RANCHING Business
How Managing the Stocking Rate Affects Ranch Profi t
By Lorie Woodward Cantu Photos provided by The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation
S
TOCKING RATE, THE NUMBER OF ANIMALS ALLOTTED TO AN area for a given length of time, is one of the most important grazing management tools used by, and
often the biggest management issue faced by, a rancher. “Of all the grazing management tools, stocking rate
has the largest impact on animal performance and forage health,” says Chad Ellis, a pasture and range consultant at The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation. In fact, stocking rate directly infl uences animal pro- ductivity, forage production, forage quality, species composition for the long-term, plant physiology and operational profi tability, he says. Because stocking rate affects so many things, it
can’t be overlooked, and yet many producers tend to ignore it; either because they stock the ranch the way their predecessors did or they recognize that many variables come into play and they are just not sure how to fi nd the baseline appropriate for their opera- tion, Ellis says.
“To further complicate things, producers have been
conditioned to think in terms of inventory instead of profi t margins,” he says. “More is not necessarily bet- ter. The land will tell the story.” The response of the land and livestock to the stock-
ing rate is what makes it a management issue. “While it is diffi cult to see subtle landscape changes
occurring over time when you’re looking at a ranch every day, there are signals that the stocking rate may be a problem,” says Ellis. “Pastures that are routinely closely grazed and weedy are classic ecological signals, as is visible, active erosion. Producers often fi nd their expenditures for feed and hay climbing. And on the production side, pregnancy rates and weaning weights will drop.” Unfortunately, there is not a one-size-fi ts-all formula
for establishing stocking rate because many different factors come into play. “Grazing lands are complex,” Ellis says. Any given
Editor’s Note: This is the third installment in a 12-part series on “The Realized Value of Management Decisions” that was developed in conjunction with the advisors in the Consultation Program of the Agricultural Division of The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation. The independent, non-profi t Noble Foundation, headquartered in Ardmore, OK, assists farmers and ranchers and conducts plant science research and agricultural programs to enhance agri- cultural productivity regionally, nationally and internationally.
58 The Cattleman March 2015
thecattlemanmagazine.com
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