What farms are most profitable?

[grassfarmer]

This normally wet area has had less than 6 inches rain since April 1st this year. Crops look good but conventional grazing pastures are done now. We have enough lush knee high grass already grown to last until Christmas. Nothing we have grazed since July 1st will be regrazed this year - don't need to as we have enough grass elsewhere. I don't care how dry your area is proper grazing and rest periods will increase your production and make more effective use of moisture. Most peoples lawns stopped growing a while back due to drought, well ahead of areas covered with longer grass. Yet they don't seem to make the connection between over grazing/ inappropriate rest periods in their pastures and weekly mowing of a lawn.

[kpb]

grassfarmer, just catching up on the posts after spending time up north. I agree with you lots of the time but this time we're going to have to disagree I think, mostly because I think the future of the cow-calf operation is in large low-input,low-management operations. Allan Nation is quite clear that these cow-calf outfits are the most profitable.

Not so with grassers where intensive management provides greater returns. You might get more bang for your managment buck with grassers that will pop on well-managed grass.

Are you saying that you're running 80 pairs on a quarter for five months? And think you can go to 120 or 160 pairs for five months on one quarter? Wow. I can't imagine how many paddocks you'd have to run those pairs through nor how often but it just seems like a whole lot of work to me when I can kick my baldies out on rough pasture in the spring and pick up a fat calf and a fat bred cow in the fall. Geez, call me lazy but I like to take a summer break sometimes.

kpb

[kpb]

sorry grassfarmer, upon re-reading your post I see that you are already running 80 pairs for five months on a quarter and are planning to go up to 320 pairs, not 160 as I previously said. I tip my hat to you and your work ethic.

kpb

[rookie]

Ilive next to saudi arabia ( well no, but I think you get it). Quit working a couple of years ago, and get sick everytime my neibours, nephewsd etc, tell what the wages are now, in the patch. You gotta love cows a whole bunch to stick with 'em . Land costs alone have set my fate for size of operation around here.

Jag.....I will stick it out until Jr. goes to school, but don't feel to bad, guys your age out here driving combines are getting rare........

[rookie]

Grass Farmer, I have been setting my cows along the lines of what you have. and wouldn't mind talking with you sometime in the near future over the phone if thats okay, I send a post out in a few weeks.........

[grassfarmer]

kpb, Your math is faulty - I said we started with 40Aud/ acre land but reckon it could go to 3 or 4 times that. 4 times that would be 160Aud/acre (160 x 160 = 25,600 divided by 150Auds (1 cow for 5 months) equals 170 cows per quarter. The output I'm getting was expressed as Auds which you converted to cows per quarter for five months. In fact we carry less cows per quarter but for a longer season. Last winter we started feeding a partial ration to the main bunch on boxing day with them only being on full feed from January 15th or so through until April 3rd. I stand by the potential production I think we might have as we had a 13 acre paddock produce 147Auds last year. That would be the equivilant of 156 cows on a quarter and there is still room for improvement.
As for work ethic I'm the laziest person I know! Normal workload year round is about 2 hours a day, not counting the hours that I spend sitting planning at nights certainly. You are right though it's difficult to get away for more than a couple of days break. We try to have an infinite number of paddocks - about 40 permanent fenced enclosures (9-100 acres)on a section but with crossfencing we usually aim to graze around 2 acre paddocks from July through until the following spring. Only in the spring flush do we graze bigger paddocks. Running three bull groups plus grass yearlings this year which makes planning more difficult.

[kpb]

grassfarmer, sorry I was just fuzzy last night I guess. Or maybe just getting old.

Still 160 or 170 pairs per quarter is an achievement that I have never of heard before for an extended period of time. Good on you.


kpb

[grassfarmer]

I'm sure everyone has areas on their place that yield way more than that kpb. Often it's just an area in the corrals that gets a lot of fertility in winter or a low lying place that always has a thick dense sward of green however dry the year is. The challenge is to get these areas to spread across your whole place. Joel Salatin in Virginia talks about getting 400 Auds per acre off his place (426 cows per quarter for 5 months!)- fair enough they will grow for a longer seasonand have more moisture than me but they will also get hit by real hot weather in summer which will limit their production. Looking at that field of mine that produced 147Auds/acre last year I don't see why we couldn't hit 200Auds an acre - if it was all as good as the best part in a year of reasonable moisture.

This extra potential excites me because their is no increased input involved to achieve it - it's essentially free output. And it's size neutral to an extent - I can open a fence to let 100 cows through in the same time it takes to let 50 through. Winter feeding and cattle handling may take slightly longer but the bonus is the more cows we run the quicker we improve the production of the place, both through recycled grass (manure and litter)and imported fertility (winter feed).

[grassfarmer]

Another thought kpb, you must have some really good pasture quantity and quality if you can consistantly pick up a fat bred cow and a fat calf in the fall. My cows are not fat by any means when I wean them - if they were I would think I'd given them too much good grass! They do come in with well grown,fat calves though. My cows get fattened on good banked pasture once they have been weaned which takes a lot less grass that fattening them when they are rearing a 500lb calf. The more typical scenario I see with uncontrolled pasture management is fat cows weaning calves that have been sliding in condition for the last two or three months. The markets are full of long legged, long dull coated, gaunt calves in October.

[kpb]

grassfarmer my cow pasture is not good quality at all, in fact it's really rough but there is a lot of it and it is really cheap.

my experience is that it is hard for a baldie cow to get thin or to bring in a thin calf. they just seem to get bred, be fat and keep their calves fat on just about any sort of pasture. Again, going back to Allan Nation, he has pointed out many times that cows should be considered clean-up or low quality pasture eaters and your best pasture should go to yearlings that will pack the pounds on. I agree with this concept and try to work it as best I can.

I don't advocate any breed over another but my cows and calves generally come off of very rough pasture in the fall, after being left by themselves, in pretty good shape (although a little wild sometimes). I don't feed much or high quality over the winter and they gradually lose condition until they calve in the spring and go back on the grass. As far as fall grazing is concerned, the cows graze again some scrubby land at home and the fields left over from the yearlings for a while.

I don't try to graze late as I'd rather use all the grass by having more grassers over the summer rather that stockpiling grass for the fall. I've found that buying feed is cheaper. Most years I can buy hay now for $20 or less per bale--it's not the best hay in the world but it sure is good enough for those fat cows coming off pasture and dry all winter. Any calves I'm backgrounding or feeding get silage.

My best pasture and most attention goes to the yearlngs where I can make the most money by putting on the most pounds.

kpb