The Moos Room™

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Dr. Joe Armstrong: Hey, everyone. This is Dr. Joe Armstrong. We're back again with another episode of The Moos Room. We're finally getting to beef grazing like I told you we would get to eventually. We've got two guests with us today that I'm very thankful that they're willing to give their time to doing this, especially as we get into spring and there's lots going on on farm.
We've got Angie Ford with us today. She is a feedlot producer from Southwest Minnesota where she is also the Region 7 Director for the Minnesota State Cattleman's Association and in her spare time, is a registered nurse. Eric Mosel is also with us. He's our extension educator, lives up in Grand Rapids, works for the University of Minnesota Extension and he is our resident expert on grazing and cow khat.
Thank you again for being with us today. Again, don't be afraid to email us with comments, questions, anything you want to hear on the show. Email them to themoosroom@umn.edu. It's T-H-E-M-O-O-S-R-O-O-M@umn.edu. Thank you for listening. Have fun in this episode.
All right, everyone. Welcome to The Moos Room. As you heard in the intro, we're here today with Angie Ford and Eric Mosel. We're talking about beef grazing. I've been promising this episode for a while now and we haven't gotten to it because we've had some other things come up with everything that's going on right now. Hopefully, you had a chance to listen to the first two episodes, the general grazing episode, and the dairy grazing episode.
That'll get you set up for what we're going to talk about a lot today and we talk about the beef side. First question's for Eric. We're wondering, really, why do we graze in a beef system?
Eric Mosel: Historically, most beef systems were based on a lot of cheap grass. The land was relatively cheap, the grass was almost a non-expense. The easiest way to utilize that land was with ruminants. With predator problems and this and that and the other, a lot of it gravitated towards beef cattle because they were the easiest to run. By and large, that's still the case.
Obviously, as you go further east, cheap grazing is harder to come by. A lot of that has transitioned into grazing crop residues, planting forage for grazing, just trying to intensify the system a little bit, those types of things. Primarily, it typically is about as cost competitive as you can get to feed a ruminant.
Dr. Joe: When we're talking cost, I've heard all sorts of numbers thrown around as far as like compared to being in a lot the cost per head per day, what is the difference when we're really looking at that cost?
Eric: Well, it depends on what class of cattle you're talking about. Let's just talk cows right now. Your typical pasture cost on a cow is probably going to be-- well, it depends on where you're at of course, but you're probably looking at a $1.25 to a $1.75 a day where that might cost $3 to $3.50 a day in the lot. Again, it depends on what your objective is, but now you transition that into cost of gain, your cost of gains on grass are astronomical.
Your cost of gain in the feed yard is extremely competitive compared to what the market value of that gain is. A lot of it just really depends on what your objective is. If you're just feeding breeding cows, then obviously grazing is the way to go, but if you're feeding livestock for market, then grazing actually is not that attractive. There are some attractive components to it which we can get to a little bit later.
Dr. Joe: I think maybe we should focus on cows to start at least where we're looking at the cost and everything. Really, when you look at the difference in those prices, we're looking at anywhere from $1.75 to $2 a day that you save every time you can keep those cows on pasture a day longer, right?
Eric: Yes, it adds up quick.
Dr. Joe: That adds up really quick per head per day. Now, one of the ways-- I mean, maybe because that is such a huge cost savings, maybe we should go into some of those ways in the beef side that we keep those animals out there longer. You already talked about crop residues. Most of it is probably corn. Do people graze a whole lot other crop residues other than corn?
Eric: Well, again, it depends on where you're at, but pretty much any-- I mean, a cow will eat anything. It's just that corn is mostly what we have. There's guys that'll run cows on soybeans stubble, there's guys that'll run cows on wheat stubble or any kind of cereal stubble. You name it, those guys they'll run cows on. Cornstalks are the most common.
Bradley: That's mostly to cheapen the ration, right? Is that really the big reason why they're doing it?
Eric: I guess it depends on whether you're talking about grazing cornstalks or feeding corn stover because they're two different things with two different objectives. The grazing stocks is simply a cost thing. Stover on the other hand, in a complete ration can have various objectives depending on what you're trying to do. You may be just trying to simply dry the ration out a little bit because stocks are a cheap component of the ration, but not always the cheapest. Sometimes it's just simply availability. That's what we've got the most of in terms of gut fill.
Dr. Joe: Do you see less people grazing stocks in the last few years as the price of bedding has gotten so big and people are wanting to bail that or no?
Eric: A lot of it just depends on where you are. You see the little bit of that in certain spots in Minnesota certainly. I think a lot of it depends on if there's a large dairy component. If there's a large feedlot concentration, then yes, there's definitely some pressure for bedding. If there's not those things, then no, typically not.
Dr. Joe: One thing I hear about grazing corn stocks all the time is that people worry about acidosis and actually getting too much corn left out in the field. Is that something that we actually have to worry about? Assuming that someone didn't spill a big pile of corn out there.
Eric: No, that's really not an issue anymore. Where that really comes from is years ago when combines were not that efficient, they would leave a lot of corn in the field. Probably back once in 1986, there was a guy over in Cass County that had that happen to him. Of course, that's the gospel truth now, but the reality is it's a pretty rare deal. Years ago, there probably was some merit to being careful of that.
Anymore, the combines are so efficient that it almost would be nice if they would drop a little bit of corn just to improve the value of the residue, but they just don't. They're that good.
Dr. Joe: They've gotten very, very good.
Eric: Yes, the technology is just phenomenal.
Dr. Joe: I just love watching. If you turn an older cow out into that crop residue, it's still one of my favorite things to watch. They've learned to go look for that corn and they [crosstalk].
Eric: You'll see the oldest cows immediately will walk the edge of the field because that's the most likely place that the combine-- not the combine, but the combine operator cut the corner a little too close or something and missed a few. That old cow that's 9, 10 years old, she's been there before, she knows where to find it, and they all just go run into the corners.
Dr. Joe: Absolutely. In the dairy grazing episode, we talked a lot about rotational grazing and why we need to do that because we need high-value forage, high energy, high protein, and it needs to stay that way for as long as possible, so we rotate very, very heavily. Is that still worth it on the beef side to rotate pretty aggressively and have a very intense system?
Eric: Well, anytime you can intensify the system in a beef system, it's going to be positive. However, what you'll find is that a lot of it depends on whether the operator keeping the books values their labor. That's really what it boils down to because if you look at it from a labor perspective, even though you can increase forage production, you increase intake, you do all these magnificent things, but the value of that is it doesn't really compare with the amount of labor that's spent on it.
It's not like dairy where you can put some labor into things, you can put some inputs into things and the turnover is not only valuable, but it's immediate. I'm sure there are some situations where it definitely does pay to be extremely intensive, but on the balance, I would say the reason you don't see a lot of it in the beef world is because most guys don't feel that it pays and I for the most part, with some exceptions, tend to agree.
Dr. Joe: Is there a middle ground there where you're still thinking that maybe simple rotation where you're taking them and using a pasture once a year, grazing it pretty heavy, and then moving them, does that still have value?
Eric: It definitely has value. I'm not suggesting it doesn't, but what you find is that especially when you get into Minnesota, you find out that most guys with beef cows rent pasture and if it's not already set up to rotationally graze, the opportunities to do that are not real great. I would say that's as much a factor as why we don't see a lot of more rotational grazing in the beef deal than what we do.
Dr. Joe: Emily, you're being very quiet, which is weird. This is the longest--
Emily: Rare for me, right?
Dr. Joe: This is the longest we've ever gone recording and Emily has not said something. Eric, we'll continue since Emily doesn't have a question.
Emily: Do you want me to ask a question? I can think of something here.
Joe: Yes, hurry up. [laughs] Okay, Bradley will ask on my behalf.
Bradley: You talk about also grazing corn stalks in the fall, Eric, what about other-- we talk about stockpiling, is that a good thing? Do people still do that besides corn stalks? Or is that not really seen in the beef world as much?
Eric: It is in the beef world, but not necessarily in Minnesota, because somehow or another, dairy guys got it in their heads that the cow is afraid of snow. A dairy cow, maybe, I don't know. I don't have a lot of experience with it.
Bradley: No, not afraid of snow at all. Not at all.
Eric: I didn't figure that would be the case.
Emily: Not Bradley's cows.
Eric: A beef cow definitely is not. In fact, they actually do quite well digging through the snow to find stockpiled grass or any other type of forage. As an example, it must have been 2013 because that was the year we had that really significantly bad winter, according to my father-in-law, who says that every winter is one of the worst ones we've ever had. Anyway, it seemed to me to be significantly a tough winter, even though I'm originally from Nebraska, so every winter is a tough winter for me.
I wanted to run a study up here in Grand Rapids to look at some of these stockpiling issues that you guys are mentioning. I had a couple of fields planted to German Millet, and my thought was I wanted to find some type of grazable forage that cows could work on all winter, regardless of how deep the snow got. Corn has its issues when it comes to snow. You get a lot of leaf drop, not as much lodging as there used to be, but you still get some of that. Sorghum does not work at all because it lodges so bad.
I was like, let's try some millet. We planted this millet and I don't know, it probably got about 5 feet tall, and it was planted probably about-- Actually, it was probably more like the 1st of July. It was planted a little bit late, I don't remember why. Anyway, we turned the cows out into it in 1st of November. It's brown, dried up, frosted off, and those cows worked on that until the 1st of March.
Up here in Grand Rapids anyway, we had almost 90 inches of snow between November and March. I mean, there was friggin snow everywhere. I'd never seen so much snow in my life. Them cows, they would just work through that millet and I would supplement them just a little bit of distillers to make sure they was getting their protein and they came off that millet and then there was a control group that was just a conventional feeding system, hay ring, whatever.
Those cows that were on that millet came off in better condition than what the cows that were just eating hay out of the hay ring. We wintered the cows on the millet for $9 a month. The hay in the ring was like $53 a month or something like that. The point being that there are some options to stockpile forages for cows. They are not afraid of snow. I know there are some situations where stockpiling has been tried and it hasn't worked out so well.
If you get some really icy crusty snow, and it's a very short-statured forage, they can cut up their muzzle pretty bad to the point where they'll stop grazing, but I think that's fairly rare and could easily be remedied with a variety of options. Anyway, once you break that crust open, then they can get at it just fine.
Emily: Just hit it there with the sledgehammer first.
Eric: Yes. When I was growing up, we never fed hay. I mean, everything was you turned them out on the range and they grazed all winter. It didn't matter how deep the snow got because you didn't really have much hay anyway. If we got some crusty snow, which was pretty rare, but if we did, we'd just turn the horses out and the horses would go bust all that crust up, and then the cows would follow them.
I did some research years ago in South Dakota where we had a similar situation, and I'd just go out there and bust the snow open with the tractor. Once there was a crack in the crust, then they would take it from there, but they got to be trained to do it. I mean, if they've never done it before, if you've had your cows up next to the barn all winter for the last 10 years, and you pet them every day and do whatever guys do with their cows when they have them up that close, then they're going to cry a little bit. If you just turn them out and expect them to figure it out for themselves.
Dr. Joe: Are you putting a bedded pack out there with them, Eric, or no?
Eric: What's that?
Dr. Joe: Do you put an embedded pack out there or are you just letting them be in the snow?
Eric: No.
Dr.Joe: Just let them be.
Emily: Eric does not cuddle his cows.
Eric: No, and I get chastised by my wife and father-in-law for being such a mean individual, but I'm just like, if she can't cut it on her own, then I don't know what to tell you.
Bradley: You can do that with a dairy cow, too. No problem.
Eric: However that myth got started that, oh, dairy cow can't go out and do those things. I don't believe it. I mean, cows are tough. It's unbelievable.
Emily: All right, so I do have a question. [laughs] In true me fashion, I realize I might be opening a bit of a can of worms here, but I have heard going back to the discussion earlier, Eric, on letting cows graze in cornstalks. In my area, so I'm in central Minnesota, I've heard of issues sometimes with I don't know if it's neighbors calling it in or what that cattle are in these fields, and if it's a small field and the amount of cattle that you have in there that you technically need to get that field certified as a feedlot and that there's been some regulatory issues with letting cattle be in there grazing corn stalks.
Again, I don't know all the context of some of these issues, but I think it's probably-- there's a--
Eric: That's actually an excellent question. Much of this has been addressed in the last several years through PCA. I say addressed loosely, but they're going along with it, at least for now. If the animal is actually out there grazing, there's no issues. It doesn't matter how many there are. The pasture exemption in the law book covers that. The issue is when they're out there on cornstalks and you're feeding them harvested feedstuffs. That's where there gets to be some issues.
Without recounting the entire history of this, which nobody wants to hear anyway, largely PCA seems to accept if you are feeding feedstuffs on say, for example, cornstalks. If you're feeding feedstuffs out there and you're moving the feeding area regularly, they are accepting that. If there is still some level of vegetative cover on the soil surface and you're feeding some supplemental forages, they are accepting that.
If the area is completely denuded of all vegetation, there's running into the ditches, usually, based on neighbor complaints. Anyway, that's when PCA feels that they have to act and do something. That's my understanding of the current situation. Just simply feeding your cows on cornstalks does not necessarily mean that PCA is going to have a problem with it.
Dr. Joe: That's a good point, though, because I think we do see frustrated neighbors and people call stuff in that maybe they shouldn't. It's good to know that for the most part, things are actually working out logically for once. You mentioned supplementing, Eric and we've been talking about it a little bit. How do you decide when you need to supplement and then how do you decide what to supplement with?
Eric: Well, the need to supplement generally is, hopefully, a person is testing some forages on what they're feeding cattle and I don't know that that always happens. I think somebody that's been feeding cattle, cows, or whatever for 20 or 30 years has a pretty good feel whether what they're feeding them is any good or not. You'll see two types of operators, I guess.
There's the type that, well, we're just going to throw some lick tubs out there anyway. The fact that they're costing you $2 a day, that's irrelevant. They're just going to be out there. Then you've got the type that tries to-- I mean, they go a little bit overboard with the testing and trying to nail everything down. Feeding a bunch of dang breeding cows isn't rocket science because they're flipping half of the feed out of the bunk onto the ground anyway and they'll still eat it.
It might be a month later when it thaws out, but they'll still eat it. It's not a very exact science anyway. Typically, what you see is either some commercial supplement like a lick tub around here or maybe some component of distillers grains is typically what you see.
Dr. Joe: The distillers is just to get that protein?
Eric: The protein usually. Depending on where they're at, you'll find some guys, if they get that the cows are a little thin coming in off grass, they might feed some distillers right away just to beef them up a little bit before it gets real cold. You can do that relatively cheap depending on what the price of distillers is, but typically it's pretty reasonable, especially from a protein standpoint.
Angie: If you can get your hands on any.
Eric: Yes, if you can get your hands on any. That's an issue in some areas. The volumes that cow-calf guys need generally isn't enough that it's a problem. It's a lot different if you're running a feed yard and you're feeding a truckload today. Right now I'm working with some guys that are a little bit on the larger end of the cow-calf deal out in the Dakotas and they're panicking over this distillers thing.
We're hunting up some canola meal and some different odds and ends that might work in case they can't get distillers. So far it hasn't really been a problem that's materialized. It's all conjecture at this point. The situation in Minnesota might be a little bit different.
Dr. Joe: It seems like we've become fairly dependent on distillers. I think the big thing is that we recognize that what we're really looking for is a cheap byproduct feed that has what we want in it. There's a lot of that out there that's not distillers sometimes. There's a lot of options it seems like. Now they're not necessarily in the same quantity as distillers. We can get a lot of distillers fairly quickly a lot of times and that's why it's got a lot of value to us.
Eric: That's really what made it so popular was you could easily get it anywhere. If distillers go away for a while, we'll find something else. I'm not too worried.
Dr. Joe: Now, Angie, we haven't heard from you much and I apologize we haven't asked you a whole lot of questions yet. Right now, as far as I understand it, are you getting your own cattle in and then into the feedlot or are you buying cattle that are weaned or just weaned and getting them into the feedlot to start backgrounding?
Angie: We sourced from the Western South Dakota, Montana area, get in, wean calves from out there, and then we just have a handful of our own cows that obviously we finish out too.
Dr. Joe: Are they bunk-broke before you get them or are they coming straight from grass?
Angie: They're literally straight from the cow onto the trailer to our place. It's pretty noisy when they get here.
Dr. Joe: I bet. Let's get into how you make that transition. They're coming straight off of grass and they're going into the feedlot. How are you starting them to make that transition?
Angie: Usually, the first at least 24 hours they're just getting grass hay in the bunk just to get them something to nibble on a little bit to get them to adjust. Obviously, there's a lot of stress going on in their life right there going from wide open pastures with mom to where's my mom and who are all these other crazy guys in here with me? That's how we started with and then they started at a very high forage level ration and just slowly creep them in that way.
Dr. Joe: How about water? The other thing I always worry about is water. These range cattle that are on grass, sometimes they only see that inverted tire water tank. How do you guys deal with that? Do they seem to figure it out right away?
Angie: They actually pretty much do. They do a lot of circling the pens as you can imagine. They're walking by it and seeing it. We have different-- we have mono [unintelligible 00:25:32] buildings with big tanks and we also have flat barns that are smaller pens. It's pretty easy for them to locate the water once they get here, get their cells oriented with what's going on in their new home.
Joe: Now do you know if the source that you're getting them from is creep feeding or not?
Angie: No, we don't, honestly. We work with a buyer out there and he sources them for us. Usually, they just come with a handwritten paper on what they've had for shots and that's about it. I would venture to guess no.
Dr. Joe: Coming from out west, I would guess that they probably don't see creep-feed very often. I guess that--
Angie: Or people.
Joe: Yes, or people. People is another thing. I guess that's a good transition into this creep-feeding question, Eric. How do you decide that? Should I creep feed, should I not creep feed? What makes that decision?
Eric: Typically, what the calves are worth. Is the value of the feed compared to what they're worth, worth feeding them?
Dr. Joe: Does it save the pasture at all? Do those calves actually eat a whole lot of grass or are they--
Eric: It can save some grass, especially if you can creep-feed them for a while and then early wean them. Just creep-feeding them alone, maybe 10% savings of grass. It's not huge. When you're short of grass anyway, it can make a big difference. One of the things I've always been a little bit concerned about creep-feeding and it's been difficult to really get a handle on is there's been some evidence that when these calves are exposed to a high energy ration while they're on the cow and then they're weaned and then they're sold and then they go through the receiving process.
Anyway, their energy level is up here and then it drops down here and then it goes back up here. There's some evidence that that can really stunt marbling. Now it's been difficult to really get a definite finger on is that universal or is it just individuals. I don't know. I also think it depends on what they were creep fed on. Obviously, a co-op creep feed that's some pellet of byproducts is going to be a lot different than 120 days on ration.
Dr. Joe: Right. That makes sense.
Eric: That's probably a component of it as well. I've tried several studies to try and figure that out a little bit and they've largely been inconclusive. I've seen about the same evidence that I've seen reported in other places, but nothing so consistent you can just say creep-feeding causes some problems in terms of product quality and that doesn't seem to be a very consistent response. We know it happens but how consistently it is has been a little bit hard to tell.
Dr. Joe: Angie, you said that when these calves come to you, they're from out west and they haven't seen people very much. How do you get them used to people being around all the time?
Angie: I think that's some of my jobs because I walk pens every day looking for sick ones but you have to be very careful. You don't want to sneeze, let me tell you because any loud noise like that, and chickens run into the corner of their pen and it's dangerous for everybody. Pretty much starting on the outside just so they can see you at a distance and doing it that way is the best.
It doesn't really take that long once they realize that you're not there to try to eat them like a predator would've been. They do warm up, but they are just a lot different than a dairy, put it that way. [laughs] Beef calves.
Dr. Joe: I've worked with them before, gotten cattle from out west. They're quick. They're really quick.
Angie: They're not scared of you. It'd be nothing for them to want to decide to run you over versus run the other direction. They got the fight or flight response going on.
Dr. Joe: It doesn't take too long as far as what I can see but you've got to do it slowly, and make sure they know you're not a threat. You mean food, I mean. That's always a good way to get to them. It would be challenging though, if you've got grassland cattle coming into the feedlot. All right. Well, I think we're getting close to time. We've got a lot that we talked about. Hopefully, you guys got something out of this listening today.
Want to thank Eric Mosel and Angie Ford for being here again. Really appreciate them giving up their time to come here and talk with us. With that, we'll wrap it up. If you need more information or you need something to reference, go to extension.umn.edu. If you have any questions for us, comments about the show, anything you want to hear, email us at themoosroom@umn.edu. That's T-H-E-M-O-O-S-R-O-O-M@umn.edu. Thanks for listening, everybody. We'll catch you next episode.
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Eric: My son didn't want to do math this morning, so I taught him how to play gin rummy, and I cleaned him out.
Bradley: [laughs] Nice.
Dr. Joe: That's perfect. That's math.
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