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Why did growing large herds require steppe people to migrate?

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Map showing the extent of the Eurasian steppes, highlighted in green, stretching from eastern Europe through Ukraine and southern Russia, across Kazakhstan, and into Mongolia and northern China. The map labels the Western Steppe and Eastern Steppe regions and includes major geographic features, countries, and ancient sites within the steppe zone. — the Steppe Extent of the Eurasian steppes.

On the Eurasian Steppe, the necessity for pastoralists to migrate with their herds was driven primarily by the need to manage limited food resources for their animals. Because the steppe is a semiarid environment, herbage in any single location was quickly depleted by grazing livestock.12

To sustain their herds, pastoralists had to move their animals every few days or weeks to fresh pastures where the vegetation had not yet been consumed. This requirement imposed strict limits on the size of nomadic groups; because large groups would make daily travel between pastures too slow and lengthy for lactating animals, pastoralists typically dispersed into small kinship groups during most of the year.1

While these groups were small, their mobility allowed them to cover significant distances—sometimes 400 to 500 miles—in seasonal patterns to ensure their animals had access to adequate grazing. This nomadic way of life was a fundamental adaptation to the geography of the steppe, where the reliance on domesticated livestock necessitated constant movement to prevent overgrazing and ensure the survival of the herd.13