Kit Pharo - The Importance of Quitting the Herd & Thinking Differently

I'm gonna talk about ranching made profitable enjoyable and sustainable and usually you know we understand profitable we're starting to understand sustainable enjoyable is just as important the other do what I want to do is I want to challenge you to look outside this box that you've put yourself in and you can call this a I call it a box it's a paradigm it's it's how we view the world around us my box is different than yours yours is different than your neighbor's but we're all stuck in our own box and if we never get up and look out think outside the box we get trapped and it's so easy to be trapped in your box because it's also your comfort zone we don't we're comfortable in our box but we really don't want to change anything else we don't want anything else to change but the one thing we can count on things will change so you need people like me I need people like you to challenge me to look outside my comfort box my my my comfort zone and box and see things a little different see what's possible our ranch is known as favorite cattle company it's located on the central high plains of eastern Colorado this elevation there's about 4,400 feet it's short grass country very limited under unpredictable rainfall when you think of Colorado many of you have been there many of you have been on a ranch but a lot of people especially in foreign countries when they think of Colorado they think of ski resorts mountains those are those sort of things we can't see the mountains from where we live there are no mountains there are no trees every tree that's out in eastern Colorado was planted and watered and there's no running water there's very few people so you know there's there's some advantages out there we started out in the early 1980s as commercial producers we were able to lease a fairly sizable her lease some land and get back to the area where both Deanna and I grew up and it didn't take long and with the guidance of a few friends who were smarter than me we decided you know they industria the beef industry at that time this is 1980 was headed in the wrong direction and we knew what we thought we needed to do is opposite of what the industry was doing the industry for the most part was trying to make their cattle as big as it could it was a race the race was long I mean we it didn't take long you know when that's after all the exotic breeds came in from Europe the continental breeds and I remember how big those cattle were and from that point on the English breeds that we were more familiar worth to Herefords the Red Angus the Black Angus decided they needed to catch up and about probably eight years ago they did catch up the biggest cows in North America now are not Galvis Charlet Sinemet all their Angus Red Angus at Hereford but anyway that that was the race that we could see the industries on we didn't want to do that we instead of increasing cal size we wanted to increase pounds and profit per acre or per hectare but because we couldn't find the genetics that we wanted it was impossible to find somebody else that thought like us because we were we were already way outside the box the herd so we decided we would become that seed stock producer or stud stud breeders might be more familiar term for you guys our first bull sale in 1991 we sold six bulls we now sell Bulls mostly Angus quite a few Red Angus Hereford and a couple of different composites and we for the last ten years we've sold 800 to a thousand bulls a year so what we were doing clear back in the 80s eventually kind of started making sense to commercial producers most of the industry and I've referred to the industry as status quo most of them are still trying to out Simmental the Seminoles but more and more people are catching on to what we're doing I want to start with this quote agriculture that is not profitable and enjoyable will never be sustainable a lot of times we think okay we're ranching for the lifestyle and a lot of people in America are and probably some here too but just because it's a lifestyle doesn't mean it's sustainable if it's not profitable and there are a few people making money at ranching you know I don't remember the Canada or or Australia but I went through customs once and they asked me what I was going to be speaking about I said I'm going to speak to a group of cattlemen and I said ranching made profitable said didn't that oxymoron it's not but it has to be both of those to be sustainable it has to be both of those for the next generation to say I like what we're doing here I want to come back now I'd like to ask the audience about now what do you think the average age of cow-calf producers in Australia is 58 60 David what did you tell me before 64 David acts like he knows what he's talking about so I always go with that the rest of you are quietly guessing so 64 that's about the same as it is in the US and I get to thinking when I think of that I say okay most of people of my age that age in the US are retiring and you know there's a lot of people 64 65 66 they've got their retirement all set up now I'm not going to retire until I have to retire so that doesn't matter to me but the point that I'm trying to make here is that the average age of cow-calf producers as close to retirement age so where are the where's the next generation why aren't they coming into the family the family business I don't know for sure but I suspect it may may have something to do with do I have a red light here apparently it's a little bitty one has something to do with profit enjoyment no ranchers in America try to do everything they try to make it as hard as they can you know we're going to cave in a snowstorm we're going to you know we're going to feed as much food as we can do work we're just gonna work real hard and not fake make any money and the next generation says you know I can go to town and get a 40-hour a week job and make 10 times 20 times that much so I think that's that's a that's a key for what we're going to talk today my neighbor Earle sitting on that ugly tractor says no I ain't thought much about retirement I'm going to just keep working till I'm finished going broke that's not really funny is it it's funny because there's too much truth involved there and in ourselves you know that the but hey I won't tell that one I will tell another one though because I'll forget it later every time I hear David talk about average is like a unicorn there is no such thing and Bart said something similar where's Bart so every time I hear somebody say that I want to jump up and tell them what my definition of average is the average person has one testicle in one boob but you don't see that very often [Laughter] but but talking a little bit about average there is no such thing whether it's the weather the markets the anything I mean you just can't depend on average that's that's where we get caught in our comfort zone we say okay if I could just get rain at this time you know we're real comfortable but it's never going to be that way and things will change and we'll talk about a little bit too much has changed in the last 50 years do you think ranching is as profitable today as it was 50 years ago no and as either you or Terri showed that slide ranchers were much more profitable 50 years ago than they are today you know I'm gonna go you know I'm gonna answer that here for a few people ranching is more profitable these are the unique people that know how to do all the right things there's not many of them kind of like the average person they're unique most cowcat most cow calf producers today are doing good just to break even in the u.s. way over half of a mark breaking even and there's a good reason for that most cow herds in the US are so small they weren't even designed to make money you know they're subsidized by outside income and you know we don't have to make money on these so you know what if you can break even in a 10-year period better than average okay why is that I'm going to share a couple of my thoughts and I'm sure there's other reasons for the past 50 years input costs have risen for too fast for the cattle prices that toughed to get around admit input costs have risen four times faster than inputs for the last 50 years cattle prices I mean and I believe input costs are going to pretty much keep increasing I mean there may be some drop in crude oil prices and things like that for the most part I think we're gonna see this thing just keep going what do you think so that's something that's making it hard to be profitable today so we're gonna have to learn how to ranch with fewer inputs almost no inputs would be great the other thing is for the last 50 years cattlemen around the world you guys are just as bad as we are in the US have been have bred and selected almost exclusively to increase weaning lengths don't deny it that's the paradigm we all grew up in when I went back to the ranch in 1980 you know that was the thing that I could say okay this does not make sense and when you pencil it out it does not make sense and that's why we said okay we're gonna stop this it doesn't matter how big your cattle are if they're not profitable so that's hard too you know I'll talk a little bit more about that but let me tell you why they've been very successful at doing that you know I think we've almost doubled our weaning weights in the last 50 or 60 years in the u.s. sure didn't double our profits as a result of this incessant selection for bigger and bigger weights this is what we see happening bragging rights have increased that's only positive I see here and there's a lot of that going on in the u.s. I don't know how it is here but I mean that's what we live for or some people live for bragging rights they're fun but you can't buy any groceries with them you're not going to kiss send the kids to college with bragging rights number two because we're selecting for bigger and bigger weaning weight scale sizes increased cows us are about 40% bigger than they were 40 years ago they eat more they still only produce one calf and we'll talk a little more about that later because Cal sizes increased stocking rates have decreased and the cost of production has increased all negative except the first one and as a result of all that profits have also decreased I mean it's it's a you're fighting an uphill battle doing what we're talk about doing here I believe and I have believed for some times that the beef industry is at a major turning point what's worked so well for the last 20 years you guys all figured that out won't work for the next 20 years those who are the quickest to adapt and change will be in the driver's seat I know several of those people are here today they're there changing and they stopped selecting for the wrong things there they're using less inputs those who are slowest to change they're going to get left behind and run over and they should be you know I think in America if we could do if we could get the government out of farming we'd have less farmers or less less farmers that don't know what how to make a profit I'm sure there's some of you here that are going to get it's going to be a struggle to keep up and that all depends on your willingness change if you have no willingness to change it's going to be tough so let's talk about accepting change if I ask for a show of hands how many of you like change at least three or four of you raise your hands don't do it because you're lying we don't like change work we're creatures of habit we like our comforters at box or a comfort zone we don't want to even look outside and see what's possible you know the times I think some of you know I send out weekly emails and quarterly newsletters and when I UPS the largest number of people is when I tell them they can do better than they're doing they don't want to know that they're happy right there in that comfort zone and they would rather fail doing things the way they've always done it then succeed because it involves change we don't like change we're creatures of habit most industries innovation is accepted and implemented in seventy or months let's say I'm manufacturing computers in my in my shop building and some little explosion or something to happens and all of a sudden I I found a way to make a much better much faster computer for half the price now when I start doing this if the rest of the industrious is making computers who makes most of the computers you buy here doing it I don't understand the angle China okay if the other companies don't adopt and practice what I'm doing I'm going to leave them back it's a dog-eat-dog world 17 to 24 months on the other hand calculus or than the cow-calf business that usually takes 17 to 24 years and when I say innovation to be accepted that's a proven idea that's something that I prove will work you prove will work and yet it's going to take us 24 years 17 24 years to put it in practice how many is there anybody here that disagrees with that that's sad isn't it what does that say about us there's that's right agriculture advances one funeral at a time that's part of the problem and that's probably the main part III don't know I you know I think there's several things there we in agriculture hate to leave our comfort zones almost worse than anybody else and somehow we can stay in there and stay in business even though we're only breaking even for a long time most businesses can't do that but for the most part most farms and ranches stations properties are multi-generational two or three generations are usually getting their income from this property grandpa may have to town he's not doing much anymore but that's where his income has to come from the young buck that's out there doing most of the work is living and working in his dad's or maybe even his granddad's paradigm I mean he sees a different world they see their world and they're not going to look outside that box now we talked about average age who checked most of these people in Tracy or CA in the back there you are what do you think the average age of these people are old did you say it's a lot younger than 64 uh maybe not a lot but it we need more Mattie's but I you know I hear people my age I'm 66 will be 67 this year I hear people my age says well what's wrong with the next generation they're just too lazy to work no they're too smart to do what you've been doing you know there's a lot of cattlemen in the u.s. work a 40-hour a week job and then work 40 hours on the weekend to take care of the cows that don't weren't gonna make any money a lot of times dad and grandpa was safe you know whenever my ax grazing put this meeting together say you know I just read read about this meeting with Athens junior to the meeting and juniors tell hutch happy I'd be happy to go and he starts listening to the people that spoke today and he says you know this is a little different than what granddad and dad talked about and he gets that more and more excited can't wait to get home and tell his dad when he tells his dad a few of the things he learns what happens yeah that won't work here no cook so cold water in his face how long how many times can you do that to junior before he says this is crap I'm leaving and if junior has a wife it won't take that long because mrs. jr. sees what's going on and says you're still gonna be a hired man when you're 55 years old and that's what's wrong part of what's wrong with this industry okay I know that I I tend to be this way I know you tend to be this way but we need that be smarter and say okay let's counter diktat and say it doesn't have to be that way in my business we're gonna do things different you can dare to be a herd quitter now somebody I think he's a reporter said I don't know what a her splitter is but I'm gonna find out a herd quitter is someone who has enough courage to break away from the status quo herd mentality way of thinking it's more about thinking for yourself than anything else now I know all of you think you're rugged individuals do your own thinking that's a lie too we're the most hurt bound industry that I know of now maybe you aren't but I'll bet you your neighbors are but they don't think they are as long as we're following the crowd doing what everybody else is doing as long as we're in the status quo we're not thinking for ourselves we're too lazy you're afraid to think for ourselves so we let somebody else do it as long as you're doing that you'll never ever ever be above average think about that average is losing money in this business we have to be better than average or we're not going to have a business to pass on to the next generation if we figure it figure that out had another little thought there but it just slipped away so I'll just moving on profit equals income minus expenses that's basic economics 101 we don't talk about this much now RCS talks about it a lot but the reason people don't come to a lot of grazing seminars or things like this is because it's not sexy enough this isn't sexy enough we like to talk about our big weenie wage because that's sexy this isn't sexy but it's critical my production whoops whoops oops sorry my profit is dependent on what I produce times its value minus my expenses most of us don't have much control over the markets or the prices we receive some of us do but most cattlemen don't so we're going to talk about these two things reducing expenses increasing production now reducing expenses most of you or most of the groups I talked about it says you need to find expenses you can totally eliminate you can only reduce so far you can't reduce anymore but we all have expenses we can eliminate if we think about it if you don't have any expenses you can eliminate and the expenses continue to go up like this you just as well sell out now while somebody else is there to buy your place now let's talk about production and I struggle with this in a little bit when I talk about increasing production what's the average cow-calf producer think of increased waiting weights so this is how I'm going to do it increasing production is a great way to increase profits now yell at you but only if your Inc you increase per day action per hectare not animal an increase in production per hectare is its wide open when you stop thinking about increasing production per cow it's amazing what we can do and we'll talk about that forum I think this is a slide I just put in this morning Johan zisman who is a rancher consultant from Zimbabwe says if corn farmers thought the same way that cow calf producers think and this is around the world this isn't just an Australia or America around the world they would plant very few plants per acre or hectare and they would try to get the most pounds of corn per plant now does that make sense what are you guys been doing it's the same thing trying to get the most panels for cow is no different than what this guy in the foreground is doing look at the background though this guy says ok I'm going to get the most pounds and profit per hectare not per plant or per cow soak that in a little bit because I guarantee you you may not be doing it now but everyone in here has done that and it's probably still doing it and I tell people I believe really believe it most cow-calf producers can actually double their profits once they start or stop thinking about the wrong things focusing on the wrong things profit for per cow is not going to do it any more than pounds per plant many renters in America that were put together and paid for with 350 pound calves are now struggling and going broke with 600 pound calves they were profitable back there with those little calves they were doing things right and you know we didn't have to the inputs were as high for the last 50 years the beef industry has been focused on increasing individual reading weights when they should have been focused on increasing pounds and profit per hectare total big difference there when you hear I think I remember what I was thinking about before when you purchase bulls most of you are kept producers not you but when you go out and purchase bulls I could pretty much guarantee you're selecting for an increase how many of you use growth eat the EBV s so you don't have to show hands I've really no I'd be ashamed to raise my hand you're selecting for bragging rights I don't know most most ranchers in America have a good relationship with their banker I don't know about you guys but I've found Americans I can go ask your banker if he wants you to select for bragging rights or profit because there's a difference you cannot select for bigger and bigger weaning weights without your profit going down is that right David we have people that measure these things okay I said Rock okay I haven't seen this for some time but sometimes we need a visualization to reinforce them some thinking this is a picture of my dad in the 1950s my dad was born in Denver Colorado leaves the city kid wanted to be a cowboy or a rancher he eventually moved to eastern Colorado he had a very small herd of cows and a job in his job in town was a ranged conservationist he had been trained to do that dad did not grow up on a ranch I think was a positive I think Maddy said the same thing about her grew up and said and that's a positive what we're not tied to some stupid family traditions we can think for ourselves and my dad was like that I inherited that from my dad my sons inherited that from me so I there are some valuable times I spent with my dad I learned a lot from him not only you know grass management and those sort of things but just in general I mean he saw things different and ranching than everybody else I remember riding across the pasture one day that's something that every father should do with their sons and it doesn't happen often enough but I remember him just would just walk well here's what he said you can only produce so many pounds of beef from an acre of grass or hectare of grass you're going to notice today that I don't convert everything to kilograms or hectares or however else and I I'm looking out there you guys are smart enough to get the gist anyway and it's more a function of rainfall than anything else now I took me probably thirty years to truly understand what he's saying and it shouldn't have but what he's saying if we just kind of back management out we have some cows and some land and really we don't do anything with them I mean we don't plant and we don't have grazing chart don't anything we just kind of let the cows and then the land and the rain take care of it on years let's say this is a hectare if this tent is on a good year you get more rain you're gonna produce more beef right on a bad year you're gonna produce less beef that's all these thing but I'm going to take it a step farther and say ok let's assume that I and this small ranch will produce in an average year you know what average is you don't see that very often in an average year my small ranch is going to produce twenty five thousand kilograms of beef or calves so I want to give you two choices 25,000 kilograms the reason those truck pictures are there that's about what we can put in a truck in America I mean that's a truckload of cash whether they weigh 400 or 180 kilograms or 270 kilograms so I'm going to give you that choice and say which truck is worth more one of them has 180 kilogram calves one of them has 270 kilogram calves which truck is worth more the one on the left yes year in and year out that trucks worth 10 to $15,000 more than the one on the right so why are you working so hard to produce those bigger calves you're not market demands it do you get paid for bigger calves apparently not let's cast over this trucks worth more well we're thinking III want to stop I just want you to look at that and and in actuality well let me let me back up I don't want you to go home say I got it figured out now if I just lean my calves when they're smaller I'm gonna make more money not going to work that way this this situation over here I mean it took a few years to get there but this ranch has more cows producing more calves that don't weigh as much per calf and in reality and we'll talk about this later in reality these cows here will actually produce more than this truck over here the cows over here are able to wean a higher percentage of their own weight and therefore not only do you have more cows up in the stocking rate but they're producing more perk for their weight so it's a it's a something that you don't you don't just take your big cows and wean your calves small and make money doing that there's an adjustment there walking rate stocking rate of profitability lack thereof more than anything else now I didn't convert these pounds to kilograms actually I did but I forgot to put that slide in so it sits somewhere else but that doesn't matter somebody tell me real quick what a thousand-pound cow is 450 and a 1400 pound 640 so I can I can have a hundred head of 450-kilogram cows as compared to 71 a head of six 640 kilogram cows I just trying to get you to picture some of this and and over the last 50 years because we as an industrial selected for more and more weighting late we've ended up with more and more cows like this okay I'd like to compare the average producer with a low input producer and again the average producers basically losing money but this disel just showing breaking even the black wavy line there represents catheters for the cattle cycle you know back in the 80s and 90s and prior to that that was very predictable in the states I assume that yours may be following along somewhat but every 10 years we would be up onto the top every 10 years we'd be down here you could count on that and you could make money at the top and the bottom cause it's just going to happen we haven't been down here at the bottom in the US since 1996 so we've been kind of floating around the prices have gone up and down a little bit but we have not seen a true bottom since 1996 so that the cycle has somewhat broken but it's still there it's just not as predictable now the red line represents the average producer on a good year prices are high he's making money on a bad year he's losing about the same amount there are more people that you can imagine that are no better than that some in here that's a break-even Rancher wouldn't you say I know cow-calf producers that are doing have done this for generations for decades and they're still doing it if you take a business in town let's say a restaurant how long can it break even not very long what makes us so unique equity subsidy you don't get subsidies if your wife works in town you're getting subsidized good friend of mine says the secret of being a successful ranchers a wife with a really good job I think you know number one were stubborn and we're smart you know we know that we're gonna when we make all this money here we better not spend at all because we also know what this is becoming next so we save some money and in the u.s. there's a lot of subsidizing going on and there's a lot of cow herds like I said that are so small they weren't even supposed to be profitable so they never will be the blue line down here represents the low input producers these are the eyes that have ulama nated as many expenses as they think they can and they've reduced other expenses it's not in this case here it's not that they're making more money it's such spending less money the easiest money you're ever going to make is the money you do not spend and you don't have to be you don't have to pay taxes on it the most profitable ranchers that I know of have one thing in common without exception they strive to make the most efficient use of the forage resources on their ranch in other words backup they strive to make the most of every ray of sunshine a drop of rain that hits the land they control that's where it's all that solar energy and rain and that most of the talks you heard today I mean we know what it is to be without rain but we can prepare for it we can we can manage our grazing we can do things that will make it better for us Bart said his opening said being being ready is a choice is that how you said being ready is a choice being prepared is a choice you know that's not just about rain that's about a lot of things this involves what I call the three keys number one planned rotational grazing now we can call that a lot of things this is what I tend to like to call it I used to just say rotational grazing but if there's no plan involved you're just moving cows it's not gonna work and we listen to you know some really smart people talking about this already today number two matching your production cycle to your forage resources and number three matching cow size and type to your forage resources so we're to talk about those one at a time I'm sure that because you're here there's no one in this room that has not heard about planned rotational grazing you've heard about it some of you aren't doing it but you've heard about it and I'm pretty sure that all of your neighbors have heard about it if you have a grazing school if you hire some of these guys to come teach the grazing school for you how many of your neighbors would show up not very many it's not sexy enough I'm going to tell you some brief things about what we've experienced in 1994 we put in some water lines we put in some cross fences and we started rotational grazing simply put that means putting all of our cattle together and one large herd rotating them through a series of smaller pastures and I know I'm you know most of you are way beyond what I'm talking about but maybe some of you aren't and sometimes I can say something a different way than you've heard before my first rule of thumb is to move cattle faster when the grass is growing fast slow when the grass is growing slow that doesn't seem too complicated but I'm amazed and when I was in Rocky you know I talked to two people didn't get that I mean they started rotating cattle but they didn't know how they were doing or why they were doing it and I said who did you learn from well we read a little bit and we talked to the neighbors and you know you shouldn't build any fence until you know what you're doing but I look at this and I you know a lot of people say that just doesn't make sense when it's growing back fast leave them longer if you're not hurting it let's just let's pretend that my hand is a grass plant when we open a gate a cow comes in there she jumps that off now if I have sufficient moisture that grass plant is going to start growing back almost immediately the more moisture I have the faster it goes back before another cow can eat it again or even think about eating it the cows have to be moved so the reason I'm saying is is we want a long rest period between when that grass plants eaten the first time and its eat in the second time and during that rest period you know it's growing roots it's growing leaves or solar collectors you know that's how this system works second rule of thumb is to put the highest number of cattle in the smallest possible area for the shortest period of time when you do this you're going to maximize your rest periods you're going to maximize your production grass production and beef production and you're going to maximize your prophets the thing about this one you know we're all different or our programs are different our lifestyle is different you know I know people that are moving Cal several times a day they make money to do I know people that wouldn't move cows more than once maybe twice a week if it's a really good year doesn't really matter but that principle applies you know those that have worked the hardest that are going to get the most out of it I don't know if anybody here nobody here has ever heard of Chad Peterson used to live in Nebraska and now he lives in Montana but Chad took what we call mob grazing to the extreme he did amazing things with terrible land changed the land increased the number of cattle the pounds and everything and he just out of curiosity wanted to see what happened if he moved cows every 20 minutes around the clock so what we're talking about you know we've got a large herd of cows that are probably just moving in and something that they fit in they put their heads down a little bit and they moved to move again he was doing amazing things but he said I'd rather go waterskiing the move cows so you know you have to you can't let this rule you some of the reasons that we've have done this and there's there's more but to start out with reduce and eliminate expenses or supplementary feeding you know a typical rancher in Eastern Colorado feeds at least two tons of hay per cow a year and protein you know I don't know I don't remember what I mean when we first moved down there we looked around we saw what other people are doing and that's kind of what we mimicked until we said you know none of this is making sense so I was there for about ten years before we we were able to put this into play play but we eliminated almost all hay feeding the only time we feed hay is when the snow is is deeper hard so you know what winter winter feeding in the u.s. and I don't you know I'm sure there's parts of Australia the same way that's our biggest expense would that be the biggest expense for most cattlemen here David no what would it be labor okay it's a big deal for us so you know what we eliminated that the other thing improved the rangeland we want to improve the forage quantity more grass quality quality and diversity you know we're growing grasses within two years of starting this we were seeing species that I didn't think existed out there they've been there all along they never had a chance to rest and grow you know cows would just chop them off increase beef production per acre and that's where it's at or Hector's you have to think Hector when I say acre if you're selecting for bigger and bigger weaning weights are you can you do that if you're selecting for bigger and bigger weaning which you don't have a very good grazing system because you want bigger weaning weights not total weight this is huge but you've got to stop focusing on the wrong thing you can manage this you know very unintentionally and an increase your your beef and grass production by 50% those guys that are moving cattle a lot more often maybe 200 300 400 500 percent now when you think about that that's huge once again stocking rate affects profitability or lack thereof more than anything else some of you have probably heard of Greg Judy if you get the stock from grass farmer and I know several you do and this was taken several years ago but Gregg Judy says mob grazing is made it possible for me to double my grass production he says that's like having someone give you another farm for free if you would ask him today it would be way more than double the longer you're at it the more it's working for you you know a lot of the this is in Missouri and a lot of the water sources for these cattle in Missouri were dug out ponds about two years into this he had to start piping water because no water ever reached the ponds yet grew grass instead of running off this is a Mashona cattle in Florida mob grazing Deanna and I were there in 2012 at and that's about what it looked like then that land was a tree farm and they grew trees in pots big big pots so the land actual land was sprayed with Roundup every year never we never grew anything on it and it didn't have an ounce of organic matter no bugs no microbes no anything but with very intensive there they were moving cattle about five times a day and you can kind of see how tight they are I mean that with that type of grazing they change that land in about four years no yeah no I mean sometimes you may need a back fence but in this case there's not much to go back to okay this is a customer of ours in northern Utah they get this ten inches of snow temperatures from zero to 30 below I don't know what that is Celsius but zero would be zero zero no your zeros are plus thirty-two so what this is cold we will agree on that but every day he moves those cows and they grace through the snow when the cows are done at the end of the day you don't see any snow I mean it just just looked like brown out there and and he he makes a decision you know if the cows got full a little early and quit you know you'll give him a little less the next day or a little more the next day if they act like they're hungry this is a in the part of ranch country in the US where they would they would run their cows up on these hills higher country during the summer times while the cows up there grazing the ranchers down here where these cows are this is what they call a hey metals like a sub irrigated a metal there down there making and hauling hay all summer guess what they do all winter feed hay right there same place this makes a whole lot more sense and this is the picture of a ranch Tyson and I visited an Old Mexico the lost dolmas ranch and we visited five wrenches down there who had been practicing holistic management practices for at least four years one of them was 28 years one of the one of them was the first one in North America to practice savory type grazing but this is Alejandro's whoops whoops whoops Alejandro's Ladd all this side of the fence and this is his neighbor this side branches are about similar in size neighbor thinks Alejandro gets more rain what do you think Alejandro's running about six hundred cows year-round no hay no nothing he doesn't even put out salt and mineral no I think that might be per taking a little bit too far but that's what he does he's getting away with it this guy runs a hundred cows year around and feeds at least six months out of the year they both looked about the same when they started now my math isn't very good 600 100 I said that's 600 percent David tells me that's twelve hundred percent he's probably right but that's when we talk about stalking rates and what we can do you can't do this if you're focusing on increasing weaning weights it's not going to prevent you to go there because you're gonna say well my weaning rates are getting smaller so all of a sudden you start going back backwards I don't know what this guy's focused on it'll be survival before long okay most of you can relate to this Earl says no ed we ain't over stocked were just under arraigned I've heard people say this you know it doesn't matter how much rain you get how much do you keep and you people with rotational grazing systems are keeping a lot more rain than your neighbors you

Channel: MaiaGrazing

Views: 8,966

Rating: 4.9304347 out of 5

Keywords: Kit Pharo, Pharo Cattle Company, Holistic planned grazing, holistic grazing management, regenerative agriculture, mob grazing, adaptive grazing, cell grazing, management intensive grazing, rotational grazing, Grazing Charts, grazing management, planned grazing management

Id: Ic1W11QGorA

Length: 52min 59sec (3179 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 19 2020