The reality is our grazable forage crops are what we produce, we use cattle to harvest the crop and sell the cattle. We increase profit by economically growing more grazable forage and selling more pounds of cattle (weaned calves, yearlings, feeder cows, etc.) for every acre of land. If we focus on selling more pounds per cow, such as selling larger feeder calves, we will be on a path to a slow but steady financial death, whereas if we manage our pastures in a way that sustainably increases carrying capacity and allows us to carry more animals – not bigger animals – we can increase profits substantially through increased total sales of end product (pounds of animal sold) and decreased overhead costs per unit.

Billy Whitehurst

PAS / Makale Livestock LLC

Email Billy Whitehurst

How do we do this? Follow the five principles of grazing:

1. Adjust the post-grazing rest period as growth rate changes. Slow-growing pastures require longer periods of rest than quick-growing pastures before re-grazing.

2. Use the shortest graze period possible. For some this may be one day, for some three days or for some native desert ranges it may only be practical to move them once a week. Each operation is different and no two will look the same.

3. Adjust stocking rates to match carrying capacity. Under stocking can be as bad as overstocking, so take the time to measure forage and stock accordingly. Remember that a 1,400-pound cow is 1.4 animal unit months (AUM’s) – which is a standardized measurement of the amount of forage in pounds that it takes to sustain a 1,000-pound cow with a less than 3-month-old calf at her side for one month. Know your intake requirements on each class of cattle and match that to your production capacity.

4. Use the largest herd possible. This is the easiest principle to employ. Combine all cattle into one group. Obviously, bulls have to be held out of the herd during times you want to avoid breeding, but once breeding season hits, they can rejoin and stay there until they become a danger of breeding heifer calves too early. This gives a double benefit of enlarging the herd, letting the cows teach the heifers how to be cows, as well as decreasing labor by having fewer groups of cattle to keep track of; a win all the way around. A bit of advice I learned from experience – let the heifers range through the winter and calve out on range with the cows. Once we started doing this our losses and problems in calving first calf heifers all but vanished. Calving heifers as a separate group is like turning a bunch of pregnant teenagers loose together. None of them know what to do. Let the older cows be the teachers. They are better at it than you are anyway.

5. Use the highest stocking density possible. Simply put, pack them in as tightly as is practical. This is generally measured in pounds of livestock per acre. Each land type, water availability and fencing will determine what you can do on your operation, but the tighter you can pack them for a short duration, the greater the harvest efficiency of the forage due to less selection opportunity the cattle have and reduced trampling loss.

The two most common methods of increasing stock density are to either increase the number of cattle in the same size pasture, which can be a challenge as it requires cattle to both come and go “on demand” and for a specific time period. This is often logistically infeasible. The other method is to reduce pasture size with the same number of cattle already in inventory until the desired stock density has been achieved. The latter method has a compounding benefit of creating more small pastures, which allows for more acres of the ranch to be at rest and in recovery mode. Higher stock densities also increase more uniform nutrient deposit back to the land in the form of manure and urine, as long as the cattle aren’t kept on it long enough to overgraze the pasture.

Some management practices that are realistic and proven to increase profit that hit on multiple grazing principles are: During fast growing times, move cattle as frequently as possible. As grass growth slows, rotations can slow as well and should slow to encourage uniform consumption of all available forages. Water and fencing are most often the limiting factors in how often rotations can be done. The use of temporary electric fence and virtual fence have decreased these barriers greatly. A little advice, get good with and learn to love electric fence. I have no experience with virtual fence, but it looks very promising and practical in many cases. In many of the larger native range pastures that I deal with regularly, it is not feasible to build an electric fence, as it would require miles of electric fencing each day to allow for daily movement. It sometimes requires over 10 acres to create one AUM, and many desert environments in the western U.S. require many more acres to support a cow. For this reason, we regularly herd in theses pastures. After the cattle have come into water mid day, we herd them to the part of the pasture that we want grazed in the next 24 hours and settle them in that area. The next day they will graze their way back to the water and we herd them to a different area. In essence, we are rotating the cattle every day but with less control than if we could build fences to keep them contained in a specific area. It’s not perfect, but it is highly effective in extensive range pastures with a side benefit of being a great training ground for young horses and dogs, as well as making cattle easier to herd and handle.

Always leave as much residual as possible to allow for quicker recovery. Don’t forget that wildlife consumption may be a factor. In areas where large elk herds or other wildlife exist, that forage consumption must be taken into consideration in the grazing model. The longer cattle are left in one pasture to select or “high grade” and trample forages, the lower the harvest efficiency will be, so you must remember that available forage will be reduced when calculating stocking rate for that pasture.

Don’t be afraid of failure as you will most definitely try some things that don’t work. If it doesn’t work, try applying the principles differently. The important thing is to apply the principles in a way that is practical for your operation. The principles work everywhere, but the application may look different for you as compared to your neighbor.