would hope,” he explains. “But this is the beauty of the fl exible grazing plan. If you have understocked the place by removing stockers, now with just cows it’s only stocked to 60 percent of capacity. If you received 60 percent of rainfall or have 60 percent of forage production, then you’ve got it stocked just right. Maybe we can maintain those cows with a BCS of 6 and they are getting just what they need to survive through the drought and maintain body condition.”
Other strategies Another strategy is matching animal body size to
the environment. Studies indicate that larger European breeds struggle in semiarid rangelands because they can- not capture enough nutrition to meet their maintenance requirements. Bailey has seen crossbred cattle do better in drought-prone areas when compared side-by-side to purebred animals. Bailey encourages producers to think outside of the
box. Why not develop heifers by turning them out on pasture with a minimum of feed? Keep them over the winter and they become the stockers. A rancher can sell them when they run out of grass, or he or she can decide which ones would be an asset to the ranching operation. “You can keep them until the next spring,” Bailey ad-
Trigger dates for the
Panhandle region are Oct. 1, April 1 and July 1.
vises. “If you synchronize and breed them via artifi cial insemination, you’re only going to get about a 60 percent conception rate. Maybe you only need to keep 20 percent of your heifers for your cow herd to maintain an adequate replacement level.” With this plan, Bailey says, “You’ve done 2 things.
You’ve incorporated heifers-as-stockers into your opera- tion and you’ve improved the genetic base of your herd, because those animals were subjected to your environ-
Did grass production meet the producer’s expectations? Rainfall after July 1 is half as effective at growing grass as moisture received during May and June.
ment and were raised under minimal inputs. They’re going to be adapted [to your environment].” Bailey reports there may be tax and accounting issues
if producers carry over a calf crop until the next year. He recommends checking with an accountant and/or banker to make sure this plan works for each rancher.
Considerations based on rainfall at trigger dates By looking at rainfall totals on these trigger dates, a
rancher has a good idea if drought is imminent, and that leads to making savvy decisions. He or she can reduce the stocking rate by selective cow culling. It’s a great time to eliminate animals with bad eyes, skeletal prob- lems and bad udders or bad attitudes. The rancher will likely receive a better price for these animals because he is selling before everyone else. The next step during a dry spell is to wean calves
early. Bailey recommends this tactic because calves are effi cient in terms of converting pounds of feed to pounds of gain. Typically, early-weaned calves only require 4 to 5 pounds of feed per pound of weight gain. Moving the herd to leased acreage in another county
or even a different state is another option. The last alter- native, according to Bailey, is feeding animals through a drought. Unless the rancher has grown, cut and baled his or her own alfalfa or hay, or has corn or sorghum stalks available for grazing, buying feed is cost prohibitive. It is pricey to haul feed, and it can often be 2 to 3 times as expensive as forage produced by native rangeland. The time to plan for drought is when it is raining.
It is important to have a workable strategy in place so that when the dry spell makes a return appearance, a rancher can make the best possible decisions, using the best information available.
Learn more about this topic at the 2016 Cattle Raisers Convention,
www.cattleraisersconvention.com.
tscra.org
February 2016 The Cattleman 93
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