Livestock are selective about the plants they eat. They tend to repeatedly graze some plants and ignore others. This weakens the more desirable plants and allows unwanted plants to thrive and multiply. Nearly all pastures have areas where livestock concentrate, such as around water, bedding grounds and feeding areas. If the pasture is continuously grazed, these areas become overused, resulting in pasture deterioration.
Continuous grazing reduces forage production and eliminates wildlife cover and food.
Cattle trampling also destroys wildlife nests. Years of continuous overgrazing can change a grassland to a brushy area with undesirable plants. Grasses that are continually overgrazed will produce less and less forage in each successive year. Under certain management objectives and pasture conditions, however, continuous heavy grazing may be used as part of an over-all program to improve grazing distribution. This gradually increases the number of high-quality plants per acre.