Episode 179: Rewilding Livestock Instincts for Soil Health with Bob Kinford

Regenerative Agriculture Podcast

AEA Marketing

Science, Natural Sciences, Earth Sciences

4.7 • 548 Ratings

🗓️ 1 May 2026

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Bob Kinford is a veteran stockman and grazing consultant who has spent a lifetime observing and refining the way we interact with livestock. His journey began as a child watching cattle scatter while sheep and goats remained bunched, leading him to question the conventional belief that cows lack decision-making capabilities. Through decades of working alone, he developed a unique approach to managing large herds without the use of permanent or electric fencing, focusing instead on the intuitive relationship between the handler and the animal's natural instincts.

Bob advocates for the "rebooting" of cattle to restore their innate herd instincts and selective grazing habits. He demonstrates how this transition allows livestock to become more nutritionally self-sufficient, often consuming invasive species and "weeds" like leafy spurge or spotted knapweed that they would typically ignore in a stressed environment. By utilizing proactive management, he illustrates how stress-free handling can significantly increase forage productivity, soil health through distributed fertility, and overall ranch profitability.

In this episode John and Bob discuss:

The inherent intelligence and decision-making capabilities of livestock compared to mainstream scientific views
Managing large herds across vast landscapes without the use of traditional or electronic fencing
Creating murmurations in cattle to guide their movement through subtle body positioning and intention
The three-day "reboot" process that triggers cattle to begin eating highly nutritious invasive plants
Strategies for increasing animal weight gain by reducing the stress associated with traditional feeding and moving
The relationship between animal bedding patterns and the development of mycorrhizal fungi in the soil

Additional Resources
To learn more about Bob and his work, please visit: https://migratorygrazing.com/ or http://bobkinford.com/

About John Kempf
John Kempf is the founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture (AEA). A top expert in biological and regenerative farming, John founded AEA in 2006 to help fellow farmers by providing the education, tools, and strategies that will have a global effect on the food supply and those who grow it.

Through intense study and the knowledge gleaned from many industry leaders, John is building a comprehensive systems-based approach to plant nutrition – a system solidly based on the sciences of plant physiology, mineral nutrition, and soil microbiology.

Support For This Show & Helping You Grow
Since 2006, AEA has been on a mission to help growers become more resilient, efficient, and profitable with regenerative agriculture.

AEA works directly with growers to apply its unique line of liquid mineral crop nutrition products and biological inoculants. Informed by cutting-edge plant and soil data-gathering techniques, AEA's science-based programs empower farm operations to meet the crop quality markers that matter the most.

AEA has created real and lasting change on millions of acres with its products and data-driven services by working hand-in-hand with growers to produce healthier soil, stronger crops, and higher profits.

Beyond working on the ground with growers, AEA leads in regenerative agriculture media and education, producing and distributing the popular and highly-regarded Regenerative Agriculture Podcast, inspiring webinars, and other educational content that serve as go-to resources for growers worldwide.

Learn more about AEA's regenerative programs and products: https://www.advancingecoag.com

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, friends, this is John.
0:02.1	Welcome back to the regenerative agriculture podcast where we have all kinds of fun conversations
0:06.7	about all kinds of fun topics related to regeneration, regeneration of soil, of plants, of livestock,
0:14.5	of our health, and of our relationships.
0:17.4	Today, I'm looking forward to perhaps a bit of an unusual or interesting conversation,
0:23.7	an uncommon conversation for many of us.
0:27.3	There are, years ago, I read this fascinating little book by Rupert Sheldrick titled
0:33.3	Dogs Who Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home.
0:37.1	And mainstream science for many years
0:41.6	referred to animals as being dumb animals. Oh, they have a smaller brain capacity than us.
0:47.3	They don't have decision-making capability like us. And yeah, they were just referred to as
0:52.7	dumb animals. Well, you don't have to spend very much time with livestock or dogs or really any animals
0:59.5	in a production agriculture setting to figure out that that is not true.
1:04.3	That they are actually very capable of decision making, they're very intuitive, they're
1:08.8	very aware, probably as in the case of dogs
1:11.5	who know when their owners are coming home from quite some distance, they're aware in ways that we are
1:16.3	not. And so I've really been looking forward to having this conversation with Bob Kenford,
1:21.7	who's a name that may be familiar to many of you. Bob, thank you for joining me here today.
1:27.4	Rather than offering an introduction and a background of your work,, thank you for joining me here today.
1:30.8	Rather than offering an introduction and a background of your work,
1:34.4	I'd love for you to describe that and tell us a little bit about your journey and the things that you've been working on.
1:36.9	Well, I started out.
	...

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