Foraging ability

[blackjack]

...hard to disagree with what you say grassfarmer...i know the abp likes to promote this free market type of system but in reality ever since i can remember from the eighties(when we used to fatten cattle) to the present there has always been some kind of program to offset the poor prices...but it seemed if you worked hard we could keep up to the real wages what some people outside our industry like to call it...i know you don't use conventional fertilizer for example but look how it zoomed right back up and natural gas hardly moved...the cattle business has always been somewhat tough but as kpb has said in other posts...the risk is getting a whole alot more than the reward...

[DiamondSCattleCo]

I'm coming into this thread a little late, but wanted to toss a couple comments in on breed foraging.

I'm not sure I agree with the idea of certain breeds having better foraging abilities, but rather with the personal selections of the owner. My Shorthorns and ShorthornX are either from my own stock, or stock purchased from a purebred operator out of Gronlid who roughs his livestock out. I've also got some Angus and some Angus/Hereford cross cows from an old pasture manager out of Choiceland who roughs his stock. Thrown into the mix are some Angus, AngusX and Simm animals from a ranch in Southern Alberta who don't rough their animals out.

I maintain my feeders out in the pastures until a couple weeks before calving season, and even when the feeders are full, the stock thats been roughed their whole lives, irregardless of breed, are eyeballs to snowbanks trying to find that last grass blade that may have been left behind.

The other critters that had a softer life in that warm Southern Alberta environment aren't any harder keeping, don't seem to be any thinner skinned, but they won't stoop to foraging in snowbanks. They'll be the first complain when the feeders start to run dry and the first to hang their heads in the feeders when the bales get put in.

Rod

[rkaiser]

Good points Rod. Kit Faro and others talk of matching cattle to the environment, but as the herders and the fence putter uppers, we control their environment. There are breeds "in general" that can handle situations like you speak of, but selection within any breed and selection of environment will create the cattle that fit.

The part that I like about steering the cattle and the environment toward a more natural forage based approach is the bonus we receive in fertility and carcass merit. Whether grass finished or grass fed and topped up with a little barley at the end, these cattle work in my belly and am sure that many housewives who had a choice would agree.