Winter Grazing Wisdom

Balancing Herd Health, Pasture Performance & Soil Regeneration What does it take to keep livestock thriving and pastures resilient through a long Western winter? In this episode, we sit down with a seasoned rangeland expert, Kelsey Miller, who has spent over two decades working with ranchers across Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado to fine-tune grazing management and regenerative practices. From traditional feeding to innovative approaches like stockpile grazing and bale grazing, we explore the strategies ranchers use to maintain herd performance, protect soil health, and make the most of limited winter forage. She breaks down how feed quality changes with the seasons, why palatability matters, and how balancing nitrogen and carbon in the diet can boost animal health. We also dig into how winter can actually be an opportunity to improve soil health from using bale grazing to build organic matter and microbial activity, to leveraging snow as a water source and managing grazing density when the ground is frozen solid. Plus, we touch on key watchouts like toxicity risks, unwanted seed spread, and overgrazing dormant forages. Whether you're managing a ranch, consulting on grazing systems, or just fascinated by how regenerative livestock systems work year-round, this conversation offers practical insights and fresh perspective on the art and science of winter grazing. About the our guests: Kelsey Miller is currently based out of Billings Montana. She comes from a ranching background, and has spent much of the last 20 years working to improve Western pastures, rangelands, and the herds that graze them. She attended Montana State University in Bozeman, where she earned her B.S in animal science. Her professional focus includes grazing systems, plant community dynamics, mapping, monitoring, remote sensing, soil health, local food systems, animal health, wildlife ecology, and landscape level collaboration.

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