Polyface days---rant.....

And congratulations on the baby, Fin!!!!

Ahem, yes, just don't let it happen again eh?

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If you do not believe in the methods, that is your choice, but that does not make your beliefs factual I'm afraid. There are many of us who have used or are using the methods, often with slight modification for our particular situations, with very good success. I have never seen Salatin claim that his chickens are feed off the pasture, only supplemented, if you have seen other claims I would be glad to look at them and will then acknowledge that he is not telling to truth. Nor have I seen him claim his products to be organic. You can pasture as organic, but that is not an inherent part of the process. His numbers are valid, and have shown true for me and several others, such as Fin, who have done careful analysis of their results. No, my product is not cheap and will not compete with the $0.39 per pound Wallyworld chicken nugget reject legs and thighs for price. The chickens that my customers are gratefully buying at $3.25 per pound are worth every penny of it, as can be told by each customer asking me when I will be harvesting more. These are not even comparable to the items that the local grocery is selling labeled as chicken. I have had several potential customers complain about price. They have been told to go on buying the Mega-mart product with no hard feelings from me. My prices are not bargaining points or open for debate, they pay it or go elsewhere. I have not had a single customer for my pigs, turkeys, or chickens come back after the fact though and say they felt the item was not worth the price, and my repeat customer rate has been about 80%, I'll take that! There is no chance that I will sell one of my broilers for $2.00/pound, I will absolutely eat it first myself. The customers must be willing to pay me what I would pay for it, or it goes on my plate. Those who are not willing to pay those prices will simply not be my customers, and they can continue to buy that other product the stores sell raised under those conditions. I will continue to pay my help a reasonable wage to do reasonable work, treat my food with the respect and care it deserves, and except customers to either pay a fair price or go elsewhere. The mega-farms on the other hand will continue to rape the land, use slave labor, feed the animals swill and growth promoters while letting them live their brief lives in filth, poising the public, but do it at a really cheap price and convince the general public that they are getting a barging. BTW, don't forget to include the 10-20% of water and fecal material you are buying in that cheap chicken and high fat/cholesterol content in your cost comparisons. Those items are not present in pastured birds not commercially butchered, my price if for meat not salt, water, and anything else I can get the bird to absorb.

P.S. Congrats fin and welcome back.

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I have to talk to my birds, they are more intelligent than most of the people I meet.

Well, I heard Joel had a book on how to raise a grass fed beef on a very small pasture. We have a couple of acres of pasture mix going good this year and were planning to buy the book and next year, the calf. Now what? We aren't marketing anything, we just want a beef. Is his Salad Bar Beef book a good instruction, or a marketing plan that we don't need?

It is both.

Why don't you request it through your library, so you can look it over risk-free?.

Some people just can't do two things at once, like have a baby and type...

GRHE is now trying to change his login name while he runs for the hills to hide from the wrath of fin .

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I have to talk to my birds, they are more intelligent than most of the people I meet.

It's nice to see that the system works for someone.

But remember, there are books and methods about getting rich in real estate, too. Sure, it worked for someone so technically - its not impossible. But are the millionaire results likely to happen for the average Joe?

"Factual" is relative to where you are. In fact, most areas of this country do not have the median incomes that would allow folks to pay Joel's prices. No amount of clever marketing is getting blood out of that turnip.

No consumers = no success.
Now, that's a fact...

Our market analysis shows that there is not really a demand here for this product - we are too rural, our potential customers already raise their own chickens. The nearby city has a market flooded with alternatives to wally-world - organic chicken, pastured chicken, free-range, kosher, heirloom breeds, ad nauseum.

We realized that for us, the whole idea was actually distracting us from our
actual goal, anyway.
From a homesteading standpoint, our plan is to raise our broilers for our own use. The detailed information that we need is out there, for free.
The beauty of that is no marketing is required!!! What a timesaver!
We can pick breeds that actually do well on pasture - we don't have to impress any customers with fat or pretty birds. And they reproduce- no shipping chicks, no minimum orders... We don't have rush through slaughtering so fast that we lose all the giblets. We can feed what we like and have on hand, the birds are so short-lived anyway... we don't have to be obsessed with complex feed mixtures and detailed nutritional analysis.
We don't have to worry about the USDA or potential liability.
Most of all, we're not concerned with "markets" and the price of chicken...
It doesn't matter to us at all if pastured poulty bubbles and explodes.

I wish it could have worked for us, I really do. It would have been such a seamless way incorporate some supplemental income.

Ed Norman: There is little in Joel's book on salad bar beef which would be a much benefit to you. Most of it isn't on how it is raised, but rather the marketing of it. His 'salad bar' is simply to make a wide variety of forages available and let the animals pick and choose according to their taste. For example, one of my paddocks has a spring run with watercrest in it. Some of the cows relish it, while others won't even nibble at it.

As noted, interesting reading though if you can get your library to obtain an inter-library loan.

I recommend Gene Logsdon's books, especially All Flesh Is Grass for anyone, but especially someone like Norman. He tells how one builds pasture, how to run a small farm, etc. It is all in an easy to read narrative of his farm, rather than a technical "this is how you (and everyone else) do it." As I said above, Joel S. says his methods work best on 50 acres or more.

I have seen a farm in Western Washington that had small pastures. Chickens followed goats around the several acres of the farm. It worked. The chickens are a great sanitizing crew.

The movable electric fencing works great and is easily moved.

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Best wishes,

Sandi

"Anger is an acid that does more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to the object on which it is poured." Corrie TenBoom

minnikin1, your points are very well taken, no method will work for everyone, absolutely true. Even in a market where the basic concept will work, it often takes adjustments. I am very limited in the portion of the year I can use it, due to high summer temperatures that are just too hard on the birds, I am basically restricted to spring and fall, but for our current customer base that works well. I am not making a killing at it at all, but I am getting results that give me my chickens, at higher quality than I can get elsewhere, paid for, and enough profit from the birds I sell to help offset some of my other non-mature efforts. Once I can get a larger base and work them behind cattle or other heavier grazers, I expect results to improve more.

Many of the ideas such as pasturing broilers will work for some, not others. I would always recommend starting small on such ideas to see if they work for you. If one jumps in with both feet they are just begging for failure. This doesn't invalidate the method or vilify the person who presented the method; it just means it is not a magic formula that will work for every situation. For myself for instance, free ranging any of my animals is not an option. I love the concept, would like to do it, however my farm is in the mountain forest and abounds with predators, for free ranged birds would simply become food for them. My birds must be protected to live, so pasturing is a perfect compromise that gets them into the field but still under protection. If I could not convince the market to bear the price though, then I would do nothing more than raise enough for my own consumption.

I would agree that his Salad Bar Beef book is not a great resource for someone looking for specifics on grass feeding of beef. It is written more from the point of getting someone to understand and get excited about the concept and to get into the marketing aspects of it. There are probably better resources from a technical standpoint. I would place it more at the level for a person who does not know about the ideas at all, and think more along the lines that beef must be feed corn and hormones to produce meat.

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I have to talk to my birds, they are more intelligent than most of the people I meet.

Salatin reccomends the same very early in the book "Pastured Poultry Profits" Start with what you and your family can use and grow up to selling some as you learn.

minnikin1 - "...."Factual" is relative to where you are. In fact, most areas of this country do not have the median incomes that would allow folks to pay Joel's prices. No amount of clever marketing is getting blood out of that turnip.

No consumers = no success.
Now, that's a fact...

Our market analysis shows that there is not really a demand here for this product - we are too rural, our potential customers already raise their own chickens. The nearby city has a market flooded with alternatives to wally-world - organic chicken, pastured chicken, free-range, kosher, heirloom breeds, ad nauseum.

We realized that for us, the whole idea was actually distracting us from our
actual goal, anyway.
From a homesteading standpoint, our plan is to raise our broilers for our own use. The detailed information that we need is out there, for free...."

Great summary of everyday issues - and a reasonable solution, without destroying your dreams. A neighbor of ours grew up in the logging industry. One year, the price of hay soared, and he got the idea he could make a decient living on level ground, away from the woods. After purchasing $48,000 worth of USED farm equipment, he started renting land and baling hay - all by himself.... Last year, the stress from bad weather and poor decision making, and a little bad health - put a stop to the whole operation. The big bales of hay are rotting, no buyers. It didn't help that he started with NO BACKUP PLAN of action, and he didn't walk the fields so see what's growing in them. He just baled weeds & trash for 4 years, had one good year and then 3 bad years in a row. He wanted to make quick money, with no practical experince, and little interest in listening to anybody else (including his wife). No research, worthless product, no marketing = no customers.

I turned down the generous $28,000 "take it all off my hands, tractor, etc." last fall - one quick test drive confirmed he was telling the truth, "I grease all the Zerk fittings each spring." (and let it all fall apart....) Bottom line... he's out of business, blew away a big chunk of savings and has a worn out tractor nobody wants.

Maybe this guy read something like, "You can earn $25,000 a year baling hay!"...? As I mentioned previously, EVERYTHING he needed to run a profitable & successful operation is ONLINE and FREE. But, it was a heck of a lot easier to sit in the coffee shop with the rest of the high rollers (big balers), than do some studying. <--- found a use for it...


The first week we moved onto our acerage, I fired up the computer, and did a land/plat drawing - based on the actual county Plat book, and walking the property with a GPS & topo maping program. I talked to the neighbors, "does that little creek in the back every dry up?" - I wanted to double-check and triple check our resources, know what we had to work with. The $12 soil tests confirmed what I saw in the fields - they had raped the fields of nutrients, (removing hay & crops, with no input) and we'd have 4-5 years of soil rebuilding ahead of us. http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/compost/452-400/452-400.html
(just one of MANY good articles, VT also did our soil test)

Next was a trip to the USDA, where we got a nice thick book on the soil types in our county, complete with actual topo maps of our property, detailing run-off rates, soil & sub soil depths, etc., etc... Not to blow off the experts - we also talked the county AG agent into visiting the farm. His jaw almost hit the ground when we pulled out the plat - and then he quit the sales talk and started giving us useful advice... He knows we're serious, and wasn't called out to just chew the fat.

So what's the point? We used the RESOURCES we've paid for with our TAX dollars. Was it by reading forums on the NET....? No Sir...

Last year, I stopped by the USDA and sat down with James R. again, this time for pond building resources... what I can and can't do, and how to make it work. We spent 2 hours filling up desks and tables with books, plats & paper - planning the how-to and figuring out what we could LEGALLY DO. Back to the farm, dig some test holes, learn on a small scale how to build a pond, liner, pitch, drainage, berms & banks... This year, the pond system is slowly taking shape, based on REAL research and careful planning - maximize my labor efforts!

The LAST thing I want to run into is some well meaning government official, SPCA or Humane Society type - making a big stink and giving us negative publicity or worse, shutting us DOWN. If it's ILLEGAL, and we can't do it LEGAL, forget it. Have you heard this? "I had a really profitable business, until the FEDS shut me down... Ruined my family, took away my income, lost the farm, ruined my reputation - all for a little moonshine!"

I listened to one guy go on a rant about government regulations, this and that - he wanted to raise Bob White Quail, somebody put a bug in his ear - so he was doing it illegally. He didn't spend the $12.50 for a Propagate & Sell permit - because he DIDN'T bother to research. When he finally got a big customer lined up - he was moaning about being turned down FLAT because he wasn't LEGAL, and they were... Did I deride him, chew him out and laugh? No, I pointed him to the FREE resources to get him on the right legal track.

If the Department of Agriculture or USDA says you must do this or that...? Would you:
a. Call them a bunch of regulatory idiots and just continue to fly under the radar?
b. Plead ignorance yourself, putting your family & farm at risk?
c. Pray and ask God to assist you in skirting the law (it's been attempted).
d. Do just the bare minimum to squeak by, whenever you feel paranoid big-brother might be watching?
e. Decide to follow the law in good faith and use the regulations to your ADVANTAGE. (my dad called that making friends out of potential enemies)
f. Gin up as much support as you can against the FEDS, figuring the LAW is useless and stupid, written by idiots to protect their own behinds and their corporate friend's behinds - and claim they only want to shut down the little guy.

Believe it or not, some laws & regulations are written to protect you and your customers! My choice is "E" ... too many people make another choice, the wrong choice in my opinion. How about annual poultry & egg production limits? I guess you could incorporate to cover your liability & assets if you thought you might be stretching the legal limits a little...

Or maybe you know you're in full violation of the law, so you defensively attack and mock those that are legal?


Anyhow...

Maybe your production model really isn't as farm animal friendly as you claim - 1.7 squ feet per bird? Isn't that a little CROWDED? But, each one gets exercise chasing bugs in that 1.7 squ ft. Roosts...? Naaaa, let 'em sit & sleep in their own poop. Turbid or questionable water from a pond? Squirt some SOAP in it (bio-degradable of course) - and then claim it's actually GOOD for them, while you rip on everyone that's not following YOUR method...?

Here's a really good one, an old trick to diffuse a sticky question:
'Nothing is off limits, every question is valid and I'll answer them all.'
"What are your feed conversion ratios?"
Weave and dodge, "it's been a long time since we kept track... at one time we thought they got 25% from the pasture, someone said 15%, I don't know, maybe it just stimulates the appetite and they actually eat more..."
... or was that, "I'll answer all of the RIGHT questions... the rest won't get answered."

[B] Lest anyone claim this is nit-picking, remember the claim of net $25,000 in 6 months? was that with $1.50 chicks, .21 per lb feed, $200+ pens, $24 waterers (incuding $6 a bottle soap), barrels to store feed, a mile of air hose, use of a tractor & hay wagon, crates, processing equipment, packaging, telephone, electricity, propane & brooders (or brooder lamps) transportation to market/shipping, market fees - and on 100 acres the chickens pass over ONCE a year?

Or, was that on inherited property, $.50 chicks ($.80 for turkeys), .07 per lb feed, abundant supply of cheap help or 'apprentices'... and on and on. Yeah, you COULD net $25,000 a year - more like, you BETTER net $25,000 a year, unless your really stupid! <--- another useful one, DUMB-HAPPY.

I love to see a balance sheets when I hear these incrediable figures for part timers, all the facilities & labor costs seem to just fall out of the sky, like angels assisting in the middle of the night.

That crashing sound...? The sky isn't falling, no sir... that's the bottom falling out of the chicken / egg market!

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Bill

Ok, I have a confession to make, or several...

a. I grew up in a family business - we used VERY SIMILAR marketing techniques, starting back in 1961. My family has been published, and yes, we also named EVERYTHING with cutesy names - it works, we also did it, MorrsionCorner is dead on.... people eat it up. I think it's stupid to name a silly a horse, cow, pig, chicken, cow trail, a hill, valley, spring or a pasture but, we still do it, and yeah, our farm & hatchery has one of those goofy names that nobody forgets! I got that from my parents, I grew up with it.

b. My dad was an excellent salesman. I learned a little bit through osmosis! Dad taught us through everyday experiences and nifty sayings, how a "customer" thinks, etc., and how to sell a product... honestly... Conversely, I get really skeptical when I hear salesmen pushing something by misrepresenting the competition negatively. I actually have a list of sayings (Keys for Success) gleaned from my father, posted on the wall in our dining room... right next to the marker board, farm plot/master plan and our reference library. We're readers, not TV watchers.

c. I have visited Polyface farm and I haven't heard much discussion as to some of the nuts & bolts, easily overlooked stuff - even though some of them.. he quickly passes over them in his book. For instance - Polyface has plenty of hillsides (in use) and a largely unused low flat area. His 10x12' pasture pens work fine on hills, the way he staggers them. What would happen to the chickens in a low lying area during a typical rain storm? A little water begins to puddle, and where would those 70 chickens crowded into a 10x12' pen "sit" (there is no place to roost). Hence, an advantage, the drainage of those hillsides actually work quite well for his low pens. The same pens would not work on my farm. I'd lose birds every time we had a storm.

d. I also have LOTS of free labor, my 8 kids! Don't laugh too hard, our neighbors had 16 kids! My parents were even better at it though. You do it in stages:
1. you pay for help.
2. you offer 'labor exchange' apprenticeships (when your name gets recognition)
3. you get paid by your apprentices, visitors, whoever - to do the manual labor. (you offer the experience!)
The Farm/Ranch is still a thriving business.

-------------

Here's some of the "Rules" as my dad taught us:

1. Obey God and His Authority. (BTW...government IS His authority)
2. Teamwork: First do your part, then assist others in the need of help. (ask politely = willing assistance)
3. Strive for a Cheerful and Positive attitude - anyone can be negative. (you can brag on your product without ever mentioning the competition in a negative light!)
4. Work as unto the Lord - do your best!
5. Strive for completeness with a clear conscience.
6. Take no credit, but give honor to God and others. (real humility is rare, honest praise cements friendships and returns customers)
7. Learn to "see" & "sense" what the customer sees, that first impression and beyond makes or breaks a business. (step back & pretend you just met me by driving in, etc., what do you see?)
8. If you can't believe completely in your product, find one you can. (the value you give a product is never greater than what it sells for)
9. You must fulfill the minimum customer expectations before you go above and beyond. (when you turn on a light switch, the light should come on. When you buy food, it better be CLEAN - etc.)
10. You are paid what you're worth. There is someone out there that will do your job 2x faster for 1/2 the pay and twice as good - therefore, it is an honor to get paid for your workmanship.


My dad died in 1981, just months after I was married. Now I have the real Expert for a Father, and while I'm neither Dutch nor much, He must think the world of me to send His Son, just for me. That's something I can really brag on, how great God is!


Years ago, I watched a Pastor friend of mine start a business to support his family of 13. He got burnt by customer here and there customer, but, purposed to deal honestly and fairly with everyone - he was determined to have a clear conscience. He said he could have taken shortcuts, could have ripped people off easily, but being able to sleep at night and not have to worry about those gray areas was important to him. I have alot of respect for Gary Eide in Milwaukee, WI - he left a real lasting impression on my family, a really rare kind of person. He's the ONLY completely honest man I've ever met in the business world...

The only other honest men I've met are the few farmers that had such a high dose of humility they felt it was a real honor to play in the dirt. These are men that you could "check their facts" and there were no surpises. There wasn't a twisting and bending of facts - if they didn't know, they said so... it was just easier to keep it all straight that way. Some of them have passed on, some lost their farms, some have retired and now their children run the farms... and then others sold out. That once fertile land is lost to someone's front lawn, pavement or building. Some of these men & women worked harder than others, and failed, some seemed to have all the good luck, and others unwisely followed after every new gadget, implement, breed, seed or tool the AG agents sold. One thing we all had in common - we were gamblers. Gamblers with the weather, livestock and sometimes the bank.


I'll end my participation in this long thread with these final words of caution:
Real Farming is year round, expensive, labor intensive, time consuming work with an occasional small financial reward and few vacations.
Anyone that claims they have the inside track on a market or product... is more likely trying to enrich themselves at your expense.
Accurate record keeping never ceases, estimating & guessing is for suckers and the easily enslaved.

Maybe I'll put that on a sticker and affix it under our autographed copy of "You can Farm".

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Bill

Here you go, sweetie:
225 Birds, June 2004

Game Bird Crumbles 44 10.40 457.60
Turkey Grower Pellets 14 9.72 136.08
Cracked Corn 1 7.98 7.98 601.66
Bale Kiln Dried Shavings 7 4.39 30.73

Heat Lamp 1 8.45 8.45
Blu Kote 1 5.39 5.39
0.00
Chicken Netting (50'x36") 2 36.96 73.92
Tarps 1 12.00 12.00
Brooder Electric 1 10.00 10.00
Oyster Shell 1 0.45 0.45
Tetracycline 1 7.00 7.00

Slaughter 176 2.50 440.00
Gas 1 15.00 15.00
0.00
Cornish X 225 0.79 177.75
0.00
0.00
TOTAL Expenses: 1372.35


Birds:176 Ave. Weight:5.5 Lbs.Dressed: 968
Lbs Dressed: 968 Price per pound: $2.25 Gross Profit: $2,178
Net profit after expenses: $805.65
Feed Conversion 2.86:1
Per Bird Net Income $4.58


Sorry the chart's screwed up--Excel doesn't exactly translate well...
Notice I netted out all equipment that could have been amortized over several batches. Pens were already built from scrap barn wood. Labor is 1/2 hour per day for 49 days, 2 hours on the first day for brooder setup and dipping beaks, and 6 hours for slaughter and distribution.

Fin,
We just raise some broilers for our own consumption and a few laying hens and I'm not familiar with the Polyface method, but aren't your calculations leaving out a few things, such as labor costs, waterers (?) costs of land and taxes, and processing costs (material to bag or wrap dressed chickens).

For example, if you have 100 hours invested in this operation and your time is worth $10/hr, there's $1000 of labor expense right there.

Just wondering how it pencils out if you include some of these other costs, not trying to dispute your profitability or start an argument.

Edited to add: You must have added the hours of labor invested when you edited your post. That wasn't there when I first responded. Sorry.

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"Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity." Gen. George S. Patton Jr.

Yup-and that's at $10 an hour--good guess . Materials for bagging/tagging are included in the slaughter price. I already own waterers that were netted out on our first batch. My water comes from a well on the property that services just the chickens and gardens. Land and taxes are netted out in another portion of my food business.

Fin, I have to give kudos to you for this. I was so impressed with your bookkeeping that I tracked my spring broilers very closely. I hadn't intended to sell any of them...but word got around. I actually had to tell people no. If I hadn't I wouldn't have had any left for myself. Price is a bit low and I even had a couple tell me I should charge more. I won't for the Fall batch, but I will next Spring. That said, My intention was not to make money, but reduce the Price/Lb of the meat that I kept. Which I did quite nicely.

Shane

Below are my results:

Items___ Cost____ amount__total
Starter__ 10.25___ 5_______$51.25
grower__ 8.49____ 2_______$16.98
Bedding__4.49____2_______$8.98
propane__17.5____.35_____ $6.13
Chicks___0.64____ 25______$16
V&E_____5.25____ 0.25____$1.31
_______________________$100.64<Total Cost

Chickens finished__Avg wgt_Total wgt__Cost/Lb___Feed Conversion
_______22________5.25_____115.5_____0.87_________ 3.03:1


Chickens sold_____price/bird____total sales____Cost/lb after sales
_____9____________$8__________$72_____________0.42

Edited to add: Whats going on with the formatting? I took the time to acually space everything out so it looks nice, then when I post it it gets all squashed together.

Edited again to add: Ok, that better...not great, but better

Technically owner/operator labor wouldn't be considered a cost unless the operation detracted from some other money making enterprise. Then it is more of a foregone income opportunity.

I cannot write off any of my own labor on the farm, only hired labor. And don't get me started on hired labor.

I went to one of Runners reccomended free govt websites and was happy to find a commercial poultry budget. It turned out to be not a good as I expected though

http://www.ag-econ.ncsu.edu/faculty/...ultrybudgs.htm. I looked at the "broilers" "profitibility" sheet.

Here's a few problems I have with with the commercial model

1) Just as Terri promised in the upper right corner it states a capital expenditure for the broiler house is $100,800. I'm out... that's some serious cash I don't have. Starting slow for your family's consumption and increasing production as you learn is not an option in this model.

2) The "underlying assumptions" section lists 0.94 as the average density sq. ft per bird .... That's the same 0.94 sq ft for the birds whole 8 week life. I'd bet a bird would be healthier on a fresh 1.75 sq ft each day...I'd also bet the average consumer could tell the difference between a farm raising the birds at 0.94 for 8 weeks and the birds on a fresh 1.75 a day from a hundred yards away using only their sense of smell.

3) Estimated revenue - 4.25 cents a pound or for a 6 pound bird 25.5 cents per bird. by comparison Fin29 using the Salatin model is making $4.58 a bird

The bright spot with the commercial model is that you don't have to make any claims about quality (after all yours are exactly as good or bad as the next producers since you use the inputs from the same supplier. (whoever you have the contract with) The only promises you have to make and keep are the contracts for your mortgage and your grower contract

For someone interested in starting small and making some income on broilers I think they'd be better off reading Salatins book (interlibrary loan of course) rather than hunting and picking through volumes of free government material or from marketing texts to derive a system of their own from first principles.

I'll bet more farms were lost over the debt associated with this detailed commercial budget than were ever lost or will ever be lost to people who plunked down a $10,000 to 15,000 investment to get started on a Salatin model.

I think the question of how much forage pastured poultry is able to utilize utilize is a good question but one that's tough to answer no matter how good your records are. In my opinion the only way to really do it would be to set up side by side pens of the same

genetics
stocking density
feed
water
interval of change of bottom of pen surface

etc etc and then allow only one set of birds access to pasture then the other not.

Once that was done and careful records were kept the questions would be

What species of plants were in the pasture?
What were the soil conditions and fertility?
What was the weather like? etc etc.

In the end, all of the careful experimentation and documentation and calculation still needs to be passed through the same filter which is... Are all of the results of all that study applicable to my pasture, climate and weather?

Whether the units are dollars of profit or percentages of feed from forage it's unrealistic to expect that a number of any kind can be universally applicable.