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Small Farms
Manure Storage
By properly managing your pasture water, you not only provide high-quality water to maintain the health and productivity of livestock on your farm, but you also contribute to maintaining the water quality downstream – water that is used for livestock and human consumption, as well as recreational activities like fishing and swimming.
Pasture conditions that promote frequent gatherings of cattle near streams and ponds may increase sediment, nutrient and pathogen loading of these water sources from manure deposition, as well as bank erosion. However, such water-quality problems may be controlled by grazing management or pasture characteristics that alter the timing, frequency, duration or intensity of cattle congregating near pasture streams and ponds. The most appropriate practices will depend on: the characteristics of pasture and water sources; costs, labor and management to install and maintain a management practice; economic resources, including government cost-sharing to fund the installation of a management practice; and benefits beyond water-quality improvement, such as improved forage quality, providing equipment crossings, or improved hunting that will result from a particular practice.
Benefits of Stabilized Stream and Pond Access Sites
Development of a stabilized access site to a stream or pond will allow grazing animals access to these water sources at selected sites while providing the opportunity to protect the remainder of the banks with exclusion fencing. This action may lessen the potential for erosion from stream banks or pond dams by maintaining vegetation and eliminating hoof traffic in sensitive areas.
Benefits of Off-Stream Water, Shade & Nutritional Supplementation
Cattle often will congregate near pasture streams to quench their thirst and regulate their body temperature. This may result in an uneven cattle distribution within the pasture and could increase sediment, nutrient and pathogen loads in surface waters. Cattle and pasture utilization can be influenced by the presence of off-stream water, nutrient supplementation sites, the pasture’s topography, weather and shade distribution within the pasture. By providing off-stream water, nutrient supplementation sites and shade away from pasture streams, cattle can be encouraged to utilize the pasture more uniformly, resulting in less time in or near pasture streams and improved forage utilization.
Riparian Areas
Riparian, or streamside, areas serve as a transition between upland pastures and waterways. In other words, they link pastureland with water. When these areas are managed to protect the waterway from any negative impacts of adjacent land use, they become buffers. Riparian buffers that are managed with grasses alone or a combination of trees and/or shrubs can provide grazing and hay land; they also can remove nutrients from groundwater, filter sediment and nutrients from surface runoff, and provide valuable wildlife habitat. The best riparian buffer design is one that benefits both the landowner and the environment. Successful establishment of a buffer requires careful site assessment,implementation and maintenance.
Authored by Jim Russell, Department of Animal Science, Iowa State University
