Shapely Grazing

by Troy Bishopp

Geometry wasn’t my strong suit in school, but on the land, it makes more sense to see how shapes meld together to form a cohesive landscape.  If you’re moving fences or dialing them into your virtual fence collars, working with shapes on grazing land is a practice that honors art based on science, mathematics and constant observation. 

Take a look at any grazing plan, and you’ll see how someone interpreted the shapes, delineated them, measured them, and created a specific movement schedule based on their goals and context while taking into account sensitive land management areas off-limits to grazing.   

There’s a macro-view from space with tools like Google Earth and the NRCS Soil Web Survey for viewing topography, which is very useful, and where you can add hypothetical shapes to the land units you intend to manage.   

As farmers, this activity tends to favor the grid-like nature of square and rectangular fields into a land plan, common in the United States due to historical land surveys. Where land allows, uniform sized paddocks with parallel sides are most desirable to producers.  Ask any grazier if they prefer working with straight lines or judge others by their lack of “said” uniformity?   

The emphasis is usually creating these preferred paddock shapes for grazing efficiency, ease of animal movement, fencing costs, infrastructure and manure placement, and machine harvest availability while also keeping the “look” of good management.  These shapely land units work well with advanced grazing systems like rotational grazing, where large pastures are divided into smaller, manageable sections with portable fencing and water infrastructure.  

Putting shapes into practical grazing implementation is where the hoof meets the ground. Countless research papers indicate that the shape of the paddock will influence grazing behavior where the producer steers the impact.  Each shape created is a tool for one’s management context.   

Squares are good for more uniform grazing and manure distribution. Rectangles are good if you want to create more trampled forage as there is more trailing.  Circles are often used around irrigation systems and triangle shapes when there is a central waterer. The freestyle shape, used after the preferred shapes have been cut out, is also in play.  Contours, hills, valleys and changes in soil and plant species type all influence shapely grazing impacts.  Remember every shape can be further “shaped” (squares made into rectangles, rectangles into triangles etc. etc.) for a specific impact. 

Ya know what’s fun? Using portable fencing to create the shape and exciting the animal’s grazing impact to positively affect the triple bottom line.  It’s also quite fascinating, (and my signature ice-breaker at a pasture walk) to mimic this behavior and impact with grownups and kids alike.  Humans put in different shapes, and manipulated by density, is a great learning experience.  Turns out people aren’t much different than animals, but the message of shapely grazing resonates with laughter, especially for the herd quitter. 

To get the planned result for paddock shapes, it takes understanding, observation and practice.  In addition, there are a whole host of other factors within the shapes that need to be considered.  As Dr. Allen Williams from Understanding Ag LLC. alludes to, “Nature becomes stagnant if we settle into a routine with our management practices, so introduce periodic, planned disruptions in order to keep things moving forward.”  

Factors such as pulsing stock densities, altering paddock configuration and direction, changing up rotation schedules and impacts, fluctuating rest/rotation periods, altering grazing forage heights on and off a paddock and combining two or more impact tools, like an ultra-high stock density graze followed by an extra-long rest period, all play well within the chosen shapes. 

For 2026, consider reevaluating the use of shapes or shape files in creating a grazing plan that improves the natural tendencies of land, soil, water, plant and animal communities within your grazing context.  And know, you can control the outcome with a reel and some innate creativity.  Reminds me of fishing, but that’s a bigger tale.