BMR, I have been thinking about your question for years but never really pushed the pencil enough to come to any conclusions.
Here is an example, let's say a rancher is running 600 head of cows on a cow calf enterprise on his own land and raising feed enough to feed those cows for 4 to 5 months during the winter. He is using rotational grazing to increase his stocking capacity so he is near the limit on numbers of cows he can run during the growing season. He has some crop land that he grazes but that only lasts a month or two.
The question is "How many less cows would he need to run on his land so that he could sell his haying machinery and have it put up on shares or possibly convert his hayground to pasture and buy a little hay for extreme weather?" What would your estimate be on herd reduction? 100 head, 200 head, or maybe not even that much if he tweaked some of his grazing practices, like even more intensive grazing management.
The cost of owning and replacing iron on an operation plus the expense of repairs, fuel, oil, labor, depreciation, insurance, etc. etc. to keep that iron moving is a huge factor in profit and loss in ranching. Have any of you ever considered changes like this or is it too far out of your comfort zones to even consider?
I know an operation that has made this switch and are very happy with the results and increased profit that came with it. It takes courage to try something different and I commend them for it. Personally I'm still in the planning stages but change is hard.
Some of you on this site probably made a very good profit this last year and I would bet that the most profitable ones were managing their operations much like the example in this post.
I agree with BMR, a discussion on this topic might be the most important topic that could be discussed.