How long before cattle damaged land starts to recover??

The land that we added to our original piece had cattle on it for as long as I can remember... Looking at it from both an arieal view and by driving it, you can clearly see the difference between the original property and the newer property.. Mainly the thinning and trials that the cattle made.. How long are we looking at before those spaces are filled out?

Also, are they're any interventions I could apply that might speed up this process? I thought about going through the "bigger" spaces with a plow and opening up the soil to allow something to get in there and hopefully come up.. Would that even work? I'm not talking about huge open trails that were made, but noticeably bigger openings if you compare our original piece to the newer piece..

Lastly, I know this would effect native browse, but how severely? Could it have gotten to the point that the native browse wouldn't even come up anymore due to the cattle? The ranch wasn't over grazed; the owners were really good about cattle management.. But like any cattle, they left their scars on the land..

Where......???

Will depend a lot on the soil types. Certain types of soils are easily prone to compaction, which gives it that hard pan characteristic where nothing will grow.

If you have the means to lightly disc it, it would greatly benefit the property

Southern Duval

The newer property has a lot more typical south texas style short brush.. I wish I knew how to id some of it.. I think it'll do great, alot of diverse vegetation is pretty much all I can tell.. I was thinking about discing it but not too deep, keeping the discs more narrow..

my new lease in north texas has been without cows for 4-5 years i believe and the place is beautiful, the meadows are thick with tall grasses and browse is thick. my other lease up here has cows for about 9 months a year and it is ugly, bare ground everywhere, cow patties, foot prints, huge difference. i bet you will start noticing a difference in a few years.

congrats on getting rid of them.

oh, heck, i have no clue about that land down there, probably wont ever notice a difference...

A sandier soil recovers quicker.

From what I've seen places with more clay content takes longer

Don't go crazy deep with the disc, just enough to break up the surface and get some oxygen in there

Keep the cows out and with some timely rains will be back to good by next summer


Take a picture that will give me a better idea of what your working with

It's been a little over a year and a half since the last cow was on the property.. Ill have to take some pics and post them up on here for the experts to let me know what they are, because haven't a clue

If its been a year and a half since the cows were on it an the property is still scarred, I would say you have compacted soil issues.

Disc it up and get some native grass seeds from your extension office and bring the habitat back

Were dealing with the same problem. Our rancher overgrazed big time on our place and you definately can see a difference in the neighbors property and ours. Pretty bare out there now, but most of the cows are gone now, so we need a bunch of rain and it should get better.

Interesting...

Cows are seldom a problem; over grazing is.

cows are always a problem.

We got rid of our cows 2 months ago. The grass is returning and so are the Deer, Turkey and hogs. Amazing.

it is literally like the flood gates open on my lease when the cows are moved, we go from zero sightings and very few pics of deer to groups of 6-7 does and bucks everywhere. bad thing is that the cow man doesnt move them till mid-late october, his words were "...so that leaves you guys like 60 good days of hunting...." and its a bow only lease

My buddy has one of these for his ranch but his is smaller than this one. Works great for reseeding or anything else. Great machine and I know they rent them somewhere.

I would assume that your land would benefit several times over if you rented this machine and did some work with it.

http://stutsmanscd.org/Prices_and_Services.htm Something like this.....

90% of ranches have too many cows.

Aerate & hope for rain...


Takes us 1 rainy Winter & Spring for junk to shoot back up head high.

Cows are grazers and deer are browsers, Im not saying that they wont eat the same things, but they generally dont. Cows and deer can coexist quite nicely and not bother each other, but if too many cows are on a place it doesn't help. I'd say it would takea good wet year and most of your native plants would come back.

TxFisher, I believe you're right. But when all of your neighbors run cattle and you don't, guess where the Deer are going to feel the least threatened? On our place. It's quite disheartening to be in your stand and see a bunch of Cows move in, kicking rocks and making noise.

This. Aeration by mechanical means will do wonders. Disking alone, without planting, is one of the best ways to help overgrazed pasture. Even better if you can plant native seed. It is EXPENSIVE though. There's probably native seed still on the ground. Disking will help it reestablish. Oh, and rainfall. We've been fortunate to have a couple of pretty good rains since the cows were sold. Big Bluestem is coming back, along with some vetch, and of course King ranch bluestem. We may have to mow soon. We haven't done that in years. Before, it looked like a desert.