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August 21, 2009

Soapweed

Well-known member
Grassdensityleavesabittobedesired.jpg

Grass density leaves quite a bit to be desired in some of our north pastures.
Fragilecountry.jpg

Fragile country
Arestinthequesttosequestmorebulls.jpg

A rest in the quest to sequest more bulls
Takingadvantageofforwardmomentum.jpg

Taking advantage of forward momentum
Nowtheycanslowdownabit.jpg

Now they can slow down
IswitchedwithSunfloweronourtranspor.jpg

Sunflower and I switched for our transportation needs.
ATeacupChihuahuafullgrown.jpg

A Teacup Chihuahua full grown
 

LazyWP

Well-known member
It was good to see you and Peach at the range tail gate Thursday. If you guys would like, I can come out and help you with some more plant ID. Its been years since I have done any of it in competition, but was amazed how much I remembered.
 

MsSage

Well-known member
Thanks for the pics. Great as always.
that dog might be tiny but if you messed with his lap I am sure you would know that tiny dog was there LOL
 

Soapweed

Well-known member
LazyWP said:
It was good to see you and Peach at the range tail gate Thursday. If you guys would like, I can come out and help you with some more plant ID. Its been years since I have done any of it in competition, but was amazed how much I remembered.

The grass meeting was interesting. You did a great job identifying the various plants. I have never known the proper names for grasses, but always took pride that I knew when I had some and when I didn't. :roll: :wink:

Grassdensityleavesabittobedesired.jpg


Fragilecountry.jpg


In these two pictures, you can see what we are up against in some of our north pastures. It just isn't good country. In the pasture where the pictures were taken, there is right at 1800 acres. We put 171 cow/calf pairs and 7 bulls in this pasture on June 15th. The pasture is already running short of grass, and probably the cattle should be moved. On the other hand, it would be hard to "hurt" the pasture because it doesn't amount to anything anyway. The pasture could be rested entirely for five years running, and it still wouldn't amount to anything. It boils down to the old phrase, "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." The cattle grazing the pasture are all mature cows with heifer calves at their sides. Most of these heifer calves will be held over to breed next summer. If there were steer calves in this pasture that we would soon be selling, I would be more tempted to move the cattle sooner. Dad always said, "you will hurt a pasture before you will hurt the condition of the cattle." My thought at the moment is to leave these pairs for awhile longer, and go more by the condition of the cattle rather than the condition of the grass.
 

Cedarcreek

Well-known member
Since I've never been through your country its hard to judge what the potential of the pasture is. Sometimes use of a pasture to the point of abuse followed by some rest can be beneficial in the long run. There are some exclosures around this area that haven't been grazed that look a lot worse than the pasture around them that is grazed. I'd have to agree with your Dad about hurting a pasture before hurting the cattle. If you was to rest that pasture 5 years as you used as an example I think plant vigor would decline and overall range condition would deteriorate

I enjoy the pictures. :D
 

Big Muddy rancher

Well-known member
We have a piece of range that we have used only dormant season for about 10 years. It usually produces pretty good. We also have three breeding pastures that get used once every three years. They are really nice and producing really good. They get used pretty hard the year they are used but really respond to the rest.
 
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