The Frugal Farmer

Sustainable agriculture.....environmental stewardship, farm profitability, 

and prosperous farming communities.

Profitability:

More and more farmers and ranchers are getting completely out of the hay-feeding pattern or significantly reducing the number of days they feed hay. Whether you're out feeding in the cold or just looking out your window at cows and goats eating hay at a cost of $2/animal/day, it should be a wake-up call for all of us. With out-of-control hay prices and prospects for even higher costs in 2008, getting serious about extending the grazing season has never been more important.

It isn't one change in your business that's makes this transition possible; it usually takes several changes. Here are the top five moves for getting out of the hay-feeding rut.

1. Have a plan for year-around grazing. This doesn't mean just hoping you have some grass left over in the fall to use during winter. It means making a critical evaluation of all of your forage resources and mapping out when they can be 
used optimally.

Develop a calendar of when your stock will have their highest and lowest demands. As an industry, we've given a lot of lip service to matching forage and animal resources, but the majority of ranchers still do a pretty poor job of implementing a sound plan. 

2. Change your calving and kidding season to a less demanding time of year. It's much easier to graze a dry, pregnant cow through the winter than a lactating mama.

For many of today's moderate to high milk-producing beef cows and meat goats, daily forage demand at peak lactation is 50-80% higher than at dry, pregnant maintenance. Late-spring or early-summer calving and kidding seasons work well on a lot of ranches and farms once you change your mind about a few things. I've met very few producers who, after trying later calving and kidding, returned to winter births. 

3. Make sure your cattle and/or goats match your environment and climatic conditions. You really want your animals to survive and thrive on the native resources of your ranch. The more petroleum and iron you put between the sun's solar energy and your goat’s and cow's belly, the less profitable you will be.

Cattle and goats should be able to earn their own living. Consider every head of livestock on your place to be a ranch employee. Your primary job as manager is to set up conditions for your employees to do their jobs.

4. Manage all your pasture and rangeland more intensively. This doesn't mean graze it more intensively; it means manage it more intensively. If you do, you will get more annual production and greater carrying capacity from your land.

Irrigated pastures are still the most productive land in the West and should be managed most intensively. This is one of the easiest places to pick up more grazing days. One of the strongest arguments made for Management-intensive Grazing (MiG) in the summertime is to create more winter pasture opportunities.

5. Change range and pasture use from summer grazing to winter grazing. In most environments with degraded range and pasture land, switching to predominantly winter use is a great strategy for improving condition. Many public lands offices are very willing to work with ranchers on this kind of positive change. Most are willing to work with you if you have a grazing plan that will help them meet their conservation goals

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You may not need to make all these changes in your operation. It depends on where you are right now. 

Main Source: BEEF Cow-Calf Weekly