What I've Learned About Quality Pasture-part ???

If there is one thing I have really learned in the last several years of reading on the subject of grass farming, is that this idea or method, is much more than just growing some grass and letting some animals eat it. It involves the animal in every way, as an integral part of the operation. When you really begin to think on this, you realize that the animal is more than the end result, or the finished product, it is part of the operation, a link in the chain. Growing quality pasture isn't accomplished without quality animals defecating on it. I know this sounds silly, but it is all part of the Created cycle. Everything working in concert.

For example, traditionally, fall open cows are culled so that they don't have to be over wintered and fed the duration of the season. Understandably, a cow is expensive to feed when there isn't any grass.

However, the new methods being improved upon constantly in low cost strip grazing of Tall Fescue throughout the winter, and/or time limited small acreages of cold weather crops like Cereal Rye, Wheat or Ryegrass, the idea of culling could be re-examined.

A culled cow when allowed to re flesh before sale (given time to rebuild mass that was lost in the lean winter) has proven to be profitable. Over time, records show that cull cows bring $5.00 cwt. more on the first of February and $7.00 cwt. more in mid-March. That is $50-$70 more gross per 1000 lb. cow just for owning them an additional 60-90 days. You can really improve those numbers by working the natural cycles of the beef market.

Over wintering thin bull and cull cows that can gain in condition as well as in price can be a very profitable seasonal business. Gain can be put on dry cows very easily (cheap) since they do not have the maintenance requirements of a lactating cow, and fleshy animals can be enhanced as well.

Here are some numbers that Alan Nation throws out. His book was written in 1995 and so will need to be adjusted for inflation (inflation?!?), but it makes for an interesting case to change your paradigm. Say you buy a cull cow in mid-November for $42 cwt. and sold in early march for $50 cwt., this produces a per pound value of $82 cwt. He said that quite often doing this can exceed $1 per pound. On a cull cow!

OK. I'm not there, as far as the kind of pasture that this would require. But, it does give food for thought. Reading this kind of thing is what encourages me to think outside the box. Which is what we have to do anymore. For too many years, we have been duped into thinking the way the establishment wants us to think, and now we are stuck in the ruts we are in. The question for you to ask yourself is whether or not your pasture and program can handle this cull cow overwintering idea. If so, go for it! I only wish I could.