While Rich and son Andy give me the grand tour of the roughly 100-acre Big Cove Farm, sweat pours off my forehead and down my back. But the herd of around 30 Angus cattle don't seem to mind. The move now is toward managing the grasses. I've got grass ahead of the cows right now, but I'm going to leave them over there for now. Niehaus has divided his farm into roughly 25 paddocks.
Cattle spend three or four days in each paddock, eating the cover down to two or three inches.
Then Rich moves them to the next paddock. The more level paddocks are reserved for growing hay. The method conserves forage because it forces the cattle to eat some of the plants they wouldn't ordinarily eat, but doesn't give them the opportunity to eat the forage past the point where it can't recover. Another bonus is a decrease in insects around the herd. There seems to be no transition necessary as he pauses on a stroll through his lush pastures to cut up a hunk of plant and soil, then carefully picks through the roots to point out the nitrogen-fixing nodes.