needed, using their own grain such as barley, field peas or faba beans. Supplying sheep with a dry lick makes sure that there are no nutritional deficiencies.

Image 38. David Curtis with a free choice mineral supplement station. Source: Sophie Curtis.

Rod and Katrina Butler move minerals, water or other attractants to get animal impact where they want it. After trying different options, they have minimised minerals back to three supplements offered as free choice: multimineral loose lick, salt and bicarbonate soda (to help digestion). In the past they offered sugar and molasses, but now that the pastures are more balanced and these are not required.

David Curtis uses grazing management for managing barber’s pole worms in their sheep. David describes the three pillars of managing worms as stock movement, genetics and nutrition. ‘To manage worms we move the sheep, and we identify and remove sheep that are wormy or have low resilience or resistance.’ David is finding the sheep are becoming more healthy and more resilient from the combination of breeding and the improved landscape health.