As I write this near the end of March, springtime approaches in northern Saskatchewan with considerable remaining snow cover. This white blanket covers areas that experienced major wildfires and dry conditions last summer, resulting in many smaller wetlands drying up. Areas in southern Saskatchewan dried quickly last summer, with some areas still waiting for significant precipitation in any form. Producers in zones where moisture was too low for a proper hard frost have been digging new dugouts through the winter in an attempt to maximize runoff capture.
Whether up north in last summer’s ash, or down south in the dust, winter feeding is nearing the end, and the need for a grazing plan is mounting.
Year over year, producer efforts to balance grazing and growth will hopefully result in profitable calf crops as well as healthy grasslands. The manageable factors regarding healthy grasslands are overshadowed by weather conditions – although your grass can bounce back with proper rains later in summer, that doesn’t solve the need for grass in a dry spring. Reducing grazing stress in some fashion will aid in buying the time your grasslands need to not only grow upward but to allow them to establish their root systems downward.
Begin with grazing marginal land on more brushy or rocky areas. This may not be as ideal as turning the herd out into fresh growth grass – or even dormant stockpiled grasses – but it retains the benefits of providing increased space for animals on fresh and dry ground with lower bacterial load than their winter/calving pens as well as shelter for that late spring storm. If these areas are particularly tough, protein supplementation may be required to aid breaking down the more fibrous feed. Since increased digestibility resulting from protein supplementation may also increase feed intake, a partial ration of dry forage to keep cattle full may be necessary to extend this grazing period and achieve the required time for your pasturelands to grow.
The goal with grazing these areas early is to buy time. You can’t create more time, but you can buy it. In this case, buying time might include spending more time taking bales out. Even during ideal spring growth conditions, the practice of grazing these marginal areas hard first thing holds up because your main grasslands are not sitting idle. Whereas in a dry spring your grass may lie dormant in wait of rain, in a wet spring it grows upward and then expands the root system.
Let me be clear: I’m not advising the practice of supplemental feeding all summer as a default management practice, but do not underestimate the opportunistic nature of grass to grow when given even just a week or two delay in grazing.
Of course, a week or two grazing marginal lands and supplementing a protein or a forage source still presents a cost. Even if this practice will not work for your operation, it is a beneficial mental exercise to think through the associated cost in light of the North American cattle outlook through this past winter. In some areas, dry conditions last summer resulted in forages being more expensive to feed than grains, with prices such as 13.5-cent-per-pound hay bales and 11.5-cent-per-pound barley being well within the going rate.
However, unexpected trade developments resulted in uncertain protein prices. Unexpected market events almost always present unexpected opportunities, so when Canada’s canola meal availability was high after harvest and exports stalled during winter, the opportunity to land it in your yard was around 12.8 cents per pound or lower. Even in the early spring, 14 cents per pound is a conservative price. This is a much more appealing price compared to previous years, especially for such a high-quality protein as canola meal. Now all of a sudden, what is usually a deterrent because of cost becomes an impetus for grazing some less desirable areas since you can supplement your cows a pound of canola meal along with 10 pounds of 2- or 3-year-old, lower-quality, 6-cent-per-pound hay or straw for a total of 75 cents per head per day, plus yardage. Call your yardage 75 cents per head per day, and that’s still only $1.50 per head per day in a world where bids on summer grass have been over $2 per head per day in recent years.
Again, grazing such areas is not a lengthy enterprise, and if your main grasslands are slow to grow, there is no reason why marginal areas won’t be lacking as well. Even so, this practice still gives your grass more of a fighting chance to establish itself.
This is also not an idea that only fits at the beginning of the grazing season. Say you had dormant grass stockpiled from last fall and began your cattle grazing that paddock, and you get to June with barely any rain. Instead of rotating your cattle aggressively and eating your grasslands down to the wood, it may work for you to graze such marginal areas with supplementation. It is always the right time to buy time!
Once your cows get onto full grass, the same thought exercise and cost analysis can be applied to creep feeding. Creep feeding can be viewed strictly as a value-add option to have calves gain more, but it will also reduce grazing stress on grasses, especially later in summer as the calves begin grazing more. A conservative cost analysis when contemplating creep feeding is to pencil 8 pounds of feed intake for every pound of bodyweight gain for the calves. Given the current price of calves at market, this may pencil in your favour regardless of grass supply. Even if your grass is good, each year deals a different hand, and not all years allow much wiggle room for trying something different.
Depending how you choose to manage grazing, reducing grazing stress with protein supplements or creep feeds may price themselves in your favour. Whether this summer brings low rainfall or a summer of excess, these practices will allow you to either extend grazing on a particular paddock or leave more grass and encourage continued regrowth on paddocks as you rotate.
