Last field of barley bunch grazing

[per]

Winter has been kinder here since mid January but the cheap food policy is starting to come to an end. Two or three more weeks before it is time to feed bales.

The next batch of photo's are from my 1st, 2nd and a few 3rd calvers. Still on banked grass and swath grazing. About three weeks left for them as well.

For those of you who like a little more color.

 

[burnt]

I think you may have told us before, but I don't remember - is that just straw? If it is, do you supplement it any way?

 

[per]

Burnt they are getting barley and mineral. Barley is my cheapest source of protein right now. The straw has all the chaff in it as well.

 

[Justin]

i sure can't argue with what you are doing, those cattle look pretty darn good (even the colored ones :wink: )

 

[Denny]

They sure look good. You guy's sure don't get winter like we do thats for sure. We don't know what a chinook is here. Snow is over a foot deep and hard I can walk on top in alot of places.

 

[leanin' H]

Per those are some nicely fleshed up bovines. Here it is the end of February and you're not starting to feed bales for a couple more weeks! :shock: Lots of us have been feeding since November. Must be nice. Oh for a winter permit on the desert somewhere! Hopefully someday I'll find one.

 

[Big Swede]

Looks like the best way to winter cows I have ever seen. Not having to feed hay till March puts you in very rare company. I either have too many cows or not enough land to do the same. It's good to see how the smart ranchers do things. Thanks for the pictures, cows look awesome.

 

[Grassfarmer]

Certainly makes a person think per - your cows look great and spring will soon be here. Once you go onto baled feed is that it until the grass greens up or do you have banked grass for them? When do you usually quit feeding down there and go to green grass?

Denny, per is one of the lucky guys that live in the banana belt :wink: I'm three hours north and my conditions are about the same as yours. At least a foot of hard packed snow and complete ground cover.

 

[Denny]

Certainly makes a person think per - your cows look great and spring will soon be here. Once you go onto baled feed is that it until the grass greens up or do you have banked grass for them? When do you usually quit feeding down there and go to green grass?

Denny, per is one of the lucky guys that live in the banana belt :wink: I'm three hours north and my conditions are about the same as yours. At least a foot of hard packed snow and complete ground cover.

Yeah I'd love those big open fields here 70 acres open is a big field more like 20 and 40 acre fields lots of woods and swamps.

 

[Anonymous]

I just wish we could see grass here- everythings buried under a coat of white :shock:
About the only grass the cows can find is what the horses paw up.....

 

[Grassfarmer]

Certainly makes a person think per - your cows look great and spring will soon be here. Once you go onto baled feed is that it until the grass greens up or do you have banked grass for them? When do you usually quit feeding down there and go to green grass?

Denny, per is one of the lucky guys that live in the banana belt :wink: I'm three hours north and my conditions are about the same as yours. At least a foot of hard packed snow and complete ground cover.

Yeah I'd love those big open fields here 70 acres open is a big field more like 20 and 40 acre fields lots of woods and swamps.

It's all relative Denny - one of our bigger fields in Scotland was 21 acres - once you drove around the rocks and stone piles there was about 16 I could spread fertiliser on. One of our smallest was just under 4 acres and I could cut silage off 2.5 acres :roll:

 

[movin' on]

Per, that is fantastic.

I haven't fed any hay later, and probably won't have to since spring is so close down here.

However, I feel almost ashamed to say that with any pride since I'm 1000 miles "warmer" than you are!

 

[per]

Thanks for the comments. GF, I have some banked grass to kick onto when calving in April. The grassers will go onto fall rye sometime in April and I would expect to quit feeding cows by early to Mid May. We will stay on tame grass and legumes until July and then on to native until January. Of course plans change like the weather. I never knew how well located our operation was and never appreciated it for a long time. I am pretty thankful for my great grand dad stopping here.

 

[Soapweed]

Your cattle look very contented and in good condition, per. I would warrant a guess that your grass is much more powerful than our Sandhills grass. Just this afternoon I rode my Polaris pony a few miles into the north hills to check on our little herd of fall calving cows. They have what was a fairly fresh pasture, with open windmill water, salt, mineral, and all the soapweeds they could ever eat. They were on good feed while exposed to bulls from November 1st until January 1st, and have been up in the hills roughing it ever since. They don't look as pretty as they did a couple weeks ago when I photographed them, and they sure aren't carrying nearly the body condition scores that your cows do. They will be fat and sassy come June, when they will be for sale, but right now I'm wouldn't be real proud to show them off.

Anyway, thanks for your nice pictures. You live in productive country.

 

[gcreekrch]

Thanks Per.

Good land, favourable micro-climate and a little forward thinking can sure be made to work for a guy. :wink:

Your wife needs some of my ptarmigan so she could market range raised winter poultry.

 

[elwapo]

cattle look real good per! Winter grazing is a great way to cut cost. And we all know its all about cost right now in this industry.

 

[little bow rancher]

looks good per , the last few weeks sure has been some good grazing weather . looks like you got just a little more snow then us . hopefully we get all this as rain and not snow in April .

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

They are looking good.

We are still white all over. Maybe that will change this next week.