We've got a long, dry summer ahead - a few pics

[whitewing]

Back in December I started getting the feeling it was going to be a tough summer here. Unfortunately, I was right. I'm already hearing that ranchers just 30 minutes west of my place are already out of pasture. While that means I'll likely be able to make some decent money with my new baling business, I still hate to see so many folks (and their animals) suffer from drought. 2009 was brutal for everyone. I sure don't want to see that again.

Last year at this time it was much greener than it is now. We basically got zero rainfall during the month of January. Don't believe it's dry? Here are a couple of "before and after" shots of one of my more drought-resistent pastures.

Here are a couple more shots, one of that same pasture and one of what is actually bermuda....wouldn't know it by the looks.

At least my animals aren't suffering. In fact, I think they're eating better during this summer drought than they ate back in winter when everything was green. But boy, they sure can run through some bales in a hurry. :shock:

And finally, despite the extremely harsh summer, I'm still producing bermuda. Yeah, the production has dropped way off, but the grass that I am producing still looks pretty decent and I've got far more customers than I have bales. My irrigation system was down for over week waiting repairs and now that it's back up and running, I'll start harvesting again. These shots were taken yesterday. I'll bale tomorrow.

 

[Angus Cowman]

Hate to see that WW
Be sure and don't let $$$ signs get in your way and sell hay that you may need later on

 

[whitewing]

Hate to see that WW
Be sure and don't let $$$ signs get in your way and sell hay that you may need later on

Words of wisdom indeed. Thanks. Fortunately, I've now got more offers to bale various pastures than I think I can complete before the rains fall again. The greatest risk is that some of those pastures will burn before I can cut and bale them.

 

[cypressfarms]

Dang,

That's a huge difference! Hope it gets better.

 

[Isomade]

I hate to see that WW. It looks strangely familiar, like what we had last summer. Hope you get rain soon.

 

[1982vett]

Those dry pastures look remarkably familiar....dirt. However, the trees still look healthy. A tremendous amount of trees and brush have died from lack of moisture in this area.

 

[whitewing]

Those dry pastures look remarkably familiar....dirt. However, the trees still look healthy. A tremendous amount of trees and brush have died from lack of moisture in this area.

Yup, the trees go through this (to varying degrees) every year. To be fair, I've got pastures that are still in good shape only because I've not put the cattle on them yet. This particular pasture, about 16 acres, I'm using as something of a corral. I plan to plant bermuda in July of this year and have let the cattle eat it to the ground and fertilize it well. I deliver bales to them every day while they're on this particular piece.

Having said all that, almost everyone in the region is worried about the conditions this summer.

 

[SRBeef]

A couple thoughts from your pictures but not knowing details:

rotational grazing might keep the dryland from getting eaten down to the point where it is tough for the grass to come back even when you do get some rain.

what about rotationally grazing all or part of the irrigated circle, again controlled by electric wires, to feed what I suspect are your own cattle rather than baling hay for sale?

Good luck

Jim

 

[novatech]

A couple thoughts from your pictures but not knowing details:

rotational grazing might keep the dryland from getting eaten down to the point where it is tough for the grass to come back even when you do get some rain.

what about rotationally grazing all or part of the irrigated circle, again controlled by electric wires, to feed what I suspect are your own cattle rather than baling hay for sale?

Good luck

Jim

What actually works the best is a sacrificial paddock. I doesn't hurt bermuda to be eaten down to the ground but bunch grasses will commonly die, With sever drought eventually the cattle will eat everything rotational or not. It is best to leave some cover on the ground for protection.
Might want to think about running some of the irrigation over to the cattle pasture. It is still cheaper feed than growing, baling and then feeding.

 

[whitewing]

A couple thoughts from your pictures but not knowing details:

rotational grazing might keep the dryland from getting eaten down to the point where it is tough for the grass to come back even when you do get some rain.

what about rotationally grazing all or part of the irrigated circle, again controlled by electric wires, to feed what I suspect are your own cattle rather than baling hay for sale?

Good luck

Jim

What actually works the best is a sacrificial paddock. I doesn't hurt bermuda to be eaten down to the ground but bunch grasses will commonly die, With sever drought eventually the cattle will eat everything rotational or not. It is best to leave some cover on the ground for protection.
Might want to think about running some of the irrigation over to the cattle pasture. It is still cheaper feed than growing, baling and then feeding.

Thanks everyone for the comments and suggestions. And for the record, I do rotationally graze.

Having said that, Novatech nailed it. As you can see from the photos of when this pasture was green, it's a bunch grass pasture. It has had an irrigation system installed and functioning for the last two years. The problem for me has been that the system I'm employing doesn't work well with this particular bunch grass. I've got a combo of brachiaria and guinea and the hose hangs up too much. Here's a photo of the system I'm using.

I decided that this year (July), I'm going to plant this particular paddock (and two others served by the same irrigation system) in bermuda which has produced well for me....both in terms of baling and as grazing for my cattle. While I realize feeding bales is a bit more expensive and cumbersome than allowing the cattle to feed themselves, I've had good luck with the bales, we're set up to handle them, and I like the fact that my pastures generally remain in much better condition without the animals beating them down.

In total I've got 14 pastures, some planted in bermuda, some with naturally-occurring vegetation that sustain my cattle. As Novatech pointed out, at some point I allow the cattle to graze certain bermuda pastures to the ground without fear that they'll ruin what's there. And as a last resort, I try to keep my best bermuda (about 25 acres) green until the very end of summer and use it as a "safety valve" for my cattle in case all else has failed.

 

[hurleyjd]

Looks like you have a very efficient operation. As I look at the photos I wonder how many employees you have to hire to manage it. Also what does land like you have cost there. Here we are looking at 2500 to 4000 per acre in east Texas. Our beef prices have been good what does the calves you produce bring at the time of sell. How do you market them. We have local auction yards we can haul to. Just wondering about this.

 

[whitewing]

Looks like you have a very efficient operation. As I look at the photos I wonder how many employees you have to hire to manage it. Also what does land like you have cost there. Here we are looking at 2500 to 4000 per acre in east Texas. Our beef prices have been good what does the calves you produce bring at the time of sell. How do you market them. We have local auction yards we can haul to. Just wondering about this.

Thanks for the positive comment. Overall I feel I do have a pretty efficient operation though there's always room for improvement. I'll try to answer your questions as best I can.

I have a total of 3 employees; a foreman who stays on the place 24/7 and cares for the animals (cattle, hogs, horses, a few sheep), another fellow who works at night during the "summer" to irrigate my bermuda (during the winter he works handling bales of bermuda), and a third who can operate heavy equipment and perform simple mechanic duties. I'd say over 90% of the tractor-related work I do myself. I don't like others using my equipment.

When I'm in to pretty heavy baling, I do bring on a couple of part-timers to help moving the bales but they're day-laborers only and not full time.

In this area, land costs generally run about $100/acre. I bought my original 520 acres about 5 years ago and paid about $60/acre. Having said that, that was really crude land....not much pasture planted, a lot needed clearing, and the fences could hardly been seen. And once finding the fence, it usually was in such bad shape it needed to be ripped out and replaced. Over the years I've added other parcels and now work with about 930 acres. That seems to be a good, manageable size for me.

The last group of young bulls I sold brought about $0.60/lb live weight. These animals averaged about 750 lbs. Some folks buy recently weaned calves (which is my preference), others buy them at about the 700 lb range and finish them for market. Keep in mind that the weaning weights of animals here are significantly below those of the States and colder climates. My preference has been to buy calves when summer is really kicking in, feed them in corrals for 6 to 8 months, and sell them near the end of winter. That last batch I sold left in early November and I was glad to see them go as I could see my pastures were beginning to decline in production.

There are no auction houses here that I've seen for the sale of cattle. Most sales are via contacts with other ranches or direct to the meat markets. I get calls 5 times a week asking if I've got an animal or two to butcher. Depending on how desperate the meat market is, some pretty good deals can be made. The animals are typically sold "al gancho" which means they've been slaughtered, skinned, gutted, and hanging on the hook....or the gancho. Some meat market buyers will also buy them live weight but those buyers are few and far between.

I also sell hogs every year with December being the biggest month of the year. It's really tough to make money in hogs here IF you try to raise them purely on commercial feeds....just doesn't pay as the feeds are too expensive. I've been using something of a modified system of raising them and it's worked really well for me. My hogs spend most of their time in a 6 acre pen surrounded by an electric fence using solar power. They feed on bermuda and whatever else grows there. Every couple of days we bring them ground corn and grain sorghum and whatever else we can find on the market that's almost given away.....mangos, melons, you name it, they eat it. In mid November I start moving small groups of animals to a more traditional hog pen at the ranch house and "finish" them on commercial feeds. As one group gets sold another group moves in. This year I'm adding an irrigation system to my hog pen. I think the animals will be much happier with the extra water and I'll be able to produce much more bermuda for them.

All in all, I'd say that ranching here is like ranching everywhere else....tough to make a living at it but if one works really hard and watches his expenses, a decent and satisfying living can be made. Hope that answers your questions. Feel free to ask more. :cboy:

 

[James T]

Whitewing, something seems off here. A Bermuda pasture doesn't typically go from thick, dense, green to dried out nothing in one month. Was there any rain at all in December? After your last go around of baling, were cattle placed on all the Bermuda hay pastures?

My take on this without knowing all the facts is that you should save some of your hay pastures just for hay (no grazing-if you can), irrigate them (if you can) and when you do cut for bailing, cut higher than normal to preserve some form of photosynthesis for re-growth, decrease evaporation (keeps ground a little cooler), and decrease the amount of weed growth. This assumes that soil nutrition has been kept up to par with the soil analysi you have performed ( ). By cutting a little higher you might sacrifice a few bales but you should get them all back and more through future cuttings.

You have irrigation so, the rest is all proper management. If done well, you can still make some money on your hay and help out your neighbors in the process!

 

[whitewing]

Whitewing, something seems off here. A Bermuda pasture doesn't typically go from thick, dense, green to dried out nothing in one month. Was there any rain at all in December? After your last go around of baling, were cattle placed on all the Bermuda hay pastures?

My take on this without knowing all the facts is that you should save some of your hay pastures just for hay (no grazing-if you can), irrigate them (if you can) and when you do cut for bailing, cut higher than normal to preserve some form of photosynthesis for re-growth, decrease evaporation (keeps ground a little cooler), and decrease the amount of weed growth. This assumes that soil nutrition has been kept up to par with the soil analysi you have performed ( ). By cutting a little higher you might sacrifice a few bales but you should get them all back and more through future cuttings.

You have irrigation so, the rest is all proper management. If done well, you can still make some money on your hay and help out your neighbors in the process!

Good questions JamesT. I suspect there could be a bit of confusion here but believe I can sort it out for you. First off, I don't recall exactly when I took that photo of the place really green, but it was definitely not back in December. It's the "typical" look of the place during a typical winter.

In the picture below (taken last week), most of the bermuda in the far background was harvested during the month of December. For the record, we got very little rain during the month of December and ZERO during January. After harvesting, I start putting water immediately (at night) and when there's sufficient rainfall, I also use urea. During the month of January, my water pump went down and it took me almost 10 days to get it repaired. Those ten days just happened to be ten days of intense sun with little cloud cover and it took its toll. Again, here's the photo of that bermuda taken last week.

Here's that same bermuda in a photo I took last Friday as I was cutting it for baling. It's not as deep green as normal, but it's still in pretty good shape as you'll see in the photos. I waited to harvest it until after I had my pump repaired so I could begin putting water immediately after baling.

Now, this photo (also taken last week) is of two pastures that are planted in bermuda and until the end of November were in pretty decent shape. I do not have them under irrigation yet and I do pasture my animals there on a rotational basis.

My bermuda pastures that are currently under irrigation and producing hay are NOT grazed by animals during a typical year and have not been grazed this year. As I mentioned previously, if worse comes to worse, I will use those pastures as a safety valve but so far have not had to do so. I have other bermuda pastures that are not under irrigation that I also bale....usually 5 times during a normal "winter". At the end of the season, while there's still bermuda struggling to produce some cover before it completely dries out, I'll usually pasture the animals there. This gives me some relief from feeding bales and also puts a bit of natural fertilizer back on the land. I also take that opportunity to put a few feeders on what were otherwise weak spots in the pasture and let the animals do their part to improve the soils.

The change from winter to summer & summer to winter here is often like the flip of a switch. It's amazing how fast the climate changes and as a life-long student of weather patterns I'm getting a better sense of things in the few short years I've been here. Summers can be BRUTAL here with virtually nothing in the way of rainfall for 5 months or more. I'm afraid we're entering such a summer and it'll be late May or early June before anything of significance in the way rainfall blesses us in this area.

I've considered your idea about varying the cutting height on my mower depending on weather conditions. To date I've generally scalped the bermuda but it may be time to give your ideas a shot. With water, this stuff grows really fast down here. Without it, it's brown and struggling within a couple of weeks.

Hope I answered your questions.

 

[James T]

Whitewing, I was really focusing on those pics that showed the worn down pastures rather than the ones beyond the fence line. I should have looked a little closer! Just the same though, cutting a little higher could help you out some Since you have irrigation, you should be in a pretty good position to keep on producing hay and I suspect that every bit of it will be sold before you even get it off the ground. You probably already know this but I'll say it anyway and that is to be careful applying too much nitrogen when it gets extremely hot out. It can sure burn up a field. Given the weather circumstances, it appears that your managing things.

 

[whitewing]

Whitewing, I was really focusing on those pics that showed the worn down pastures rather than the ones beyond the fence line. I should have looked a little closer! Just the same though, cutting a little higher could help you out some Since you have irrigation, you should be in a pretty good position to keep on producing hay and I suspect that every bit of it will be sold before you even get it off the ground. You probably already know this but I'll say it anyway and that is to be careful applying too much nitrogen when it gets extremely hot out. It can sure burn up a field. Given the weather circumstances, it appears that your managing things.

I don't have my field notes with me but if I recall correctly, the last time I applied nitrogen was in mid November on a rainy day about 3 weeks before I harvested that section. I haven't applied nitrogen since due to lack of rainfall, hot conditions, and a concern about excessive nitrates in the hay. I don't even know if the latter is a serious concern, but I've got clients with some very expensive horses and the last thing I need is someone tying a dead or sick animal to my product.

And you're right. For many months now my bales have been sold before they're even made. Even after a couple of days drying in hot sun my bermuda still stays a deep green and the clients love it. I don't know if the horses notice the color, but the buyers sure do.