Quickest Ways to Profitability & Harmony

This list is old news, but reviews are seldom a waste of time. Oftentimes, we need to revisit a topic to find the low hanging fruit of our business or keeping a home to be more effective in our lives.

Questions to ask yourself:

“Am i asking the right question?” How can i do this without spending money? Do i need to do this? Am i very efficiently doing the wrong thing?

If you think it won’t work for you, then it won’t. If it’s something we don’t want to change, we will set up the situation to fail on purpose. We often are the biggest stumbling block to harmony in our professions and relationships by refusing to seek a solution which, oddly, in many situations would not only enhance our lives, but be more productive and profitable as well!

As Kit Pharo says, ‘The easiest money you will ever make is the money you don’t spend – and that money is tax-free.”

In ranching:

1. Combine animals into as few herds as possible. One or two is best. One cow herd, one bull herd kept separate until breeding season. Having one cowherd will greatly reduce the number of bulls you need to cover the cows. A single herd moved multiple times per day will actually improve productivity of the soil and increase desirable plant species (aka regenerative ranching) more rapidly than some popular managed selective grazing programs. Think outside the box on this one. Although one herd is ideal, sometimes there may be a reason for another. In the season of life you are young, strong, energetic, it is important to have cash flow and other income streams. Use separate pastures (leased or owned) for short term use. For instance, you may have a herd of yearling heifers or steers. Perhaps you want to breed your yearling replacement heifers to easy calving bulls. If you have many multiple pastures, miles apart – consider another use for the far-reaching ones. Perhaps hay it in the summer, then allow to grow for short term yearling grazing (sell the animals before winter). Lease or sell the land and focus on the main portions. Chances are very good that profitability will increase, labor will decrease, family life will improve.
2. Calve in sync with nature. In our part of the world of north central Missouri, one would look back in history and learn when the bison calved. This is typically mid-May through June, perhaps a bit into July. Oftentimes you may hear, ‘when do the deer fawn?’ But deer are more like sheep or goats than cattle and breeding season weather needs consideration in many parts of the world. While you are at it, shorten the breeding season to discover your most fertile cows.
3. Let cows raise their calves. In extreme weather conditions, it may be necessary to wean calves early and sell either them or their mommas.
4. Select animals for your breeding herd from your own stock. Starting out, try to find local animals raised the way you will be. This will likely be nearly impossible, and you’ll end up culling a lot. Expensive up front, but long term is the best solution to finding adapted animals which can perform without expensive inputs.
5. Incorporate some sort of managed grazing. I use Real Wealth Ranching techniques which is a way of incorporating nonselective grazing, identifying adapted animals, matching calving/breeding season with forage availability, increasing profitability, and creating harmony in your life and human relationships.
6. ‘Kick the Hay Habit‘ might be the name of a book by Jim Gerrish, but it is great advice for reducing costs. Hay and all the labor and machinery expense associated with it seldom makes sense in today’s ranching world. There are exceptions – especially weather related – but by and large it takes a huge bite out of the bottom line.
7. Reduce overheads! Stan Parsons said you only need a hammer and a wheelbarrow to be a financially successful rancher, and the wheelbarrow was questionable. Now, i might be paraphrasing, but his point is clear; that which rusts, rots, and depreciates is not an asset and likely adds labor and other unnecessary costs. Machinery, buildings, vehicles, even a stack of hay!

Decades ago, i sat in on an introductory Ranching for Profit course taught by Stan Parsons and i thought he had the craziest ideas. I’ve long since embraced many of his precepts, but the concepts need to be revisited to keep on track. I’m constantly making mistakes and forgetting to keep my life in harmony with my work.

Hopefully, future blog entries will dig a bit deeper into each point with real life, personal examples, and experiences.

Shabbat Shalom!

Create beauty and harmony!

To Burn? Or Not To Burn?

Burning grasslands is a landscaping management tool used by many to burn off old, thatched grasses and forbes which are preventing new seedlings from growing thereby creating dead zones where nothing is growing. It’s not necessarily a ‘bad’ management tool, but i prefer not to use it because:

1. it releases carbon and smoke pollution into the atmosphere
2. completely eliminates all habitat for small wildlife
3. often burns up those small critters overtaken by fire and smoke
4. can be dangerous by getting away due to high winds and massive fuel (dry grasses)
5. for safety, burning requires multiple people and management equipment to prepare the site in advance as well as continued monitoring

These are reasons i choose not to burn -plus honestly, fire simply scares me. Brush piles, i’ll burn, but even those can get away.

Many articles will argue first that fire is nature’s way of managing grasslands. Hmmm – maybe, but unless the prairies and plains are mismanaged, there are very, very few situations in which fire is ‘natural.’

It is true, however, that if you have land enrolled in CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) and you receive payments from the government for letting land lay idle year after year, then mowing or in some situations fire or chemical is required to keep those payments coming.

My choice is let the livestock, and to a lesser extent, wildlife, manage the grasslands with far less danger to man and beast, less erosion, natural fertilization, increased forage diversity, no pollution or carbon release, and small creatures, like mice, turtles, voles, moles, and other ground nesting animals are completely unharmed.

I am talking about a managed grazing technique called ‘Total Grazing.” Total grazing is not over grazing, it’s not grubbing the plants into the ground, it’s not selective grazing. All plants are grazed AFTER they have been allowed to grow tall and even to full maturity if needed before being grazed. This results in a balanced diet for the animals, habitat for nearly all wildlife until grazed, and lets those plants develop deep roots which stabilize the soil and prepare for growth. Thatch is grazed along with the green portion of the plants opening up the space for more desirable plant species. Deep roots create humus, organic matter is not humus. Organic matter still needs to be broken down and incorporated into the soil profile before it can even think about becoming food for soil microbes. Roots are ready made snacks. Grow fat roots for fat plants for faster recovery, but don’t graze until the plants are at the proper stage and don’t allow that second bite. Total grazing spreads out the manure across the paddocks for even coverage of nutrients.

Total grazing requires a good amount of education, just like burning, before diving in. Animal adaptation, observation, mobbing and shifting stock at the appropriate time, not allowing that second bite,

OR

CREATE SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL TODAY!

Landscaping

Having been involved in total grazing protocol for only 2 1/2 years now and still being understocked for such a venture, I’m only starting to see some grazing pressure on tree sprouts and multiflora rose bushes. Therefore, i’m still full on with cutting sprouts and treating stumps with Tordon.

Granted, control would be much faster if the time spent moving the cows 4 times a day at the right time would be effective. However, distance, time, and weather simply won’t allow it. However, i bet i’m getting close to at once a day over the course of the year.

This morning, at long last, i’ve met with a couple men who are equipped to clean out the junk trees along my ditches and draws so that quality trees can be allowed to grow (if they are away from the ditch), the ditches will be cleared of shade, so mud will be greatly reduced, which should result in my losing fewer cows to getting stuck and dying each year. On top of that, without trees on ditch banks, deep rooted native grasses will be allowed to take hold and stop the erosion caused by rushing waters. Trees simply are not designed to hold soil in place. Managing trees and brush will much profit the land, wildlife, water quality, viewshed, and timber harvests of the future.

Using livestock and a few small tools early on is a good plan, but, in my case, i’m way behind the eight ball, so big equipment, strong backs, and expertise will be the most effective use of time and money to get my farm in good working order quickly.

On this tiny plot after total grazing, i lopped about 140 tree sprouts and 30 some multiflora roses! I was glad to find several sprouts had had the tops and buds chewed off, others were broken off. Both signs of cattle molesting the plants for nutrition and a bit of a scratch.

Sure, it’s not knocked back enough to kill it, but smaller ones could be decimated. In the meantime, i keep after them.

Shabbat Shalom

Create something beautiful today!

Cows Grazing Weeds

We know that goats and sheep are excellent for eating weeds and brush and cows – not as much.

However, with adapted, trained cattle in a nonselective grazing protocal really do a fabulous job with a whole lot less labor and infrastructure (ie – fence that will hold water)

Compare these two photos taken before and after mobbing with total grazing principles.

Before

After

Shabbat Shalom!

To Mow or Not to Mow

Basically this is a math problem. What is the cost of mowing (brush hogging) a pasture vs the benefit of doing so.

Consider the fuel (which is expensive now), wear and tear on machinery, depreciation, and man hours. Now, ideally, one would not own or operate the machinery and therefore would avoid the depreciation (although John Deere tractors actually seem to appreciate in value as the dollar recedes) and hire someone to mow it for you. However, my husband has a lot of tractors and equipment, so we might as well use them, though it still takes someone to sit in the tractor.

So, i don’t know the numbers to make a math decision, but there is absolutely no doubt that the Bowyer Farm, which was cropped for 4 years with soybeans, wil hugely benefit having those suffocating weeds (ragweed and cocklebur) removed as a thick canopy preventing desirable species of grasses and legumes to take hold.

This paddock was the last to be grazed on the Bowyer farm, and like a couple others the results are the abundance of ragweed. The second photo below shows what is left after grazing then brush hogging. For perspective, there are 160 cows, 7 mature bulls, and 90 spring born calves in this photo!

With two tractors going, one with a 15 foot brush hog, and the other with a 20 foot brush hog, it did not take long for Allen and my son, Dallas, to finish the job. It’s particularly a good job these days of intense ragweed pollinating for Dallas because he can sit in the air conditioned tractor cab and get along well. My husband has to do all the fueling and greasing, however.

These side by side photos are important in that they illustrate the difference between a paddock that was grazed in a more timely manner and the ragweed and cocklebur were removed by cows grazing, thereby opening the canopy and allowing an abundance of clover and lespedeza (poor man’s alfalfa) to flourish. The second photo shows that very little is able to grow under 4-6 foot tall thick ragweed. Even cocklebur and foxtail couldn’t get a toe hold in that mess.

About five days ago (21 Aug 22), i moved the cows/calves across the road to a paddock which had been previously grazed (13 Jun-23Jun 2022) via total grazing protocols. We’ve had more than plenty of rain, so regrowth was fantastic and the forages in this paddock are at the peak of grazing readiness to provide the cows a well balanced diet. I’m convinced they’ve gained 100 lbs in just those few days due to superior diet. Clearly, one can see i’m not mobbing them for best pasture results. This is due to my severe allergies and not being able to be outside. If not for a/c in my Gator, I would turn them out in large paddock and not see them for a week or more.

Oh, the ragweed pollen!!!

Shabbat Shalom!

Mud, Mud, Mud

The past 5-6 years, the weather has quite deviated from the norm, but this year is more its irritating self. With frequent, yet light rains, drizzles, and cloudy weather resulting in constant mud, even on top of the ridges – there’s not a dry or even well drained spot on my farm. Pugging is everywhere, though thankfully, i don’t have large cows, so damage is mitigated by less animal weight per square inch.

This year is the first year in implementing the ‘no molestar’ (do not bother) concept of not shifting cows and calves to new paddocks during calving season. This has been a real blessing, however, given the mud and misery this year, the cows have trampled their large paddock and from the looks of it have wasted at least 50% of their forage mostly by walking around and trampling into the mud. This has forced me to move them to another paddock which is just as wet and muddy, but with thick forage. They will destroy it rapidly as well. Very thankful that through total grazing, there is plenty of reserve forage for the cows. The concept of not bothering the calving cows was interrupted and i had to find and pack and haul and drive a few calves – i think one has been abandoned – this is precisely why the pairs should be left alone during the important bonding time.

Gateways are becoming quite a mess with both cow foot traffic and Gator traffic

The continued cold, cloudy, and wet weather is taking its toll on the cows’ conditions and that of their calves, though it is most noticeable on those yearling first calf heifers and the really old cows.

Despite the rain, work continues as much as possible to avoid getting completely behind though there are many many jobs which must wait for warmer and much drier weather. Next week is supposed to warm up and not rain. Really looking forward to some warmth and especially sunshine.

Pugging is absolutely on every square inch of the paddock.

Forcing them to eat the brown and the green is keeping manure in pretty good shape, but the weather and ground conditions are taking the toll on animal condition. Plus they are very unhappy and unsatisfied – i’m not sure why except there’s been no sun and no place dry to lie down for a couple weeks. That would make me cranky, too.

Turn Out!

What is it about turning calves out to pasture makes me smile. No nanny cows now so will the calves respect familiar boundaries without adult supervision? #totalgrazing

This is where the calves were weaned into and it was getting short on grass! The hay is to help balance their diets so that the protein isn’t too high so as to get the ‘squirts.” If cattle are squirty, that’s diarrhea and they are likely losing weight.

Here’s the forage in pasture for them to graze. As soon as they came off the trailer, their heads dropped and they went straight to grazing! Nonselective (#totalgrazing) grazing in this would be ideal for cows, but growing calves will need to be monitored to be certain they are not being pushed to eat the dead grasses to the point they calves begin losing condition. On the other hand, if allowed to pick and choose only the fresh green forages, the calves’ diet will be skewed towards too much protein and will also lose condition. There is both art and science to grazing and animal husbandry in general. Observation is key, action is critical.