Despite the green, still plan for drought scenarios

Grass in native pastures might still be green right now, and the rumblings of an occasional summer thunderstorm can be heard in the distance. Cows munch contently on that precious resource.

But the green doesn’t always last and the rains don’t always come. Cow-calf producers should start thinking about a drought plan even before they’re concerned about the amount of rain their pastures are getting. Herd and range management need to be at the top of their list in order to save money and preserve precious forage assets. Simple management techniques could help extend available pasture forage.

Justin Waggoner, beef systems specialist at Kansas State University’s Southwest Area Extension Office in Garden City, Kansas, spoke during a recent K-State webinar about drought pressures facing cow-calf producers.

He gets the impression from producers that decisions can be overwhelming as they begin to think about drought pressuring their forage. Keeping it simple is the key to reducing stress when balancing forage’s quality and supply with the needs of the herd.

“When I think about drought supplementation it’s not necessarily a normal supplementation situation,” he said.

In a normal supplementation program, where there’s an adequate supply of low to moderate quality forage, typically that forage is going to be less than 7% crude protein.

“In that scenario protein is going to be the first limiting thing that we think about, or the nutrient that we think about supplying to those cows, as we get into a drought situation,” Waggoner said. “Or if you have limited grazing, energy really becomes our first limiting nutrient, followed by protein.”

Challenges of a drought

During a drought scenario, forage or hay is likely going to have to be replaced by an energy type supplement. Most often, there’s a need to feed a combination supplement that supplies both energy and protein to the animals to make up the difference.

When there’s dormant forage and cows are able to consumer 2.2% of their body weight per day, dry cows can be pretty good at meeting their requirements. In a normal forage scenario, most cows easily cover their nutritional needs.

“I will often start asking myself—how much of a reduction in intake or lack of forage availability does it take before we start to see some whitespace where that forage is unable to meet that cows requirements?” Waggoner said. “For me it looks like about a 20% reduction in forage intake is where we start to see some of those gaps.”

In many locations in southwest Kansas farmers and ranchers are beginning to get worried about drought conditions.

“We might be experiencing that and we’re probably already there,” he said.

Producers should begin addressing body condition as soon as possible, and make considerations when it comes to supplementation.

“One of the other things that it’s both a blessing, but it’s but it also creates an additional challenge for producers is we have access to more supplements today than we could feed a cow than we’ve had in modern times,” Waggoner said. “As we get into a drought scenario I find a lot of producers tend to gravitate back toward hay and replacing that grazed forage intake.”

Sometimes producers miss an opportunity to look outside their circle at other supplements and feedstuffs that could fit the needs of supplying both energy and protein.

“So it’s important to start with nutrient composition and consider what we’re actually buying as we purchase some supplemental feeds,” he said.

Another important thing to keep in the back of your mind as we get into a drought scenario is, more often than not, feedstuffs will have to be brought in from another area.

“So that freight can become a big part of the expense of bringing in a supplement,” Waggoner said. “If we were to haul hay from eastern Kansas to western Kansas, we might be able to purchase that hay for $40 a ton, we’d have well over $100 ton into it by the time we got it to western Kansas.”

Breeding considerations

Sandy Johnson, professor at the Northwest Regional Research and Extension Center in Colby, Kansas, discussed strategic reduction of herds to help with grazing pressure during a recent K-State webinar.

“It’s pretty clear that we’re going to need to reduce grazing pressure in some method, whether it’s fewer animals for fewer days, reducing the requirements, or some combination of the above,” Johnson said. “This always makes challenging decisions because we’re trying to balance long-term range condition, with some shorter term issues that have to do with cash flow and other expenses.”

It’s been clear in many parts of the state that changes in grazing are going to have to happen. Johnson questioned how cow-calf producers are going to go about doing that, and suggested they spend some time thinking about their options.

“It’s nice if you have feed and other resources that allow for some alternative management—to go somewhere else—(think about those),” she said. “I’d think about your young cows and trying to take care of those in this time period.”

For Johnson, if she had the option, she’d be looking at other ways to try to manage the cow’s body condition. If they’re good candidates for early weaning and resource options are driving those choices to market sooner—whether its grass cattle or young, yearling replacement heifers that are planning to be sold—to identify those animals earlier.

And then there’s those other animals on the list—open cows, older cows, bulls—who have one reason or another they need to be culled.

“I think of my own cows,” she said. “It’s time to go when they failed some convenience traits, and they’re on your list.”

Johnson believes it’s important to understand the value of things that can be measured when it comes to a cowherd. That includes identifying open cows and the late bred ones and the value in that information.

“Of course, there may be room for some that don’t fit your genetic goals as part of those animals to destock,” Johnson said. “So we need information to make these decisions, and we need to understand the value and marketing options of these different groups.

For example, Johnson said in a scenario with calves born on various dates in the calving season, she plugged in her information on www.beefbasis.com to project weights and subsequent sale prices. Looking at the results of this group of varying aged calves, there was about $125 difference between the high selling end and the bottom group of calves. Using Kansas Farm Management Association data, Johnson took a look at all the variables of these calves.

“You can see a difference in net income, comparing those sales prices, and their variable costs so it’s worth thinking about what’s it worth to know when a cow is pregnant,” she said. “You’ve got a $40 to $50 difference between the calves that are born at various stages of the calving season.”

Another factor to think about when looking at altering the management schedule of a herd, is to identify open and late bred cows that could go into the market, and what that market looks like.

“Of course this year we have lots of things impacting the market,” Johnson said.

Seasonal differences

There’s seasonality in the cow market and prices for cull cows reflect that. The same goes for cows that have calves weaned and the producer sells them for other reasons.

“If anything we might expect if we get more cows going to market sooner that decline could occur sooner than we typically see with more calves being weaned and cows going to market,” she said. “It’s something to keep in mind as we think about how we might manage and when we take action on trying to remove some cows from the herd.”

When identifying when cows are pregnant is important to do and Johnson said there’s several methods and tools to use to do that.

“So first off, we’ve had palpation as our longtime friend to determine pregnancy,” she said. “The thing we have to remember in this case as we’re looking at trying to stage those pregnancies, is that certainly that precision declines as that pregnancy advances.”

Ultrasound, other tools

Variation in calf growth also makes palpation less precise as the pregnancy goes on.

“Ultrasound is probably our best tool for staging those pregnancies under 100 days,” Johnson said. “We can practically start at 28 to 30 days, it takes a little longer on those really short term pregnancies, but within that time period we can do a pretty good job of staging those pregnancies.”

Johnson said another tool to use is a blood test that looks at pregnancy associated glycol proteins.

“There are a bunch of those different proteins and so depending on which test, you can sample those as soon as 25 to 30 days after,” she said.

What does this have to do with grazing and available forage? Johnson provided an example to help illustrate it. In a typical breeding season, essentially 3 out of 100 cows get pregnant first. So when the resulting pregnancies are at about 60% of the herd calved in the first 20 days, a producer should start using this information to maybe adjust the breeding stages.

“Looking at a March 1 calving, so May 21 turn the bulls out, 90 days after bull turnout is Aug. 19. The first cows bred would be about 90 days pregnant,” she said. “The next cycle, anywhere from 50 to 70 days pregnant, and then so on.”

Sixty percent of those females would fall into the early category. In her example there would be about 9% open, resulting in the bulls being left out longer when they were checked.

“The best tool in this range would be to use the ultrasound, but someone with good palpation skills would be able to it get down to about 35 days,” she said. “This is a great time period to do ultrasound to stage those pregnancies.”

When managing a herd more closely to get closer pregnancy dates, there is a little more work involved.

“So understand there’s challenges trying to work cows at different times of the year,” she said. “But as we think about the value of those early bred calves, that helps you make a decision on whether or not you want to make that effort.”

Johnson said the reason to think about the pregnancy stages is if there’s a late calving cow out in the herd who’s lost a calf, she’s going to be behind the curve when it comes to re-breeding.

“The additional value of staging those pregnancies—there is the ability then to manage those cows by stage of pregnancy depending on how much, how fine of information you have, you think about other marketing options, identifying a sire,” she said.

It is possible to sex the fetuses in a 60 to 100 day range, but that requires multiple palpations to get all the pregnancy data needed. This also takes more ultrasound skills.

“I think it’s possible to increase the value of any pregnant cows you market if you could indicate they were targeted at a certain stage of pregnancy,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to promise that dollar value but if you’re good marketer perhaps you can.”

When thinking about culling cows, there’s an opportunity to “clean out” some things that have been delayed but needed to go.

“Certainly, look at the value there is between those that are bred early versus later as you’re considering what efforts you want to make to collect that information,” she said. “Be aware of seasonal changes in the cow market and I think timely pregnancy diagnosis is a great tool, and really fits this time of year.”

Kylene Scott can be reached at 620-227-1804 or [email protected]