Short Course Attendees Hear
Ways To Manage Through Drouth

By Colleen Schreiber

COLLEGE STATION — A crash course in basic drouth management was a timely adjunct to the 44th annual Beef Cattle Short Course and Trade Show here last week. More than 1100 producers attended the three day event.

One of the key presentations covered destocking strategies during drouth as recommended by Dallas-based Extension livestock specialist Dr. Ron Gill.

Gill noted that when considering partial herd reduction, the primary objective should be to optimize animal performance of the remaining breeding herd relative to forage supply.

He discussed four primary rules in destocking. First and foremost, Gill said, the sooner the problem is identified and stocking adjustments are made, the less severe the herd reductions will need to be.

He identified the three most common mistakes ranchers make when faced with forced liquidation of the breeding herd: do nothing now in hopes rainfall will occur or additional grazing can be leased until conditions improve; early wean calves and then hope conditions will improve and cows will not have to be sold; and finally, retain young cows, females less than four years old, at the expense of more productive middle-aged cows four to seven years old.

Culling spring calves under six months of age, Gill stressed, will not appreciably decrease herd forage demand. Gill pointed out that calves only consume 15 to 25 percent of the forage consumed by their dams. Lightweight, early weaned calves also have little value when marketed during widespread drouth conditions. Instead, he encouraged producers to use early weaning as a management tool to improve cow condition before calving, but not to decrease forage demand.

Many producers try to "hang on" just a little longer in hopes adequate rainfall will occur or additional grazing for the cow herd can be found, so destocking will not be necessary, but Gill warned that the longer decisions to decrease stock numbers are delayed, the sooner the forage supply will be exhausted. He cited research conducted in the Rolling Plains which points out that 60 to 80 percent of annual forage production on native pastures usually occurs by the end of July.

"If the drouth were to break and average precipitation occurred beginning now, only 20 to 40 percent of the average forage production could be expected," he explained. "Ranchers who believe they are short on forage relative to livestock demand need to make immediate destocking decisions to balance forage demand and supply. ‘Wait and see’ management will decrease both short and longterm forage production and availability."

Gill reminded listeners that during drouth, what rains do come are most effective if the land contains enough residual forage to capture and utilize the limited precipitation. Having adequate ground cover also helps reduce evaporative loss, and he reminded listeners that more rainfall is needed to sustain forage regrowth in overgrazed pastures compared to those with adequate standing reserves.

"Successful grazing managers always leave sufficient root and leaf tissue for plants to respond to rainfall," he reiterated.

"Hanging on" can also raise havoc with marketing options and sale value of cattle because local markets decline during drouth and during periods of high feed prices, thus delayed destocking inevitably leads to lower cattle income.

"Market cattle early to avoid the inevitable decline in market value," Gill advised.

He warned against trying to feed out of a drouth.

"Decreasing forage demand is imperative during drouth and requires the sale of breeding livestock. Producers should not cull cattle and use that income to buy feed or forage for the remaining cows," he told listeners. "To do so will cause a ranch to come out of a drouth without any cows or money."

Gill outlined which cattle, in his opinion, should be culled in what order.

The first to go, he said, should be spring or summer calving cows without calves. Normal rates of pregnancy loss and calf death loss will result in five to 15 percent of the cow herd meeting these culling criteria. If a cow calved and lost her calf, sell regardless of age or pregnancy status, he recommended. Also included in this first round of culling are replacement heifers that have been purchased or raised but not already in production.

"During drouth, first calf heifers will wean the lightest calves and have the lowest rebreeding potential of any age class," Gill said. "Removing replacement heifers at a 15 percent replacement rate will result in a seven to 10 percent reduction in stocking rate and forage demand." He also noted that supplemental feed requirements will be reduced because replacement heifers have high nutrient requirements. At this stage of culling, herd size can be reduced 12 to 15 percent without impacting the current year’s weaned calf crop.

Next, he advised, cull short bred fall calving cows and long bred spring/summer calving cows. Few cows, he added, will meet these criteria unless the breeding season was extended the previous year due to dry conditions. In contrast, five to 15 percent of cows may be identified as late-bred in herds with extended or year-round calving seasons. Palpation and identification of cows by stage of pregnancy will be required to use this culling practice. At this point, a 15 to 40 percent reduction in cow numbers can be attained without significantly impacting the year’s weaned calf crop.

Gill encouraged producers to carefully inspect all aspects of the cows’ anatomy and current production levels while corralled. This would include teeth, feet, legs, udders and calves at side. He also suggested sorting cows into different culling groups at this time.

Continued declines in forage conditions will require culling cows that are raising the current year’s calf crop. While such drastic measures will affect the year’s income, Gill conceded, culling marginal cows will improve production capability in the remaining herd.

Short and broken mouth cows should be culled first because they will not have acceptable productivity under drouth conditions. The next step would be to cull the genetic bottom of the herd until targeted levels of herd reduction are met. At this stage, the culling priority on 40 to 70 percent of the cow herd has been established.

Before culling deeper into the productive cow herd, he recommended, producers should determine whether the remaining cows are bred and consider whether to sell open cow-calf pairs before weaning.

"If calves weigh 400 pounds or greater, consider weaning and selling the calf and open females separately," Gill said. "Calves weighing less than 400 pounds, and their dams, should be marketed as pairs."

Any calves weaned off marginal cows might be considered for growing to a heavier weight before marketing if their initial weights are great enough. This alternative is feasible only when forage is available and/or feeding is cost-effective, Gill stressed; feed must be cheap for retaining ownership of calves to make economic sense.

At this point, all the easy culling decisions have been made. If animal demands still exceed forage supply, Gill suggested culling cows with the lowest rebreeding potential. "When forage supply is severely restricted, these cows will need to be moved also, no matter what their current production status is."

Cows that fall into this category, he said, are thin middle-aged cows with a body condition score of three and under and thin to moderate first and second calf cows with body condition scores under four. Both groups will have lower conception rates and wean lighter calves than cows in better body condition. This process will normally identify another zero to 10 percent of the herd.

Further culling will require eight year-old or older cows to be sold despite condition or current production status. Age culling will normally identify another five to 10 percent of the cow herd. Many cows in this category will have been culled in previous culling steps. He noted that cows that are kept need to be able to rebreed for next year’s calf crop and the following one as well.

After the herd is culled to this point, the only cow culling criteria left is uniformity.

"Sell the smaller and the larger end of the cows. Some culling on uniformity can be done a step or two earlier in this strategy outline, but the other steps will identify cattle with lower production potential," Gill said.

Beyond that point, destocking options are limited to selling remaining calves and liquidating the herd. By this time all that will be left is four to seven year-old cows that represent only 10 to 30 percent of the original cow herd. Most producers will try to purchase feed to keep the nucleus of the breeding herd together. At times a lifetime of work and dedication to building a herd is at stake. From a purely economic standpoint, purchasing forage to maintain the remaining cows cannot be justified.

"There are many times when emotions overcome common sense and sound economics," Gill said. "There is nothing wrong with that phenomenon as long as the short term emotions do not jeopardize the long-term survival of the ranching enterprise or the economic security of the family."

He told listeners that decisions should not be based solely on equity and tax implications.

"Potential long-term impacts to the forage base may ultimately cost more than immediate tax liability and losses in equity."

Gill also discussed maintaining performance on the remaining animals left in the nucleus herd. Managing through a drouth, he said, requires implementing practices that help reduce stress. Some of these practices include minimizing exposure to increased health risk by reducing access to stagnant watering areas; provide access to ample shade, continue with a sound herd health management program and provide adequate nutrition. Minerals, he noted, will need to be provided to cattle during periods of drouth. Most areas of Texas are deficient in phosphorus and some trace minerals.

"When it becomes necessary to cut cost, usually one of the first areas to receive the axe is the mineral program. Do not stop supplementing phosphorus," he stressed. "Phosphorus has a major impact on reproductive performance." Larry Falconer with the Texas Agricultural Extension Service, Corpus Christi, discussed some of the economic tools for evaluating herd liquidation decisions for breeding cattle.

"Decisions such as keeping or selling an asset like a cow, keeping a heifer for replacement or selling the potential replacement," Falconer told listening producers, "hinge on the expected value of that type animal in your herd when compared with what the market is currently offering you for that type of animal."

Deciding what a cow is worth in the herd, he said, is not as simple.

"A cow is just like a machine in a factory, and as such she has both a productive value and a salvage value," he noted. "She is really worth the sum of all the cash she can earn over her lifetime less all the expenses she creates, which includes her salvage value as a cull cow."

The net cash flow a cow can generate over her lifetime depends on the future prices of calves, the ranch’s cost structure and the eventual salvage value of the cow.

"Not only do the size of the cash flows impact the value of the cow, timing of when the cow generates income and expenses is important in determining the cow’s value because money has earning power of its own," Falconer said. "Drouth causes sharp increases in short run costs, which greatly influence the pattern of these expected net cash flows related to breeding cattle."

The primary economic analysis tool for determining the value of the animal is the capital budget. The most commonly used methods of capital budgeting are payback period, net present value and internal rate of return.

Dr. David Bade, professor and Extension forage specialist at College Station, briefly discussed forage drouth strategies. Like Gill, he encouraged producers to destock based on forage supply/forage demand inventory. Perennial bunchgrasses should be protected during drouth by avoiding close continuous grazing, he said, encouraging instead the use of sod-type pastures like bahia and bermuda, as sacrifice pastures and suggesting a rest rotation system when possible for perennial bunchgrasses.

"Use a grazing plan to control utilization," Bade said. "Now is not the time to open all the gates."

He warned that the growing season for peak production of warm season perennial bunchgrasses has passed, so producers should expect only limited response when rains do come.

Other suggestions included: using crop residues and other non-traditional forages to give pastures extra rest; constantly evaluating forage supply/forage demand; being open to opportunities to lease grazing lands; watching for poisonous plant consumption; and when buying hay, knowing the cost per ton and hay quality as well as the cost full to feed hay.