Extending the Grazing Season in Central Idaho

Thanksgiving is right on schedule and so is the snow. It started snowing this morning in Arco, and has put down and inch and doesn't seem to be letting up. This is, of course good news for our irrigation water supply, but some, perhaps many livestock operators will have to begin feeding soon.

In most cases, cattle will have been on aftermath hay fields and have been doing pretty well. Many cases these cows will be nearly out of feed anyway. Grazing aftermath cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $0.25 cents per head per day or less, while feeding hay, costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.25 per head per day or more. Thirty days more grazing would have saved about $30 per head. Many of these operators could have gotten these 30 extra grazing days with a little bit of trouble. Here's why.

Cattle do everything on their dinner plate!

First, cattle are binge feeders. They travel around their living space and eat the best bites of food that they can find. Then they find a comfortable place to lay down and ruminate. Since they have consumed all of the best bites, the quality of the entire pasture drops after every grazing event. Furthermore, since they are eating the best bites they are eating more than they need. (I do this every time there is good food, and I get to serve myself. It shows, too!) This means that the quality and the quantity of the pasture is diminishing faster than necessary.

Second, when cattle are in a pasture searching for the best bites, the bites they are not eating right now, are getting trodden down and becoming less desirable. If there is snow on the ground, it is getting packed into ice which is making the forage increasingly unavailable. Of course most of the manure will be deposited when the animals get up from ruminating and most of the urine after they get a drink of water....but some will be in the pasture and further degrade the pasture quality.

Research at the University of Missouri Forage Systems Research Center and other locations shows that the grazing efficiency of livestock given two weeks of pasture or more at a time is 40% or less. This would be about the same efficiency as if one put up all their hay in the stack yard, and then just left the gate open and let the cattle come eat what they wanted.

By knowing how much and what quality forage is in the field and how much the animals need we can allocate out the appropriate amount of forage in 1, 2, 3, 5, or 7 day increments. Cattle allocated one day's forage will have a harvesting efficiency of 80% or more. This just doubles the carrying capacity of the aftermath forage.

Further more, by not permitting the animals to roam at will, the quality of the forage is preserved during its use, both by not degrading the whole pasture by "cherry picking" the best feed, but also by not permitting urination and defecation on ungrazed forage, and preventing the forage from becoming unavailable by animals packing the snow into ice.

Operators who allocate residue for the first time are usually amazed at how many extra grazing days they get, AND the cattle often look better.

Allocating fall residue is a great time to practice management-intensive grazing, because you cannot "hurt" your forage resource, since the forage is not growing and you cannot be any "worse off" than you were with your old residue (no) management system! Also no back fencing is required to protect previously grazed pasture, so a single water source is feasible alternative.

You need four things:

Forage in the field.
(The residue)

Control of livestock.
(Quality portable electric fencing materials and cattle must be trained first (easy!)).

Animals that know how to work.
(They may have to learn, so don't feed them the first time they bawl at your pickup truck.)

Good attitude.
(If you or your help doesn't want this to work, it almost certainly won't!)

Winter feeding costs are the single largest obstacle to profitability in the cow-calf business. Here is a way to reduce your cost, probably $30 per cow (or more) with a few hundred dollars in electric fencing equipment and a "can do" attitude!

For more information, contact Chad Cheyney at the Butte County Extension Office, 208-527-8587 or ccheyney@uidaho.edu.