Gabe Brown

[WiltonRanch]

Don't conflate poor management and the pitiful economics of cow calf, with the methods being discussed i this thread.

For most of 20 years now, the economics of cow calf haven't justified spending big money on fertilzer and inputs. For many of those years, it was all about survival, there was nothing left to spend on fertilizer. And that begins a downward spiral that is difficult to ever recover from. I doubt it was ever a conscious decision to go without. Unlike your operation where you are harvesting a high value per acre grass seed, that most years easily pays for the inputs.

And if your neighbor is like most around here, almost all of the manure ends up within a few hundred yards of the main farm, the rest deposited in clumps of trees and sloughs. What little ends up back on the fields is inconsequential compared to what has been removed over the decades. That is not remotely close to regenerative ag. Don't compare that to what Gabe is preaching and practicing. The squandered opportunity of many cash strapped cattle operations for the long term sustainability of the land is just sad.

Great point. Only way I see the cow calf sector surviving in my general area is in a mixed operation, and most herds around have a grain revenue as well. Gabe’s message is integrating the two to make them compliment one another more and make more profit. We ran a lot more cattle 5 years ago on very reasonable grazing and couldn’t justify it. Now we run less than half the cows and use them to complement the grain side. Cost per cow is considerably less than before. My goal is to structure it so there is really no opportunity cost to having a cow herd in a grain operation. More or less the cows are the clean up crew and nutrient cyclers like the microorganisms in the soil.

[WiltonRanch]

This soil is so devoid of minerals that we have to supplement generously, with mineral formulated for this far west, and add Selenium to the salt and mineral at rates well beyond the accepted maximum, and the calves need selenium within a few days of birth. White muscle was a very real problem before that.

Wow. Being that far west and selenium levels are that low? Selenium deficiency is bad here as well. We have to supplement for that. We are lucky here that our soils though solonetzic and calcareous are quite fertile. Soil tests always indicate low phosphate levels and we always fertilize but feed tests indicate no need for phosphorus supplements. Makes a person wonder if it’s the fertilizer supplying the boost or it’s the natural soil fertility. I really would like to go back 116 years ago to see the land before half and half and tillers messed it up.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Great point. Only way I see the cow calf sector surviving in my general area is in a mixed operation, and most herds around have a grain revenue as well. Gabe’s message is integrating the two to make them compliment one another more and make more profit. We ran a lot more cattle 5 years ago on very reasonable grazing and couldn’t justify it. Now we run less than half the cows and use them to complement the grain side. Cost per cow is considerably less than before. My goal is to structure it so there is really no opportunity cost to having a cow herd in a grain operation. More or less the cows are the clean up crew and nutrient cyclers like the microorganisms in the soil.

Exactly. And if we have any hope of competing with beef from south America where they don't have to start a tractor, we need to apply your model. A stand alone beef operation might have been able to compete back when land was almost free, but we have escalated our costs so high now, that the only way forward is if they eat left overs for as close to free as possible. And there is huge potential for that across the prairies.

We need to look at them as a way to turn inedible, unmarketable, or unharvestable growth into something we can market, and improve the land at the same time, exactly as you are describing.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

And as for vaccines, talk to the old timers about the wrecks they had before vaccinations became common. That was about as close to low intensity holistic livestock farming as possible too.

[ajl]

Crop rotation including a pulse crop on your good crop land is as sustainable as your going to get. I have a field that had peas in 2020 with a maintenance application of P and S. In 2021 this land got rr canola with a modest application of 230/lb of NPS blend. This land produced 30-40 bu/ac in a drought and soil test levels in late fall are good (60 lb/ac in top 6" of N but does call to continue P applications). In 22 it will get seeded to HRS wheat with a very modest application of fertilizer. In most cases that is as good as it gets. Manure is great if you can get it but it is very expensive to haul. Applied some to a rented field from a buddy's yard across road this fall. I hauled with rented spreader behind my tractor and he loaded with his track loader. Went good until the track loader broke down and now had a rented spreader and no track loader so cost per load going up. He used his front end loader to finish the day but not near as fast as track loader so affected the economics of the whole operation. Neither field has fencing around them so grazing not an economical operation.

[Sheepwheat]

The gabe brown idea takes the manure to the field in the animals. Intensive grazing. Hundreds of thousands of lbs of animals per acre, moving them at least daily. Modifications are made for different areas. Steve Kenyon in Alberta is a good guy to watch as well.

There is so much more to this than a shallow glance. It’s frustrating seeing some of the responses, as it is obvious they aren’t very familiar with the system; it sure is easy to bash it when you don’t have a complete picture.

And that’s ok, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea to have animals.

It’s interesting for sure.

[tubs]

The gabe brown idea takes the manure to the field in the animals. Intensive grazing. Hundreds of thousands of lbs of animals per acre, moving them at least daily. Modifications are made for different areas. Steve Kenyon in Alberta is a good guy to watch as well.

There is so much more to this than a shallow glance. It’s frustrating seeing some of the responses, as it is obvious they aren’t very familiar with the system; it sure is easy to bash it when you don’t have a complete picture.

And that’s ok, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea to have animals.

It’s interesting for sure.

It takes time everyday to do this and lets face it most people don not want to be tied down like that .

[WiltonRanch]

It takes time everyday to do this and lets face it most people don not want to be tied down like that .

That’s the elephant in the room here. You’re tied down especially with rotational grazing. I’ll never go that far. You’re busy year round. Lake, sports, winter homes etc. Not much of that when you have cows.

[Sheepwheat]

It takes time everyday to do this and lets face it most people don not want to be tied down like that .

Precisely. But automation allows for more freedom. Automated gate systems with one wire electric are pretty cool.

Saw a system like that online somewhere. A latch can be set to release the gate at set times.

But you’re right it does mainly come down to the TYPE OF PERSON one is! We’re not all like woodland after all. Lol

[Blaithin]

The gabe brown idea takes the manure to the field in the animals. Intensive grazing. Hundreds of thousands of lbs of animals per acre, moving them at least daily. Modifications are made for different areas. Steve Kenyon in Alberta is a good guy to watch as well.

There is so much more to this than a shallow glance. It’s frustrating seeing some of the responses, as it is obvious they aren’t very familiar with the system; it sure is easy to bash it when you don’t have a complete picture.

And that’s ok, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea to have animals.

It’s interesting for sure.

It’s aggravating.

“I don’t know about it. I don’t understand it. I’m not interested in it. So obvs it won’t work and I’m going to tell everyone how it won’t work.”

Also the classic you don’t know because you live somewhere else and here is different. Always nice to be hit with that. (FYI I grew up in Manitoba ForageFarmer)

Time is the big kicker, I agree Tubs. I don’t have any interest in tying myself to high density, frequent moves. Summer is kind of time off with only weeklyish pasture checks required! The idea of every day or twice a day moves is blah. But the great thing about that sort of model is you do it however you want, your results might to just happen slower.

At the end of the day it’s completely understandable that not everyone wants to invest the time required. It’s completely understandable that not everyone finds it interesting. It’s completely understandable that not everyone’s debt load will allow them to branch out so far from their current business model.

None of these are supportive reasons for “it won’t work here” though. It won’t work for all people true, but it’s a management style that can be tweaked to work pretty much everywhere. The constant flood of people who aren’t interested or understand it that feel they need to tell people who are how silly they are and what a waste of time it is can be very frustrating and discouraging.

Everyone’s got different priorities in their methods.