Real Wealth Ranching

Coronavirus/Rotavirus affects newborn calves and usually kills them or sets them back severely, it is usually identified by white scours and the calf appears listless, weak, thin, and does not respond to antibiotics, eventually the hair starts to drop off and feels like cardboard. It is frustrating to the cow as her calf stops taking milk and withers away.

When I first implemented an optimal calving season in the subtropics of Florida, we started having very young calves with scours, sometimes grey and sometimes white. At first, I could not identify the agent causing this but knew that it did not respond to antibiotics. Thanks to a good veterinarian that had experience with dairy cattle and after taking many samples to the laboratory he was able to identify the agent causing these deaths and it was coronavirus/rotavirus.  We proceeded to vaccinate with killed virus vaccine the pregnant cows before next calving season and the problem were solved. More and more this is becoming...

Have you ever had a cow, or first calf heifer steal some other cow calf and abandon their own?

I have had this situation every year before I learned a better way, it is a lot of hassle and stress to try to have the dam take its own calf back once it rejects it due to confusion after a long day’s work on calving season. Just recently one of my students had this happen with a first calf heifer and believe me, it is not enjoyable to graft the calf back to its own dam. This happens not because the animal is a bad mother but due to its own instinct and we need to learn why this happens to prevent it.

When we have concentrated calving occur in a short period as in an optimal calving season, we end up having multiple births per day, all those hormones and smells can confuse first calf heifers, first calf heifers having no previous calving experience are notorious to confuse their newborn calves and steal the calf of another cow, even experienced cows can be confused when they do not...

This year I have observed a drier weather pattern in the growing season in many parts around the world, this is defined as drought. This may have impacted you in your environment or you may have heard of it.

It is particularly a problem when we have a drought during our calving season. Why is it an issue when calving in a drought? Well, as it may be obvious, we have a lack of forage.

What it ends up happening is that we start to rotate our calving cows trying to graze the small amount of forage in each paddock. And even if we move them slowly, which requires a lot of attention and care, we still can end up with calves left behind.

This is so common that having a percentage of calves lost or left behind is considered normal by many ranchers and farmers.

I can relate to that… Many years ago, when I did not know the best way to manage this situation, I left for the weekend and had someone else move the calving herd to a new paddock in their rotation. When I came back on Monday,...

Last week and this week I have been building fences... in the hot sun of Florida.

But I have done this gladly because fencing is so important to achieve Total Grazing in a ranch.

Fencing allows us to have the "predator effect" which is key to improve our land the fastest.

Today I am sharing with you 5 simple but very important tips you can use when building fences:

1. Whenever you start try to first design where your roads will go, and the roads will double as water alleys to your water points.

2. Go to through highest ridges, your cows and vehicles will spend less energy travelling around the ranch on the highest ridges.

3. Try to avoid steep slopes because that will create erosion on the road or water alley

4. Build a perimeter road so that you can travel around your ranch and put out fires and to check perimeter fences, that’s very important!

5. Then you go perpendicular to your water alleys or road and build a grid of permanent one-wire fences which will be no...

I have stated: selective grazing leads to overgrazing when you have high to very high stocking rates.

I say this because by doing selective grazing we, by definition, leave a shorter rest to grazed paddocks and the herd returns sooner to re graze what was grazed.  Whenever rainfall diminishes the best species get re grazed before they have had the chance to fully replenish their energy reserves in crown/roots which means they are being over grazed.

Overgrazing occurs when an individual plant is re grazed before it has fully recovered from a previous grazing.  It has nothing to do with severity of grazing and it’s a function of time.  That is the reason why they advise to lower stocking rate when they get less rainfall.

With Total grazing we avoid overgrazing by taking more cow/days per grazing which allows for a much longer rest period.  Short rest periods in a short drought situation causes overgrazing.

Remember, stocking rate or the number of productive...

In my previous blog I talked about how the actual and most popular advice comes from an experiment done at University of Missouri by Crider in 1955 which concluded that it is better to take half and leave half of the forage when grazing. I also explained why that is totally incorrect when applied to the real world and especially when compared to what can be achieved, in terms of the ecosystem, under correct Total grazing.

Now I would like to explain what Happy plants means and its importance in increasing your ranch/farm stocking rate.

When plants are rested for a longer period, we find that microorganisms feeding on root exudates in turn feed the plant.  These microorganisms make soil nutrients available, and we also know that they can be ingested by the root of the plant, this is known as rhizophagy.  It becomes a closed cycle, additionally there is mellowing of the soil effect by the longer rest periods which makes the soil fluffy, this may also have to do with...

Regrowth after grazing relies on root and crown energy reserves, it is as nature functions and its why I want fat roots in my forages. The theory that says that regrowth depends on leaving enough photosynthetic material, or leaves, un grazed is not correct.

That theory comes from a study done by Crider in 1955 in Missouri by clipping at short intervals of less than 30 days on young annual grasses as a monoculture that hadn't had the opportunity to grow a full root system before the experiment started. No cattle were used, only scissors; what could be wrong with that? No regrowth enhancing saliva, no tugging of plants by cattle, no manure or urine, no hoof effect of high stock densities. In short, a very incorrect experiment which is the basis of the take half leave half actual recommendations by most grazing teachers and advisers.

In real life it doesn’t happen that way, especially under Total grazing where the saliva is close to the crown and as we know, the closer the...

Last blog I tried to explain how Total grazing creates more humus and how too much litter impairs new seedlings. 

Now, I am going to talk about how the higher leaf to stem ratio following a Total grazing creates a better solar panel which allows for higher forage production every year if done correctly.

Leaves produce energy through photosynthesis, stems consume energy by respiring.  The ratio of leaf to stem determines forage production and humus buildup.  Cattle also do better on a leafy pasture.

This increase in harvest efficiency means we can take more cow days from each grazing and give longer rest periods to every paddock.  What happens with longer rest periods? Higher total forage production!

What happens to better species composition? The best species are not grazed selectively and have a longer period to establish, grow and reproduce!

This means that, under Total grazing, we not only get more cow/days harvested per acre but also increase the following:

Lately I have observed that many grazers confuse Total grazing with overgrazing or taking all and coming back sooner.

This is NOT Total grazing, and we would not get the huge response we are getting from the land and animals in terms of biodiversity, higher forage production, better leaf to stem ratio, higher humus buildup, better desirable species composition and much higher number of growing points per square yard.

First let’s talk about how most humus is formed: it is not from decaying litter. Now we know that at least 70 percent of humus is formed from digested microorganisms that feed on root exudates.

What are the implications of this? This means that the better the leaf to stem ratio we get after Total grazing gives us a much better photosynthesis rate and more root exudates to feed these microorganisms.

Remember, these microorganisms need to be fat to efficiently be converted to humus with humus being the stable fraction of organic matter that cannot be further...

Please remember, I will talk about the best grass management under high to very high stocking rates, the number of productive animals carried on your ranch per year.  Everything will revolve around this.

Under selective grazing, because harvest efficiency is much lower, either a much lower stocking rate is needed, or you will need to graze the whole property and call the leftovers stockpile.  But it is NOT.

The leftovers after selective grazing are much lower in quality, as the cows select the best and leave what they do not like (much lower quality in leftovers!), especially as the Winter or dry season advances. This makes the protein supplement costs MUCH higher and your cows body condition much lower which is NOT in your best interest.

Under Total grazing, at the very high stocking rates needed for profitability and to improve your land the fastest, we leave a portion of the ranch to stockpile, in the growing season, with NO grazing there; in this area the roots grow...