Mimic The Bison: Create a River of Cattle

Texas ranchers Emry Birdwell and Deborah Clark are pushing the limits when it comes to stocking capacity for their native rangeland. But the payoff is hard to question. Not only are they producing more pounds of beef per acre, but when weather cooperates, they are also covering bare spots in rangeland with grass.

The Birdwell and Clark Ranch is an all-steer operation. The couple start buying cattle late in summer, looking for calves that average 400 pounds. As they move into the fall months, they shift to 500-pound calves and then to 600-pounders in the spring. An order buyer works for them at the auction barns, purchasing grade Number 1 1/2 cattle that these ranchers can upgrade to a lower Number 1. If rainfall and grass allow, most will be grown out to around 800 pounds by the time they are sold in midsummer.

PLAN THE ROTATION

The husband/wife team bought and began breaking their Clay County ranch into small pastures for rotational grazing in 2004. They gradually divided 12,500 acres into 125 permanent paddocks with 12 1/2-gauge, high-tensile electric fencing. They further split paddocks using electrified polywire. The more paddocks, the longer the rest period each has after it has been grazed. Depending on the year, a paddock may rest 60 to 120 days before it is grazed again.

In spring and early summer 2012, at the high point of grass growth and cattle numbers on the ranch, they gradually accumulated and then rotated a single herd of nearly 5,300 stocker steers through these parcels. These weren’t weekly, or even daily, rotations, but two or three times a day. When it became obvious the drought would continue, they began selling steers. All of them were off the property by July 20 to prevent damage to the range.

STAY FLEXIBLE

“In past years, some of our lighter cattle went into fall,” Birdwell said. “The trick is to not get locked into one set program. When the grass gets better, we start adding cattle. When it gets worse, we take cattle out. We look at all variables. It’s been dry, and apparently it’s going to stay that way from what the long-term forecasters say. In 2012, we started buying earlier. We’ll probably stop carrying these cattle so long and stockpile more grass in late summer.”

Under normal conditions, the cattle eat and move, eat and move, eat and move — depositing their manure and churning the soil surface with their hooves. This mimics the way bison grazed on this native tall-grass prairie in days gone by. Little and big bluestems, Indiangrass, sideoats grama, switchgrass and other warm-season grasses, along with a little winter grass, are improved when encouraged by rains. But unfortunately, that wasn’t the case through 2011 and 2012.

OPEN THE FLOODGATES

Their grazing system requires Birdwell, Clark, or an employee to arrive at a pasture about 7 a.m. every day. The cattle are usually waiting at an electrified wire gap separating the paddock they just grazed from the one they are about to enter. The gap is opened and a river of cattle comes streaming through en masse, hungry for new grass. Like clockwork, the same scene greets the ranchers at noon and then again at 5 or 6 in the evening.

Some experts say this bison-like movement may be just what this native range needs. There is short-duration grazing and concentrated hoof action, followed by a very long rest period until the next grazing. This is the type of natural movement that evolved under range conditions, and it’s still viable today.

Until the dryness of early 2011 settled in and became a historic withering drought, large bare spots on the range had begun to fill in with grass. When encouraged by rainfall, Birdwell pushed pounds of beef produced per acre to more than twice the average for this area.

“We’re producing 120 to 125 pounds per acre, and normal for Clay County is no more than 50 pounds,” Birdwell said. “Whether it rains or not, our pounds per acre have improved. Our best year ever for gain was 2012.”

The rancher doesn’t feed any hay, although he does feed a 20% protein corn gluten cube as a supplement all year. How much of the supplement he uses is determined by the quality of grass.

WORK ON WATER

All pastures are fenced into cells connecting at a hub, with a pond or lake at the center as a water source.

“When we first got here, we added 14 tanks [ponds] and cleaned out a lot of other ones,” Birdwell said. “Now we’re setting up a pipeline system to pump water where we don’t have any.

“There are no wells here,” he added. “All the water comes from runoff into lakes and tanks, and the more grass you grow, the less runoff you have. Now we can pump water to lakes and tanks that are dry. In this kind of system, you run out of water before you run out of grass.”

In fall 2012, the couple bought steers to take advantage of fall-planted wheat fields they leased from other ranchers and farmers. But continuing drought nixed most of the wheat. They were only able to place 1,000 head on the fields and waited till early winter. Meanwhile, they had 3,400 stockers on stockpiled native grasses. Plans are to hold off on any more cattle until weather patterns improve.

“It’s going to have to rain,” Birdwell said. “With our moisture situation, I can’t see adding more.”

If grazing systems were compared to sports, the one in place at Birdwell and Clark Ranch would be an Olympic-level contender.

“It is the top of the chart,” said Kent Ferguson, Natural Resources Conservation Service Texas state rangeland management specialist. “This system will deliver results in all aspects, provided you keep your head in the game and do not stay too long with too many head. Not everybody can do what is happening on this ranch because not everybody has the skill and desire to make it happen.”

Original PROGRESSIVE FARMER article