Real Wealth Ranching

We ranchers/farmers are usually hard pressed for time to socialize, have fun, or be with family and it does not need to be that way. 

To enjoy life in the land we need to be managers and not become firemen where we are constantly putting fires out, which if planned properly do not even light up.

Being a good livestock manager requires us to observe each one of our animals every day and it is much easier to observe them correctly when they are all bunched up and we are with them 4 times a day than when they are spread over many acres.  This becomes more important the larger the ranch is.  Contrary to popular opinion cattle feel insecure when spread out and feel secure inside a tight herd. 

Cattle and sheep gain better under a Total grazing when moved four times a day, they are also more efficient at harvesting when not soiling the forage before being able to consume it.  Total grazing enhances leaf to stem ratio which improves our soil humus content fastest...

We humans have the ability, by our management and actions, to either destroy or build.  It is our responsibility to hand our assets to future generations better than we found them.  Land is no different and when we consider that a ranch or farm is a living organism intercommunicated by mycorrazhea and contains millions of microorganisms, insects, birds, mammals, reptiles, trees, forages, grasses, legumes, etc. we can easily become overwhelmed.

Understanding all the interrelationships between all these living organisms in the land is complex as in natural systems 1+1 isn’t always 2, it can be 9 or 15 due to building on each other in a symbiotic way.

We can understand how each action or decision impacts the whole ranch/farm organism and bring harmony to where the land or environment benefits and improves year on year.  To do this we need to be keen observers and know some basics.

In one ranch we have increased organic matter from 1% in 2012 to 3.18% in 2019. ...

When we have been total grazing half the ranch in the growing season (total grazing half means it doesn’t get away from the cows and thus maintains higher quality). There is the other half that will have the full growing season to grow, deepen its roots and allow for the full expression of each individual plant.

This is where we enhance the humus production the most by having deeper, stronger roots and having more carbon remain in the soil after the following total grazing on the next non-growing season.

We have observed where this is practiced that the rested or spelled area develops a mellow, darker soil.

In this rested area, there is no human or animal traffic, is where most wildlife will be concentrated and meshes well with a goal of enhancing wildlife habitat which improves biodiversity, essential for good resiliency of the land.
This is where ground resting birds have the best habitat to reproduce unmolested.

It is also the time to recruit seedlings of desirable species...

There is a big difference between selective grazing where the animal is allowed to graze the species and parts of species that it prefers and Total grazing where the animal is not allowed that luxury and has to consume most everything on offer.

To have the cattle thrive under this management the grazing periods need to be short, so the rumen has a constant quality of feed coming into this wonderful batch system that is the rumen.  Around every two hours is the optimum but this will depend on quality of forage on offer.

This takes some experience to do successfully so the cattle are getting enough breaks and area to do well (full gut at the end of the day, good looking manure, pre grazing and post grazing pasture mass).

The benefits to the environment are:

1. Plants have the old growth removed, which allows the sunlight to reach the growing points to where better and more tillers are produced.
2. The animal density needs to be higher to make the animals to achieve total grazing, this...

We have been a bit busy finalizing the Total Grazing course... but we are back on track on the blog posts!

Wanted to share with you the importance of protein supplementation on stockpiled forage.

Bacteria in the rumen have a minimum protein requirement to be able to digest fiber efficiently.

The normal minimum is around 8 % for these bacteria to be able to be efficient.  The consequences of not meeting this minimum will vary depending on the environment and the amount of fiber in the forage.

Under low content of lignin in the forage the cow will be able to overeat up to 40 % above her dry matter requirements to be able to make up for the deficiency thus decreasing the amount of cattle carried on a given area of ground.

This is very important under conditions of forage shortages or when land is expensive and we want to optimize number of cows per ranch

Number of cows per ranch is the most important factor determining profits per ranch, it is far more...

Cool season grasses and legumes are VERY different in composition than warm season perennials.

When lush and growing fast they are very high in protein, low in fiber and their energy is in the form of sugars which causes acidosis and it’s the reason that the drying manure forms a white crust when this is not addressed.

The reason is that sugar is very high in oxygen or soluble carbohydrates on a dry matter basis, and if we consider the acidosis plus the excess ammonia produced in the rumen we can see why more health problems develop.

When such forages are digested the microorganisms in the rumen digest the carbohydrate portion of the excess amino acids belching, so to speak, the ammonia which being a gas goes through the rumen walls and enter the blood stream causing high pH.

This excess ammonia gas is also the main cause of frothy bloat.

While the rumen is having to cope with the lactic acid produced by the digestion of the high sugar content in these forages the blood and...

When we graze tall all the time there is shade and if done all the time this shade to the growing points leads to some of them dying, when this happens we start to get wider inter plant spacings which is undesirable.

We can get very large plants with wider plant spacings but we want high production of leaves per square yard not high production per plant.

This is the same as beef production per acre not beef production per animal or the same as high corn production per acre not high corn production per plant.

If we take off 10-20 % and trample the rest (if forages are low fiber due to environment and the don't spring back up) it means that we need to come back 5 to 9 times faster which also means that the most desirable species will be re grazed before they recover completely.  If, on the other hand, we don't increase stocking rate so we can afford to selectively graze only 10-20 % of the grass on offer we are missing on possible profits that a higher stocking rate would...