The benefits of grazing are numerous. Grazing allows animals to feed themselves in a low-stress environment, lowers human labor requirements for feeding and manure management, as well as creating a more pastoral image of the animals spread out across the landscape contentedly grazing forages at their leisure.

The dry weather of 2012 has left most livestock producers in the Midwest scrambling for more hay. First-cutting hay yields were down 20 to 40 percent in much of Michigan and with the dry weather intensifying, total hay yields for the year could be off by 50 percent or more. In order to feed ruminant animals such as beef cattle, sheep and others through the winter season many are looking for ways to stretch their feed resources.