Dung Beetles & the Perfect Manure Patty at Banbury Grasslands

The video shows dung beetles working on a fresh manure patty.  The patty is pretty close to perfect, the right consistency that stacks up just a bit with a tell-tale divot in the middle.  This tells us that the cattle are getting a good balanced diet and are gaining weight.  If the patty was too runny and very flat it indicates too much protein in the diet from immature grass plants or that they are eating the plants down too far (in which case they need to be moved to new grass faster, or given more at a time).  If the patty stacked up very high, it indicates they are eating too much low quality over-mature grass with very high non-digestible fiber.  In both too runny, too firm cases the cattle will be gaining slowly or possibly loosing weight.