StrojanHerefords
Active member
I want to make a business out of managing pastures and grazing livestock. I want to bridge the gap between crop consultant and animal nutritionist. I would like ideas on how to make that sort of business work.
Custom Intensive Grazing Business
- Thread starter StrojanHerefords
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I'm considering the same thing as far as grazing others cattle. I don't think there are many on this board who do so themselves. But some know folks that do.
Where are you located? Anyone around you offering the service already? They having success?
Where are you located? Anyone around you offering the service already? They having success?
StrojanHerefords
Active member
I am the Late Great Golden state. I have been doing some custom planting for a few years now and it has been rather difficult getting going. I am more luck with the hobbyist who has a few acres and is tired of spending so much on hay than the rancher who is below the deadman’s curve and about to go broke.
Otha
Well-known member
We did a little custom grazing the last 2 summers. It was a good gig the first year. Last year there wasn't enough grass to make driving to check them worth it sense there weren't very many head grazing. Call the guy last week and he won't be needed extra grass this coming year. I think it will be hard to find someone to pay as much as he did as he was a seed stock producer that didn't want to sell down his heard any.
I'll keep calling around and talking to people in the hopes of finding another good deal.
I'll keep calling around and talking to people in the hopes of finding another good deal.
StrojanHerefords
Active member
My vision is to start out by helping people maximize the forage resources they already have. I will provide the materials and labor to implement total grazing; and at the end of the grazing season, I will get payed based how much additional forage production I provide.
The only out of pocket costs, my clients might have is some protein supplement.
The only out of pocket costs, my clients might have is some protein supplement.
That sounds like a "no lose" situation for the client. Just make sure you are able to cover the cost of your material and labor and the delay in getting paid. One bad year or two can sink an operation like that pretty fast.
RustyTub
Member
Put me down as a pasture management prospect. I can't find diddly around here. Local extension office is a no-go.
RDFF
Well-known member
Curious how you're going to be compensated, if "the only out of pocket costs my clients might have is some protien supplement"?
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RDFF
Well-known member
I'm in Minnesota. In addition to owning/managing my own herd, I've been "custom grazing" on my own property for about 6 years now. My custom grazing model has evolved as I learned through the years. I'm reasonably comfortable with how I'm operating currently and have only made minor changes in the last couple of years... but it's always a work in progress. Just like with the grazing itself, you have to be able to be "observant and adaptive" to ALL new circumstances and information that becomes apparent.
Figure out what you think you can make work FOR YOU, start small, be OBJECTIVELY observant to ALL circumstances, and make changes as required. Over time, you'll learn what works and what doesn't. One thing you always have to keep in mind though... it requires a BALANCE, with equal concern for both you and your client to be able to make it work. BOTH of you have to understand, agree and accept that. If you're too greedy and take all the profit out of it for your client, you won't have clients very long, you'll develop a level of resistance and animosity in the relationship, and your ability to attract new clients will evaporate. If your client demands that you take out all the potential for opportunity for yourself... you simply won't be able to provide that service that you're envisioning. You NEED to develop long lasting, workable, mutually trusting relationships with your clients.
If you're considering doing this on YOUR property (not sure I understand what your business model is just yet), realize that you really only have the property that you have... and you will have to be working with a limited number of clients then. Many, if not most clients, will not want to be mixing their cattle with other people's cattle. Will you try to run multiple separate herds then? Do you intend then to install adequate fencing to keep these individual herds separated? It's a lot easier to manage one group of animals than several, particularly on the same property... every separate group will require about the same amount of time to move them, regardless of the number of animals. Two different groups vs. one doubles your time requirement. A larger group gives you "economies of scale" that a small group simply can't accomplish for you. Be selective, and choose your clients carefully. It has to be a "good fit" for both you and your client!
It SOUNDS more like you're considering offering grazing infrastructure installation and management of the herd services ON THE HERD OWNER'S PROPERTIES? Kind of like a "crop consultant" who will make all the management decisions and provide all of the required infrastructure, but while also including regular (daily?) herd management as well? If that's the case, I think you're going to have a really tough go of it. You're going to have an awful lot of travel time, potentially to widely scattered herds, on a very regular basis. One of the biggest, most important components of managed intensive grazing (and I prefer to add "ADAPTIVE" before that moniker) is REGULAR OBJECTIVE OBSERVATION. If you're not physically ON THE GROUND REGULARLY where the cattle are grazing, you'll never be able to properly achieve your goals. The more regularly you move those animals, the more beneficial will be the potential for your program, for both the animals and the soil, and the productivity of the pasture. HOW you move them, and HOW you decide to move them EACH TIME (based on observation and information available to you at the time), is critical to a successful program. Daily observation of all of the factors that go into those decisions is important. If you have multiple pastures, clients, and herds scattered over an area the size of a county... you're going to be a very busy man trying to cover that much ground, and manage those animals appropriately.
And your cost of labor and transportation to and from those individual operations will eat you alive... respectfully, IMHO.
What direct personal experience with your own investment on the line, have you had with Adaptive Managed Intensive Grazing? It's a pretty big ask to expect someone to trust your management abilities (both financially as it relates to AMIG and animal husbandry/pasture management), without having grounded that with direct personal successful experience.
Figure out what you think you can make work FOR YOU, start small, be OBJECTIVELY observant to ALL circumstances, and make changes as required. Over time, you'll learn what works and what doesn't. One thing you always have to keep in mind though... it requires a BALANCE, with equal concern for both you and your client to be able to make it work. BOTH of you have to understand, agree and accept that. If you're too greedy and take all the profit out of it for your client, you won't have clients very long, you'll develop a level of resistance and animosity in the relationship, and your ability to attract new clients will evaporate. If your client demands that you take out all the potential for opportunity for yourself... you simply won't be able to provide that service that you're envisioning. You NEED to develop long lasting, workable, mutually trusting relationships with your clients.
If you're considering doing this on YOUR property (not sure I understand what your business model is just yet), realize that you really only have the property that you have... and you will have to be working with a limited number of clients then. Many, if not most clients, will not want to be mixing their cattle with other people's cattle. Will you try to run multiple separate herds then? Do you intend then to install adequate fencing to keep these individual herds separated? It's a lot easier to manage one group of animals than several, particularly on the same property... every separate group will require about the same amount of time to move them, regardless of the number of animals. Two different groups vs. one doubles your time requirement. A larger group gives you "economies of scale" that a small group simply can't accomplish for you. Be selective, and choose your clients carefully. It has to be a "good fit" for both you and your client!
It SOUNDS more like you're considering offering grazing infrastructure installation and management of the herd services ON THE HERD OWNER'S PROPERTIES? Kind of like a "crop consultant" who will make all the management decisions and provide all of the required infrastructure, but while also including regular (daily?) herd management as well? If that's the case, I think you're going to have a really tough go of it. You're going to have an awful lot of travel time, potentially to widely scattered herds, on a very regular basis. One of the biggest, most important components of managed intensive grazing (and I prefer to add "ADAPTIVE" before that moniker) is REGULAR OBJECTIVE OBSERVATION. If you're not physically ON THE GROUND REGULARLY where the cattle are grazing, you'll never be able to properly achieve your goals. The more regularly you move those animals, the more beneficial will be the potential for your program, for both the animals and the soil, and the productivity of the pasture. HOW you move them, and HOW you decide to move them EACH TIME (based on observation and information available to you at the time), is critical to a successful program. Daily observation of all of the factors that go into those decisions is important. If you have multiple pastures, clients, and herds scattered over an area the size of a county... you're going to be a very busy man trying to cover that much ground, and manage those animals appropriately.
And your cost of labor and transportation to and from those individual operations will eat you alive... respectfully, IMHO.
What direct personal experience with your own investment on the line, have you had with Adaptive Managed Intensive Grazing? It's a pretty big ask to expect someone to trust your management abilities (both financially as it relates to AMIG and animal husbandry/pasture management), without having grounded that with direct personal successful experience.
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So are you talking about doing some consulting and managing of people's land and cattle? I might have misread.
Spot on. You took the words right out of my mouth.
Taken me 5 years to get a level of understanding decent enough to offer advice to other people. Still, you've gotta be able to adapt because the only guarantee is that each year is different.
I just don't see where he'd be able to make money.
Develop a grazing plan, an infrastructure plan, and offer further consulting, planting services. Could work... but you need to be able to show what you've done with your own land first I'd say.
Bob Kinford
Well-known member
NRCS is more likely to work with you on regenerative grazing programs
RDFF
Well-known member
Best to become self-educated. There's tons and tons of great advice out there. I'll recommend getting in touch with Gabe Brown and Allen Williams at Understand Ag, watch a bunch of Greg Judy videos, and perhaps most importantly, get involved with a good network of soil health/adaptive grazing groups and individuals. THEY are invaluable to assisting you with the learning curve.
StrojanHerefords
Active member
I would rather be able to just manage my own land and cattle but that isn’t where I am at now. I already build fence and custom seed so adding pasture management consulting is a natural fit.
RDFF
Well-known member
Pasture management "consulting" is different than "pasture and herd management"... but obviously is very "related".......
How much personal experience do you have with AMIG (Adaptive Managed Intensive Grazing), with your own $$$ on the line (... I can't emphasize that last part enough)? It's one thing to have attended all the meetings and seminars and to have learned all you can from the "experts" (the speakers at these events). It's an entirely different thing to actually apply that information SO THAT IT DIRECTLY IMPACTS YOUR OWN FINANCIAL OUTCOMES, TAKE ON THE PERSONAL AND DIRECT FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THOSE MANAGEMENT DECISIONS, and come out with an acceptable profit in the end.
Even if you've been closely associated with some of the highly regarded "experts" in the field through an intern program where you were physically responsible for much of the day to day labor and even SOME of the observations and decisions, like having done an internship with Greg Judy for example, that's NOT the same as having personally invested in some land (including potentially renting land) and animals, and then making it work. I don't want to discourage you... but rather, I want to ENCOURAGE you to have your eyes wide open, and to be able to OBJECTIVELY look at all the factors. Most of those who are most respectfully viewed as "experts" in this field, are viewed that way BECAUSE they HAVE successfully put their own $$$$ on the line when applying their recommendations, and learned from that experience. Through THAT, they were GIVEN that "expert" status in the eyes of their peers, BY THEIR PEERS. Most of them would shrink at the idea that they consider themselves to be an "expert" at all. But each one of them, to a man I'd bet, will emphasize just HOW IMPORTANT IT IS to have had their own skin fully in the game in order to really be able to "learn".
How much personal experience do you have with AMIG (Adaptive Managed Intensive Grazing), with your own $$$ on the line (... I can't emphasize that last part enough)? It's one thing to have attended all the meetings and seminars and to have learned all you can from the "experts" (the speakers at these events). It's an entirely different thing to actually apply that information SO THAT IT DIRECTLY IMPACTS YOUR OWN FINANCIAL OUTCOMES, TAKE ON THE PERSONAL AND DIRECT FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THOSE MANAGEMENT DECISIONS, and come out with an acceptable profit in the end.
Even if you've been closely associated with some of the highly regarded "experts" in the field through an intern program where you were physically responsible for much of the day to day labor and even SOME of the observations and decisions, like having done an internship with Greg Judy for example, that's NOT the same as having personally invested in some land (including potentially renting land) and animals, and then making it work. I don't want to discourage you... but rather, I want to ENCOURAGE you to have your eyes wide open, and to be able to OBJECTIVELY look at all the factors. Most of those who are most respectfully viewed as "experts" in this field, are viewed that way BECAUSE they HAVE successfully put their own $$$$ on the line when applying their recommendations, and learned from that experience. Through THAT, they were GIVEN that "expert" status in the eyes of their peers, BY THEIR PEERS. Most of them would shrink at the idea that they consider themselves to be an "expert" at all. But each one of them, to a man I'd bet, will emphasize just HOW IMPORTANT IT IS to have had their own skin fully in the game in order to really be able to "learn".
StrojanHerefords
Active member
I agree completely about needing to have personal stake in order to give good advice. That is why I want to work on a risk share basis. If I don’t add value I won’t get paid.
I started along the path of total grazing in 2015 after reading Man, Cattle and Veld; and taking Johann Zietsman's course. When I started to rotate pastures, I discovered that a pasture that looked consistent under continuous grazing varied wildly in productivity. That got me interested in learning about the soil. That lead me to Neal Kinsey and I have seen good success in addressing soil deficiencies.
I started along the path of total grazing in 2015 after reading Man, Cattle and Veld; and taking Johann Zietsman's course. When I started to rotate pastures, I discovered that a pasture that looked consistent under continuous grazing varied wildly in productivity. That got me interested in learning about the soil. That lead me to Neal Kinsey and I have seen good success in addressing soil deficiencies.
Watch closely for self promotion among the internet guru's. There is a lot of good information out there but the more extra's being sold, books, schools, livestock, etc, the closer to watch their bs levels.
Dave
Well-known member
I did that for years (22+) but never saw where I would have been able to make a business out of it. I was working of a conservation district. So that was who paid me. My services were free to landowners. I was on a first name basis with a lot of the "experts", especially the PNW extension researchers. I occasionally did sampling for those extension people and also took them ideas which they in turn did research on. It worked well for me and the landowners I worked with. But I never did see an opportunity to develop a business.
StrojanHerefords
Active member
Here is a picture of some cover crop I planted and grazed a couple years ago. No tilled after silage corn, 6 acres, two irrigations, 100 lbs an acre of triple 15. I got enough feed to strip graze 20 twelve month old heifers for 55 days. 
Jeanne - Simme Valley
Well-known member
Did you fence them out of where they had already grazed?
