any ideas for converting to rotational grazing?

Gabriel


vertical Lane on the right
Paddocks running left to right. This was freehand and the layout needs the fences to be parallel
Electricity from the house
Plenty of shade
Water availability seems great

Not enough info to determine where a holding area would be or how to access the pasture from house or highway.

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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!

Maka: I just started to AI this year. I have always had a bull before this past year. So I have done it both ways. This year I missed several cows and ended up setting a few that I know are very fertile back a few months. It is a lot more work to AI your cows, but you can have access to some outstanding bulls. You can breed your cows to as many different bulls as you like. It is recommended that you watch your cows twice a day every day for 1/2 hour to see which ones are in heat. It is time consuming, above a normal rotational grazing system.

IMO: If you plan to calve year round, I would get a bull and be done with it. Maybe see if your uncle will sell you his "used" bull? If you don't think you will be around every day twice a day, I would use a bull. If you want a calving season and you have the time to be around every day, I would try AI. I do mine off natural heat with no sync shots. It works, but it takes time.

A decent bull should be able to get 12 cows bred in less than 30 days, I'm not so sure that you could AI them and get a shorter calving season.

I agree - not sure why you think I am saying a bull can't cover 12 cows in 30 days.

My point is you don't want to AI if you are calving year round, since you will constantly be heat detecting. That is a half hour twice a day and not missing any of those all year round. It just isn't practical. If you wanted to AI your cows, you need a calving season.

Thanks, Agmantoo. Wouldn't you put a permanent fence (with a gate or three) right down the middle? It's about 400 yds across, which would make for a really thin slice. It's only 32'ish acres.

AI vs. bull: I hardly feel qualified to state anything definitively, but will weigh in and hope to be corrected if I'm wrong. Personally, I'd try to rent/borrow a bull if you can find one that has acceptable genetics. However, in my area that would be pretty much impossible as nobody nearby here (except me) has grass genetics. However, if there is one, you may be able to use a different calving season than they are and thus get away without owning the bull. I am strongly in favor of one calving season as it makes management easier than calving year 'round, especially if your pasture quality is less than optimum.

Runs them on 1200 acres. It's about 50/50 grass and timber. He could easily double his stocking rate imho, but he's prepared for the worst case scenario with drought. There's enough standing forage left over every year for him to put some protein tubs out and they'll clean it out. He uses very little to no hay even in the worst years. His acreage is cut into many different 80 acres pastures that are managed and rotated according to rainfall.

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Francismilker

"The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" James 5:16

Gabriel

My partitioning was just to provide the concept. Not knowing if the user intends to rotate and/or rotate frequently doesn't give me much to run with. Is this going to be a for profit operation or for hobby? Do they plan on maximizing the potential of the acreage? I am not an efficiency expert but I tend to layout paddocks to minimize wasting fuel and time. I try to minimize the input costs so I do not recommend gates and permanent fences unless necessary. The reason for the number of paddocks is to attempt having enough area to create a grazing flow to create at least a 6 week interval between grazings. Obvious a good permanent perimeter fence is necessary but the internal partitions can be single wire and polywire IMO.

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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!

For profit. He will be doing the daily moves, or at least every 3 days.

Yes. Long term it will probably not be limited to grazing, they will add fruit/nut trees etc. They'd like to eventually make it as sustainable a homestead as possible. I recommended they start with grazing as it's the cheapest way to improve the fertility that I know of.

if he doubled his herd to 400 cows that would give him an extra 200 calves per year at say $600 each.......that's another $120,000. Lets say he had to buy 1200 rolls of hay @ $50/roll that is $60,000 to feed from Dec to April, 4 months. That leaves $60,000 profit assuming he would need that much haybut if not then he's made another $120,000.
However, he is probably making a real good living on a 200 head cowherd so he don't need to double it.
But , guys like me who have a hundred hd. cow herd or less can't sell off half the herd and still make a living. If I can take my herd to 150 by optimizing my pasture then I've created another $30,000 or so income, and if worse came to worse I could sell off the extra 50 cows for 40 or 50 thousand and I am just right back where I was.

Thanks BBG. Do you AI yourself or work with a Vet? It seems like it might be difficult (and expensive) to keep the vet running out to your place to AI as your cows go into heat as well. Of course keeping a Bull is not cheap in itself.

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We are suffering from nature deficit disorder!

ycanchu2, upon reading your figures, the first thought that came to my mind was that you're using current prices while the old rancher is much more aware of last decade's prices. I think that with QE we won't see a return to those prices, but the advantage of higher prices now will be offset as inflation causes all other prices to catch up. Anyway, my point is that he's probably very conservative financially, having seen both good times and bad. Also, $600 per calf may be gross, but net? Doubtful. Besides, "Poor Richard" (Ben Franklin) is now no longer correct in his statement "a penny saved is a penny earned". It's now $1.00 saved is $1.40 earned. The tax man spares nobody... sometimes it's just not worth earning more.

I do my own AI work. I don't think it will pencil out well for you if you need to pay a vet or AI tech. I can AI my cows cheaper than I can keep a bull. I only have 4 breeding age cows right now. We can start a new thread if you want more AI information or PM me. This probably is not the best place for the discussion.

With a 200 hd cow herd the Farmer is making a very good living, assuming he has very little debt and isn't spending $50,000/yr on fertilize. If I had a 200plus cow herd I probably wouldn't want or need anymore either regardless of how many acres i had to run them on. But most farmers like myself, don't have an operation like that so we have to optimize our acres per cow.
I have a friend of mine that has cut his cow herd in half to insure he has enough pasture because he don't want to pay the high fertilise costs that most farmers need or think they need in a continuous grazing operation. His wife is a retired postmaster and he is at retirement age so they get by just fine I'm sure.
Guys like me and you, especially me, have to be pushing the envelope with things like IRG to survive IMO.

Weather has been unusually colder than normal and we remain abnormally dry. I continue with my rotational grazing practices and watch the sky for possible moisture. Within another 30 days or so most or all growth will cease on the fescue and I will be on stockpiled forage. Here is the herd grazing late this afternoon. My cell phone camera leaves a lot to be desired under these light conditions.

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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!

i'm sure you have answered this question in the past, but how much are you allotting right now per day?

i'm sure you have answered this question in the past, but how much are you allotting right now per day?


ycanchu2
I am concentrating to maximizing what forage that I have in oder to get through the Winter. I am also debating within myself as to whether to buy some hay to feed in December. The cattle seem pacified with the forage allocation and they are holding body condition. My concern is for the cows that have calves on them. I sold all calves that I intended to market recently and culled 2 more cows. The herd headcount hovers at 100 + or - including the retained breeding age heifers. Yesterdays allocation of area was only 6/10ths of an acre. The grass was roughly 12 to 14 inches tall. The herd will eat that down to a couple of inches. Growth for the year is about finished and this height will about create ground cover before going dormant. It has been a trying year with the lack of moisture. I am fortunate in that I am about the only remaining producer in my area with any grass. Others nearby have been on hay for at least a month or more.

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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!

Agmantoo - I feel your exact pain right now. I think I had a little more moisture than you this summer but until last last week my area had basically no moisture falling from the sky since the last week or so of August. The areas I grazed the past 3 months have had no significant regrowth until the last couple of days. I had in my mind that I was going to get another rotation out of those areas starting mid to late December. Now I'm thinking I only have 1 month of grazing left as of today - then my 30-40 days of hay - that only brings me to the end of January - about 6 - 8 weeks short of spring green up.

I am trying to close on a new place that has seen no grazing or clipping for over a year - the existing electric fences are in bad shape and if I close on it it will be a mad rush for me to fix up the electric fence before I run out of hay.

Have you gotten any rain in the past week or so?

Have you gotten any rain in the past week or so?

None!

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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!

I'm sorry to hear that!

I have a faint glimmer of hope after doing a pasture walk yesterday that IF we can maintain temp's like I had yesterday (70) for a couple more weeks that I may be able to get some graze out of those past areas. I noticed around an inch of regrowth since my last pasture walk about 5 days ago.

It is a slim hope however, the rest of this week looks good with temps in the mid 60's but next week the temps drop into the 50's with a couple of nights below 32 - more rain forecast for 8-9 days from now but I don't trust those long range rain predictions.

I'll continue with my plan of finishing grazing the pasture I have left, move the cows to the "improvement" area and feed the hay I have till it run's out, then move the cows to the wooded/old beaver pond area till they strip it, and while there figure out my next move.

Hope you get some rain soon!

SCRancher

Look your pastures over to see if you can locate any remaining clover. If you see some good stands feed that clover ASAP. As soon as the low temps drop a little lower that clover will freeze out. May as well get some benefit from the clover now.

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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!