Mixed grazing with heifers and pregnant sows

Summary

In 1999, a mixed grazing system with heifers and pregnant soews was compared with grazing systems with heifers and sows alone. Normally, herbage quality used for sow grazing is not optimal for high herbage intake and it was therefore examined whether mixed grazing with heifers could improve the grazing system. Herbage quality and botanical composition of the sward was best where heifers grazed alone, followed by swards with mixed grazing and the poorest quality and composition were in swards where the sows grazed alone. The daily weight gain of the sows tended to be higher and the weight gain of the heifers was significantly higher for mixed than at mono grazing. The mixed grazing system seems to be a usable alternative for grazing sows.