I Said What?

Some of my articles have caused a bit of a stir. The latest one (Sept. 8) got the phone ringing. Now, I don’t care if you call me names, just don’t call me a liar. You read right when I stated, “I put 25 head of cattle on one acre, from April to October of 2012 and had to mow grass!” If you have never done it, don’t say it can’t be done. They once said, “Man can never fly.” Well, the devil is in the details, and I don’t give away the details - I am a consultant.

This year I have had nine head of cattle on 20 acres during this drought and still have tall green grass in that pasture. The cattle have been in the pasture since May 3. I have not fertilized the pasture this year or last-all fertilization came from the cow. The remaining 40+ acres of the ranch has rested. I recently have taken on 10 extra head of cattle to graze another 20 acres.

Last year, I had four head on two pastures of nine acres total. I did “pour on” 750 gallons of water mixed with a few soil amendments on about three acres of one pasture and an acre of the second. I rotated the cattle between the two pastures throughout the summer. As I recall, last summer we also had a drought.

We have fed only five bales of hay since May of 2022 and the cattle have only eaten three of them. There are still hay mounds left in the fields from cattle playing “King of the Mountain”. The hay we sold was eaten, so don’t get the idea that we had bad hay.

Now I’m not telling you this to brag, but to help ranchers realize that you can have grass during a drought and not need to feed hay or expensive feed supplements. It is all about grass management.

I like my cattle to have green grass. So, I have watered the bermudagrass closest to the new water well. I watered about one acre with a couple of portable sprinklers. I began watering in late July. June 9 was the last rain. The cattle graze on the moist grass about 50 percent of the time. The rest of the time, they walk out into the remaining pasture and graze.

I was delivered a couple of Jersey heifers the other day and the lady delivering them remarked about how some of the grass still had green tops. I think she was also amazed by how much grass is in the pasture. This area receives no irrigation. Now I wish all my pastures were like this. A couple of pastures are very brown except for the goat weed. Yet they are in better condition than many pastures in wildlife management that have not been grazed.

I have a small crop of dung beetles. They are the subterranean type. They don’t do a great job of burying all the manure, but at least they are working at it. And there seem to be more this year than last. I expect a population explosion when I begin cross fencing pastures to condense the cattle to smaller paddocks. I hope some roller type beetles will show up, since they move the manure around.

I bought two salt blocks last year. One was your typical white salt block and the other was a sea salt block (deer block). As of this writing, the blocks have not been licked down. The cattle lick them daily, but not as much as I thought they would. Other than the salt, the cattle have had one thirty-gallon tub of molasses mix last winter, (which they took all winter and spring to finish). They have had one half of a bag of alfalfa cubes I use to gentle them. I use a mix of ten pounds of kelp plus ten pounds of sea salt and five pounds or more of Red Lake Earth Brand Diatomaceous Earth with Calcium Bentonite to treat animals for parasites. The mix lasts about two days for the nine head. This is all the supplements the cattle have had since we started ranching here two years ago.

Folks, this is bare bones ranching. And I can do better.

Now for those who still don’t believe my quote “Did you know it is possible to put 25+ head of cattle on one acre for 180 days and the cattle still gain weight?”- call me. By the way, the best record for 180 days on one acre that I know of, is 65 head! There are people that can confirm all that I have written.

If you want to make money raising cattle, keep doing what you have been doing, or maybe learn something new. Call me. Just don’t call me a liar.

David E. Will is a Schulenburg rancher and consultant. Call him at (830) 629-9876 and leave a message or email him at dwill207@satx.rr.com.