If history is any indicator, we’re quickly moving toward our typical five-month-long winter.

Whether it will be cold and snowy or warm, wet and muddy is unknown. Regardless, it’s time to shift pasture management strategies to minimize winter damage and ensure healthy stands once spring arrives.

In prepping for grass dormancy, it’s critical to manage residual forage height. Animals should be removed or fed hay when grasses are grazed down to 3 inches. Grazing below this height stresses plants by reducing leaf area and forcing them to consume root reserves, potentially killing the plant. This is particularly concerning with horses, as their mouths can chew plants down lower than other livestock species. Additionally, monitor soil conditions and remove animals when it gets wet to reduce pugging in the pasture.

If you plan to keep animals on pasture throughout the winter, you will need a way to protect the “good” acreage. By designating an area as a sacrifice lot, other areas can be spared from damage. In these instances, place supplemental feedstuffs only on sacrifice areas until conditions turnout onto other areas. Sacrifice areas should be sited on gently sloping, well-drained soils that are away from water bodies. However, livestock still will need access to drinking water. Placing sacrifice areas on sites that are easily worked, such as an old hay field, is beneficial as it uses land in need of renovation and allows nutrients to be removed when hay is made. After winter feeding, re-seeding sacrifice areas with annual forages like Sudangrass, sorghum-sudan or pearl millet is an excellent way to renovate stands while providing summer forage.

If adequate acreage is available, livestock can be kept on pasture throughout the winter with proper management. Pasture feeding is most effective when ground is frozen and works best when coupled with sacrifice areas or covered lots for wet periods. The key to feeding on pastures in winter is traffic management. Feed and mineral sources should be periodically moved to distribute hoof traffic and reduce manure accumulations. Rolling out round bales is one strategy that achieves this while giving livestock an opportunity to select high quality forages within a bale. However, it can lead to excessive waste, and the practice is best used when feed is plentiful or when feeding lower quality forages. If forage supply is of concern, feeding round bales in ring feeders or bunks can lead to less waste. If either are to be used, they should be located on sacrifice areas or moved throughout a pasture. They also can be used in combination with bale feeding, with higher quality forages in feeders and lower quality bales rolled out on the pasture.

Ultimately, winter pasture management relies more on adaptation than prescription, so be willing to change your techniques. However, it begins with a preparation and a good plan, so start now to be ready for whatever this winter will bring.

Zach Larson is the Penn State Extension agronomy educator for Blair County. He can be reached at 814-414-0582.