Just Start
We just wrapped up the Abilene Ranching for Profit School. It was an amazing week with 53 forward thinking ranchers who are challenging conventional wisdom and driving their businesses forward. I was joined by John Locke of Hungerford, TX who served as a co-instructor for the school. John has attended the Ranching for Profit School […]
Are You A Superhero?
It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s an environmental superhero! If you are using cell grazing you are an environmental superhero. Of course, no one has to know that, while saving the planet, you are also making your own ranch more productive and profitable. Cell graziers are environmental superheroes because they stop overgrazing by […]
Read MoreWhistling Again
We use key performance indicators to assess the health of a business. Some evaluate economic and financial health. Others measure labor productivity. Still others measure the health of the ecosystem. Last week I added a new key performance indicator for measuring business success to my list. I spent an evening with Craig and Connie French […]
4 Reasons Why Increasing Weaning Weights May Not Increase Profit
I gotta stop reading this stuff. A recent article in a self-proclaimed “progressive” magazine claimed that July deworming was an often-overlooked opportunity to increase weaning weight and therefore profit. According to the article, deworming can increase weaning weights by at least 30 pounds at a cost of $7.85 per cow/calf pair. With a market […]
Going Around In Circles
Rotational grazing doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for at least two reasons. One reason it doesn’t work is that, rather than rotationally graze, most people rotationally overgraze. They get overstocking and overgrazing confused. Overstocking happens when you have more animals than you have grass to support them. Overgrazing happens when you keep animals in a pasture […]
Stocking Rate Rant
A Ranching For Profit School alumni sent me a paper published by the Society for Range Management on calculating the optimum stocking rate. The authors crunched 14 variables through 1o equations to reach the conclusion that the optimum stocking rate is somewhere between a low rate that maximizes per/head performance and a higher rate that […]
You Might Be Cell Grazing If…
A lot of ranchers use some kind of grazing rotation. Very few do it in a way that has even a 50/50 chance of improving the health of the land, the performance of their cattle and the profitability of their businesses. There are so many names attached to various rotations, it is hard to know […]
Rotational Overgrazing
Nearly 15 years ago I surveyed over 300 commercial cattle producers asking them questions about their grazing practices and their attitudes about change. One hundred twenty of them (40%) identified “rotational grazing” as their primary method of managing cattle on pasture. Over 80% of the rotational grazers reported having fewer than 8 paddocks per herd. […]
Two For The Price Of One
Would you like a free ranch? This summer I had the pleasure of visiting several Ranching For Profit School alumni ranches from Texas to Montana and points in between. Most are applying cell grazing and are producing impressive results. Cell grazing involves giving paddocks adequate rest, keeping graze periods short, increasing stock density and adjusting […]