Maintaining a cattle herd during a drought is not easy and one expert said planning ahead provides opportunity to improve the bottom line.
Jaymelynn Farney, an assistant professor in animal science from Kansas State University, has gotten a first-hand view of the drought in the Flint Hills region and its effect on the rangeland pastures that are essential to supporting a cattle herd. Farney is the southeast area beef systems specialist at Parsons, Kansas.
Predicting the length and extent of a drought is not possible, experts say, and producers still have to find a way to mitigate a drought’s impact and stay profitable. Lessons learned in 2018 can help producers in many regions.
“Not overgrazing is the key to sustaining the land,” Farney said. “To maintain the rangeland, stick with the old adage, ‘graze half and leave half,’ so in a severe drought, a short duration of grazing is a management practice to implement.”
That means finding a different location for the cattle so the pasture can rest, she said. Resting the pasture can come in three forms: Rotational grazing developed specific for your type of forage and class of cattle; removal of cattle from pasture into drylots; or removal of cattle from pasture into crop fields to graze annual forages or residues.
While working through a drought management strategy, producers should consider all facets of cost to determine if maintaining the cowherd is an economical decision or if strategic culling needs to occur, Farney said.
She believes that having a plan helps the decision-making process and recommends producers write one out to help manage resources.
Completing an inventory of resources—pasture, water, feed and equipment—will help point the operation in a herd maintenance direction.
Developing an acceptable stocking rate per acre varies from region to region, she said. In regard to a drought, most producers start with a 50 percent reduction in normal stocking rates, especially for short season stock grazing.
Right formula
Producers who anticipate and lessen the potential impact of a drought can continue to have success.
“Producers who manage through drought are very inventive,” Farney said. “They are willing to try some ‘out of the box’ feeding practices.”
These producers become very efficient with their resource management and spend time evaluating which management practices have the greatest return on investment.
They spend time developing feeding strategies that reduce waste, she said. Some of those examples include:
Limit-feed hay to meet requirements instead of free-choice hay.
Feed a lower cost, higher energy feed/supplement (like corn) and feed less hay to maintain appropriate conditions for cows. This is called a substitution effect where in general, feeding a starchy feed at a greater than 0.75 percent of body weight will result in cattle consuming a pound less of hay for each pound of starch fed.
Group cows by management groups and appropriately feed them. All thin, young or old cows that need more energy and protein requirements are housed and fed together while fleshy cows that need to be maintained are fed a lower energy diet.
Early wean calves because a non-lactating cow is at her lowest nutrient requirement. Lactation is a very energy and protein demanding function. Reducing the days of lactation will decrease the total number of calories and protein a cow needs to consume through the year.
Use technology, such as ionophores (additives) for cows, to increase feed efficiency and implants in nursing calves to increase weaning weights. Implants are an older technology but still offer the greatest return on investment.
Preserving valuable land
Is it important to preserve rangeland, especially native ranges, Farney said.
“These have a very diverse plant population that is difficult, if not impossible, to replicate if over-abused.”
Fortunately, if grazing pressure is reduced these pastures can repair themselves with time. For “improved” or tame pastures, such as bermudagrass, fescue or bromegrass, overgrazing and drought is somewhat less of a long-duration issue, she said, and, if stands become thin, reseeding can be feasibly and economically accomplished.
“This does not answer the immediate issue, where producers need to have something to feed their cows, but that does show some added resiliency to drought,” Farney said.
Planning ahead for dry pastures and conditions requires producers to be observant.
In native rangelands that are predominantly warm-season perennials, spring moisture time impacts growth with the most critical period being immediately before and during their “flush” of growth, she said. These timings of rain become different based on plant type in the area.
Cool seasons such as fescue need some rains in August and in the spring for optimal growth, Farney said.
“Planning for drought in the spring, at least coming up with contingency plans at this time, will allow for summer and fall of gathering supplies so that you can be prepared for a negative event,” the specialist said. “If a drought does not occur, then the resources are still on your locations to possibly be used for other business plans such as purchasing some stockers or replacement heifers.”
Working with a nutritionist or Extension professional to develop diets and feeding plans is the best practice to keep a herd together or even offer an opportunity to expand, Farney said.
“We often think that grass is the only way to feed beef cows and in many or most of the country pasture and rangeland is still the cheapest method to maintain cows,” she said. “There are some areas of the country where pasture purchase price and/or leasing values makes confined cow feeding a more economical method. Developing working relationships with grain crop producers is another avenue to help with reducing cost of production.
“Grazing of residues, especially corn and milo, is a low cost method to maintain cows (with appropriate protein supplement) and use of annual forages (or cover crops) can offer a possible method of maintaining a cowherd.”
With annual forages, using very high energy and high protein feeds and having a plan to limit grazing or dilute with a low quality feed will allow more cattle to be maintained on less acreage, she said.
Dave Bergmeier can be reached at 620-227-1822 or [email protected].
