RANCHING Wildlife


The Lesser Prairie Chicken Initiative offered Clay Cooper technical assistance and fi nancial incentives to make improvements he wanted to do anyway.


increase numbers and encourage the birds to expand their territory. For Cooper, it meant technical assistance and


fi nancial incentives to do some things he and his father, Mert, wanted to do anyway on their Cooper Camp Creek Ranch. It started with a grazing plan developed in 2012. Cooper had been resting about 25 percent of the


ranch during the growing season. The deferment from grazing allowed grasses to gain vigor and go to seed. “But some pastures weren’t getting rested at all, and


I wondered if there was a better way,” he says. “I felt like I could use some other eyes on the place.” Through the prairie chicken initiative, Cooper


worked with NRCS grazing lands specialist Clint Rollins to plan and install several 1-herd/4-pasture systems. Each herd of 50 cows rotates through 4 pas- tures, 640 acres per pasture. “We move cattle when we’ve used half of the grass,


or faster when it rains [and grass is growing],” Cooper says. One of the 4 pastures in a system is rested each year. At Rollins’ suggestion, the rancher took out a fence to create a 640-acre pasture instead of 2 smaller ones.


76 The Cattleman November 2016


That was the only fencing change. For Cooper, the grazing plan benefi ts his grass, gives him an emer- gency reserve and concentrates the cows so he needs fewer bulls. For the prairie chicken, the light-to-moderate graz-


ing allows for residual tall grasses — primarily little bluestem — to be left for nesting.


Expand habitat To expand habitat for the bird, the NRCS recom-


mended brush control to Cooper. In 2 key pastures, mature sand sagebrush made up 40 percent of the pasture canopy. “We want some sand sage, but not too much,” says


Mary Foster, the NRCS district conservationist work- ing with Cooper. A little sand sage provides cover for the birds, but predators use dense stands, she explains. The brush also reduces grazable acres and causes grass to decline. So Cooper treated one pasture with Spike® 20P


herbicide in 2013 and another in 2014. The helicopter treated the pastures in strips, applying herbicide in two swaths and then leaving a swath untreated. Treated


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