Swath Grazing-Does it Pay?

[ASRG]

On the radio they were advertising some kind of grazing type workshop.Anyway the blurb that caught my ear was some expert was going to explain how you could reduce winter feed costs 40% by swath grazing.
Now I have never swath grazed. I always had a hard time figuring out how I could make any money at it.
Here are my numbers: First I assume if land is good enough to grow a swath grazing crop, it will also grow a regular crop? So I go out and rent an acre for how much? Around here the most popular option seems to be cash rent determined by 20 bu. barley so 20 X $5.25 = $105/acre. Now this is a high priced barley year, so maybe $4/bu would be better long term, so say $80?
A fairly general yield of 3 tons of feed (Alberta Ag site) at $60/ton= $180?
I assume to get that yield it’s going to take about 150-200 lbs of blended fertilizer? Say $50-60/acre? Fertilizer application $7/ac?
Seed costs 2 bu @ $7.50= $15? Custom seeding $22/ac? Swathing $13/ac? Some kind of weed control (pre burn or cheap broadleaf control) and application $20-25/ac?
Using the lower costs I get: $207 cost /acre? Or close to $70/ton? If I could buy hay delivered in my yard for $70 ton would I be better off?
Make no mistake when I bring in hay I am importing nutrients. When I am swath grazing I am just recycling nutrients. I believe a cow generates about $30 in nutrients over a 200 day feeding period? Surely that would pay for mechanically feeding her? I have not cost factored in the costs of electric fences or time to move cattle…….or how to keep them out in the open swath grazing in a wind at -40!
Quite frankly I can’t see a real big saving swath grazing? Certainly not 40%?

[grassfarmer]

Like an old guy told me once "aye, you can prove
anything with a piece of paper and a pencil"
The 40% reduction would likely be comparing it to
feeding hay in corrals with associated manure hauling
costs - they never like to compare to feeding out on
pasture as the difference wouldn't be so great. To get
the 40% reduction they wouldn't be using as high a
cash rent /acre as you are pretty sure of that. Not
sure if your 3 ton yield figure is real - that much
inputs would grow me 8-10 tons of silage or about 3
tons DRYMATTER - quite a difference.
Like any other system there will be places where it
works well and others where it won't. The biggest
thing I have again swath-grazing is that the late
seeding wastes too many good early season growing
days in our short growing season. The yield loss I
would experience seeding mid June onwards on land
prone to drought compared to seeding early May
more than pays for the cost of custom silage making.
On the other hand I know a guy with some land that
is typically is too wet to seed in May that he seeds
July 1st and it is a great system for him - he typically
gets big yields of high quality feed. He is also a grain
farmer so the cost of seeding is less than me getting
it done custom.

[smcgrath76]

Depends on your situation and how you do the math. We rent some ground that
we swath graze and do some on deeded. Our cash costs are significantly lower
than you posted. We seed heavy with a mixture of barley, oats and rye, and
this year we tried triticale and oats mix as well. Costs are a cultivator
pass, seeding cost, cutting cost and the seed. We have not sprayed in
several years and have not fertilized in many more. Our average yield is
right around 160-170 AUGD, and our operating costs (labour, inputs, equipment
depreciation) work out to $0.37-0.42 per day. Our rent is not $100 an acre
(closer to $60 now). That adds another $0.375 per day bringing us up to
around $0.77 per day. I can't feed cows for that, plus there is a large risk
running older (or even newer) equipment that must start and run in poor
weather.
So the answer is it depends. We are also in a situation where losses are
very minimal as we often graze swath grazing in April/May if it is too
covered in the winter and we graze volunteer growth. In Spring 2012 we
pulled around 200 days per acre on our swaths by grazing the volunteer barley
(which some might argue is waste, depends on your viewpoint). This extra
time sure allows the grass to yield a lot more. I think if I was in high $
grain country I would look at those bunchers and graze crop aftermath.
Collect the rent, and graze chaff piles.

[forage]

Great way to save if you don't get trapped with a early deep snow event that freezes over so cattle can't paw through it. It is great in our part of the country because of the chinook winds that remove most of the snow cover but for areas that snow comes and never leaves till next spring. I hate refering to my friend in the Rocky Mtn.House area but he was a diehard fan of swath grazing and roughy 4 years ago had to start buying hay to feed because of the snow build up. Another friend had to put 4 or 5 horses out to paw through the swath so the cattle graze.

[ASRG]

Grassfarmer: I used the average dry matter for greenfeed done by Alberta Ag....but unfortunately they don't give inputs, so I just used general numbers for a barley type crop.
And I can certainly see the "wet ground thing".
I guess bottom line it depends on the situation.
Forage: Do you ever get crusting with the chinooks in your area? We get chinooks....but usually just enough to put a nice hard crust on everything.

[grassfarmer]

Lets throw a few other numbers and factors in just for
fun ASRG.
Going back to your original post you reckon you are
importing nutrients with hay but with swath grazing
you are just recycling them. Not true - in the model
you costed you were talking about spending $50/$60
on fertilizer - what's that if it's not importing
nutrients? importing them in a more readily available
form for the plants too. You reckoned $70/ton of dry
matter production cost so 3.5c/lb of DM. If you buy
hay at $70 remember not all of that ton is dry matter
so around 3.8c/lb of DM at 10% moisture hay. Then
there is the quality to consider - I've seen swath
graze material analyze higher than lots of silage but
not always, there can be weather damage too.
Compared to the average hay you can buy for $70 I'd
rather pay 5c/lb for silage DM than 3.8c/lb for hay
DM so good swaths would have a higher value too.
How do the economics change when the hay isn't
$60-$70/ton but $150/ton or more in a drought
situation? Annual cereals will likely be able to better
stand a dry year too. How do the economics change
when grainland rents aren't driven by the prospect of
high grain/oilseed prices?
Forage mentions snow depth and freezing, again it'll
depend on your area. I'm glad we are not in the
chinook zone - we tend never to get warm enough to
melt then freeze down. I can think of one year in the
last 10 where we got iced off banked grass - and that
was only one warm January day that caused it. Snow
depth is not usually an impediment to us grazing
banked grass and that is more depth critical than
swath grazing. I read a report recently that said
yardage costs on banked grass were higher than on
swath grazing - due to lower yields. Well I guess that
depends on your set up. Turning cows into a quarter
section of bush pasture that's been saved all summer
will cost less yardage than any swath grazing method.
My point is there are 101 imponderables that change
from year to year for different reasons hence there
can be no "right" way to do it in any particular
geographic location never mind trying to apply what
works in one area to a totally different area. I love this
time of year when I have time to consider all these
different ideas and find ways to refine our production
methods and become more efficient.

[forage]

Chinook belt allows us to have grazing almost year round in normal years. The banked grass is the only answer for me. The real problem right now is there isn't enough snow cover, high fire warnings were annouced for Waterton,Pincher Creek, Crownest.We are next on the list. A couple inches of snow seems to keep the prairie grass more patable.

[wilagro]

I have a couple of neighbours who swath graze every year for at least two or three months. Their cows look terrible come spring...I've seen pictures of cattle from sub-Sahara Africa that looked better.

Swath grazing is less labour intensive and quite possibly one of the cheaper ways to winter cattle but have there been any observations and studies as what it does to cattle condition and longevity. I don't have cattle anymore but my cattle never looked as bad as some I've seen after months of swath grazing.

[tman]

Your neighbours might be shorting their cows of protein. My dad fed a lot of plan ol' barley straw bales to his cows for a few winters years back but he also gave them milled barley for the energy and protein and shredded a bale of hay of some sort to them every 3 or 4 days. My dad's cows were also in more than good enough shape going into winter.

[smcgrath76]

controlled access is also a big
condition/game changer. If they have
unfettered access they will graze all
the grain (energy) and are left with
leftovers near the end of the grazing
period.

[grassfarmer]

Leanest cows I ever saw (and highest # of deaths)
were right next to a yardsite getting fed with a tractor
every day.

[ALLFARMER]

I must say my corral cows look fantastic. They
were a little on the skinny side when we wiened
the calves off but have picked up very nicely.
They will get some exercise come closer to spring
but for now they get to lay around.

With bunk feeding everyone gets an equal
amount, & right amount over all. Near zero feed
waste. Fine tuned feeding.

[ASRG]

Allfarmer: How many pounds of hay do you feed/cow? What does it cost/lb.?
How do you keep cows from not pulling hay out of the bunk?

[ALLFARMER]

The cows don't pull hay out of the bunk because
we don't pile the hay over about 22" ....the height
of the bottom neck bar. We are feeding Timothy
brome alfalfa mix. The stuff we bought for 60$/ea
delivered. The boughten hay is about a 1/3 of the
total bales we have on hand....the other home
grown. The bales are around 1250 lbs feeding 3
bales of hay/day but with improved cattle
condition cutting back to 2.5/day....109 head. So
2.5 x 60$ / 109 so ya $1.39/hd/day. That also
means we're paying ourselves 60$/bale for our
own hay. Started feeding Oct 19th likely finish
May 20th so ya likely 217 feeding days this year.
Started feeding 8 days earlier this fall because of
the lack of rain. So $301.63 just for winter feeding
hay cost. Tractor burns like 2 tanks/fuel/winter so
it's costing us more to drive to church on
Sundays. My calves averaged 725$ this fall.

[ALLFARMER]

O ya we shred 1 bale per 100' of bunk fence
which serves 50 head.