Pasture management refers to the planned establishment, use, and renewal of pasture to maximise feed supply, pasture persistence, and animal performance while protecting soil and plant health. Good pasture management in New Zealand’s sheep farming systems means growing the right pasture species in the right place, and grazing them at the right time and intensity so that pasture regrows quickly and maintains high nutritional value. This relies on understanding pasture dry matter (DM), measured as kg DM/ha, which is used to quantify feed supply, intake, and demand across the farm.
Most New Zealand sheep pastures are based on perennial ryegrass and white clover, with cultivars selected for yield, persistence, seasonal growth pattern, and tolerance to pests and grazing. On harder hill country and high country, pastures are more variable and may include browntop, Yorkshire fog, and other low-fertility species alongside improved grasses and clovers. Establishment and renewal (regrassing) involve planting improved species into suitable paddocks at appropriate times of year and allowing new pastures to establish before grazing, to support long-term pasture persistence and utilisation. Pasture renewal rates on sheep and beef farms are typically lower than on dairy farms — around 2–3% per year — reflecting the more extensive nature of many sheep farming systems.
On more productive lowland finishing farms, specialist pasture species are increasingly used to support lamb growth rates and reduce internal parasite challenge. Chicory and plantain offer higher metabolic energy and digestibility than ryegrass-white clover pastures, support faster lamb live weight gains from spring through to autumn, and are associated with reduced faecal egg counts in lambs grazing them. These species are typically established as dedicated herb and legume leys or incorporated as a proportion of mixed pasture swards.
Pasture cover refers to the quantity of grazeable pasture present across a farm at a given time, expressed as kilograms of dry matter per hectare (kg DM/ha). It is a core measure used to inform feed allocation decisions and support animal performance, particularly during periods of high feed demand such as pre-lambing, lambing, and lamb finishing.
Once established, pasture is managed through grazing rotations or rounds, which determine how long sheep graze a paddock and how long it rests before being grazed again. Rotation length is adjusted to match pasture growth rate (kg DM/ha/day) with flock feed demand. Rotational grazing is increasingly recognised as best practice in New Zealand sheep systems, improving pasture quality, increasing clover content, and supporting better animal performance compared to continuous set stocking.
Sheep are selective grazers, nipping pasture short and preferring shorter, leafier material. This means they graze pasture more closely than cattle and are better able to maintain low, even residuals, but also more prone to overgrazing preferred species if managed poorly. A key operational principle is leaving an appropriate post-grazing residual to support rapid regrowth and maintain the vigour of desirable pasture species, particularly white clover, which requires consistent residual management in spring to encourage stolon branching and maintain its summer contribution to feed quality.
Grazing too short (overgrazing) weakens plants, reduces pasture utilisation, slows regrowth, and can shift species composition toward less desirable species. Grazing too lightly (undergrazing) allows pasture to become too long and fibrous, lowering digestibility and protein content, increasing selective grazing and wastage, and slowing subsequent regrowth. Balancing pre-grazing cover, residuals, and rotation length is central to maintaining productive, high-quality pasture that underpins animal performance and profitability in pasture-based systems.
During lambing, ewes with lambs are commonly set-stocked on paddocks for several weeks to allow lambs to bond with their mothers and grow without the disruption of frequent moves. After weaning, mobs return to rotational management. Autumn pasture management is particularly important on sheep farms — ryegrass pastures are typically grazed hard in autumn, often during mating (tupping), to allow them to return to a vegetative state and set up good pasture cover for the winter.
Deferred grazing — resting 10–15% of the farm from mid-spring through to late summer or early autumn — is used on sheep farms to allow desirable pasture species to reseed, increase tiller density, and improve pasture persistence. Deferred paddocks are broken back into the rotation in late summer using cattle or mob-stocked ewes, and then managed as renewed pastures over the following winter.
While most New Zealand sheep farms are predominantly pasture-based, supplementary feeding plays an important role in managing seasonal feed deficits and supporting animal performance at critical times.
The degree of supplementary feeding varies considerably by farm type and production system. Extensive hill and high country farms typically use minimal supplementation, with conserved feed reserved for severe winters or to support ewes in poor body condition in the lead-up to lambing. Intensive finishing farms on lowland country use supplementary feeding more actively to drive lamb growth rates and meet slaughter targets.
Common supplementary feeds used in New Zealand sheep systems include:
Feed budgeting — matching projected feed supply against animal demand across the farming year — is a core management tool on sheep farms, particularly in the lead-up to lambing when ewe nutritional requirements increase sharply and miscalculation carries significant production consequences.
Contract grazing is commonly used in sheep systems to manage feed demand, shift stock between farm types, and support the movement of store lambs and replacements through the production system. Common arrangements include:
Contract grazing introduces biosecurity risks from moving live animals across farm boundaries and requires clear agreements around animal identification, Animal Status Declaration (ASD) obligations, animal health responsibilities, and feed allocation.
There is no standardised national classification system for New Zealand sheep farms equivalent to the DairyNZ farm system types for dairy. However, Beef + Lamb New Zealand classifies commercial sheep and beef farms into eight farm classes based on land type, topography, stocking rate, and production system. These classes are widely used for benchmarking and research purposes across the sheep and beef sector.
The farm classes most relevant to sheep production are:
Sheep farming spans all eight farm classes, with breeding systems concentrated on harder hill and high country (Classes 1–4) and finishing systems on lower, more productive land (Classes 5–7). The tiered nature of the system — where breeding farms supply store lambs and replacement hoggets to finishing farms — means that pasture management decisions on any one farm are closely connected to the broader movement of sheep across farm types and regions.
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