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Minerals... Loose vs. Block

Northern Rancher said:
There are wayy more interesting wrecks than just a few extra dry cows-when you hit one and if you ranch long enough you will that will take care of any vanity troubles perceived or otherwise. It is either vanity or a remarkable sense of confidence to be able to run a man's ranch thousands of miles away-we all try and do it on here. Be it genetics-shoot EXT's on sight-minerals-some or none-or mechanics-if I weld it my life will be so much better!!!!!
Click to expand...

NR- i'm still not sure.....so you like EXT's or you don't?
 
Nothing gives me more euphoria in the ranching business than watching a trailer door close on another descendant of the most overused-overated-piece of crap in the Angus breed!!!!
 
RobertMac said:
When I can go out to my herd and look at my calves, my top end calves look fine...my bottom end calves look like they need something...mineral, nutrition, better mama. I have to cull about 20 cows to get my herd back to the number of cows I want to run on my place. Those 20 cows will take out all the cows of my poor doing calves and some better doing cows.
Didn't I just solve my mineral/nutrition/performance problem?

BMR said:
If your land is lacking in certain nutrients wouldn't the cattle perform to what they are receiving. Eventually cattle will be lacking in whatever the feed is lacking. Cattle may adapt to their environment but will they perform as well as they should or could?
Click to expand...
Or is the question...are we expecting more than our land is capable of giving?

Question for PC and Liveoak...how much can you change your soil above what your parent soil can support and can you afford to keep doing it? How much does the chemical content of the same forage on different soils change? Or does the forage species change with different soil types? How much does the chemical content of different species differ?

NR, my plan was to take away supplements slowly until I hit a production wall...that "wreck" as in a larger than normal percent of my cows coming up open. I'm still waiting!

Is the problem man's vanity in that we think we are smarter than Nature?
Click to expand...


I understand where your coming from but are we to be satisfied with a level of production that be increased with a minimal amount of inputs?
We run on native range so haven't manipulated the plant structure like some that grazed seeded crops.
Do yo seed forages or are you using the forage native to your area?
 
Northern Rancher said:
Nothing gives me more euphoria in the ranching business than watching a trailer door close on another descendant of the most overused-overated-piece of crap in the Angus breed!!!!
Click to expand...

jeez....how do you really feel?
 
Liveoak - other than Dear Watson, I don't see where I called you a name. I referred to myself as the resident soil quack, not you. However, after reading my post a couple times over, I certainly could have been perceived bit on the edgy side, and I apologize for taking it a little too far with the sarcasm.

As for changing things, we change things all the time. We're grass farmers, and don't get too caught up in breeds. It's more about type, than breed. We know what type of cattle work here, we're just trying to reproduce more of them.

And I know that there are choices between supplementing or adapting, cost vs production, blah, blah, blah. When I made my comments questioning how we can expect livestock to adapt when we rotate them in different paddocks and soils, I was just trying to stimulate conversation and see what others thought. Thanks for your input.

RobertMac - there certainly are limits to what can be done w/soil amendments. CEC tells us that. Obviously clay soils have bigger fuel tanks that sandy soils. You can simply do more with a clay base. However, there is a great deal of room for improvement on our sandy soil. It's just a matter of what we can afford, and if the improvement justifies the expense, much like supplementing livestock with minerals and/or feed.
 
I've been my companies top salesman in Canada two times by not mincing words-I can't tolerate getting a politically correct answer to a question about cattle-however I should apologize for running down a rival companies bull. I'll give the same opinion about some of my companies choices that I don't agree with. In fact I was threatened on Cattle Today that he'd 'tell' my bosses on me and get me fired. I told him to go right ahead-everybody makes mistakes sometimes the semen marketing juggernaut can make them bigger than they have to be.
 
PureCountry said:
Liveoak - other than Dear Watson, I don't see where I called you a name. I referred to myself as the resident soil quack, not you. However, after reading my post a couple times over, I certainly could have been perceived bit on the edgy side, and I apologize for taking it a little too far with the sarcasm.

As for changing things, we change things all the time. We're grass farmers, and don't get too caught up in breeds. It's more about type, than breed. We know what type of cattle work here, we're just trying to reproduce more of them.

And I know that there are choices between supplementing or adapting, cost vs production, blah, blah, blah. When I made my comments questioning how we can expect livestock to adapt when we rotate them in different paddocks and soils, I was just trying to stimulate conversation and see what others thought. Thanks for your input.

RobertMac - there certainly are limits to what can be done w/soil amendments. CEC tells us that. Obviously clay soils have bigger fuel tanks that sandy soils. You can simply do more with a clay base. However, there is a great deal of room for improvement on our sandy soil. It's just a matter of what we can afford, and if the improvement justifies the expense, much like supplementing livestock with minerals and/or feed.
Click to expand...

NR - I looked at your post as a potential problem that you had and I looked for a solution. Maybe there isn't one given all the parameters and situations. I do not run a holistic operation much less run anything with the likes of 4500 acres. However, I do know that an individual running 15 acres, on a fixed budget and income, really suffers the same amount of pressure and stress as does the big player under the same conditions.

Given your soil situation and the cost of having to improve that many acres, it's difficult to see how you can do without supplements in the tough years. Are there supplements that are acceptable under the "holistic" plan? I don't know.

Down here in Texas, when I had to purchase liquid feed (urea based) during the late Fall and Winter, it was pretty much telling me that I had screwed up on my grass situation. The answer was either to thin my herd or improve the quality and volume of my grass. I chose to improve the grass through soil nutrition. I learned the hard way. Got cows first and then scratched my butt when I realized they had little to eat. Now I know better. Soil, grass, then cattle. As to your comment about clay soil; I agree, however, it does have it's own problems as in, too darn dense to allow nutrients to pass through (permeability/porosity) unless you occasionally bust it up. Also have a place with sandy loam where nutrients can just pass right on though. It's allways a battle.

As to your employment comment ( I know, you didn't ask), it's my opinion that if your at the top in sales, it's probably because of the relationships you have with your clients. Those relationships will always trump a jealous co-workers comments and often even your own employer. It's because of you that they believe your product is good and backed up. - you stand behind it, not the jerk who wants to jack with you)
 
We were practicing holistic management before it became the cool thing to do-I just always thought I was too cheap totake the chem shortcuts etc. There's been too much of people taking a HRM course than running around the country like a zealot-it's given people a bad taste about the whole concept. Some of the biggest proponents made their fortune mining the soil and suipplementing their cows and all the taboo subjects. It's only after they had a good healthy bank account that they decided to make peace with their microbes by preaching to us poor slobs with loan payments. It is a good concept-could you make the payments on a highly leveraged outfit by strict adherence to it's scriptures-maybe-maybe not.
 
NR I think the farmers/rnachers of the world need to be exposed to HRM and its ideas. If for no other reason than it might make think about how they manage their operation. Those that practice HRM can you give us a brief summary of your successes and failures with it? I am struggleing to get my mind around the whole HRM theory and practice. We have been practicing rotatioanal grazing as long as I can remeber.
 
I always figured the most important things about HRM were...
1. Deciding what you actually want to do/accomplish in work, business and life
2. Exposure to the less than mainstream philosophy.

I also figured that the holistic thing to do is to always be finding out new stuff, picking and choosing which ones were worth trying, and be willing to quit doing those things when they were proven wrong.

FWIW :D
 
Northern Rancher said:
There are wayy more interesting wrecks than just a few extra dry cows-when you hit one and if you ranch long enough you will that will take care of any vanity troubles perceived or otherwise. It is either vanity or a remarkable sense of confidence to be able to run a man's ranch thousands of miles away-we all try and do it on here. Be it genetics-shoot EXT's on sight-minerals-some or none-or mechanics-if I weld it my life will be so much better!!!!!
Click to expand...
NR, I've been in production ag for 30 years...I've had my share of wrecks and overcome some that would put most here out of business. Mother nature squashed my vanity issues just a few years out of college...and I thought I was a smart SOB. When I post here, I'm just opening a door of thought...not asking or trying to force anyone to go through it...it's just my opinion. From what I've come through, I guess it's given me a bit of confidence, which is often viewed as arrogance by some. I know I can't run another man's ranch from across a fence line, much less from a thousand miles away...but, for your EXT problem, there is a simple solution...don't buy or use any. :wink: And if you need help welding, that's something I have a remarkable sense of confidence!! :D
Take care and have a good one!
 
I didn't know if you maybe missed this.

RobertMac wrote:
When I can go out to my herd and look at my calves, my top end calves look fine...my bottom end calves look like they need something...mineral, nutrition, better mama. I have to cull about 20 cows to get my herd back to the number of cows I want to run on my place. Those 20 cows will take out all the cows of my poor doing calves and some better doing cows.
Didn't I just solve my mineral/nutrition/performance problem?

BMR wrote:
If your land is lacking in certain nutrients wouldn't the cattle perform to what they are receiving. Eventually cattle will be lacking in whatever the feed is lacking. Cattle may adapt to their environment but will they perform as well as they should or could?

Or is the question...are we expecting more than our land is capable of giving?

Question for PC and Liveoak...how much can you change your soil above what your parent soil can support and can you afford to keep doing it? How much does the chemical content of the same forage on different soils change? Or does the forage species change with different soil types? How much does the chemical content of different species differ?

NR, my plan was to take away supplements slowly until I hit a production wall...that "wreck" as in a larger than normal percent of my cows coming up open. I'm still waiting!

Is the problem man's vanity in that we think we are smarter than Nature?



I understand where your coming from but are we to be satisfied with a level of production that be increased with a minimal amount of inputs?
We run on native range so haven't manipulated the plant structure like some that grazed seeded crops.
Do yo seed forages or are you using the forage native to your area?
 
PATB - For us HRM has been more than the RM, it's just HM. Holistic Resource Management is one facet of the program. Holistic Management encompasses your life goals, and setting a course to get you and your family where you want to be. When we took the course, those were our first steps, then we moved into Resource Management. We set goals for how we want our ranch to look and various other things. Then we analyze different enterprises and/or scenarios that can generate wealth from what the ranch produces, in order to best meet our goals.

It's tough to explain in one catchy little phrase or tag line, and I think that's partly why HM has been slow growing. It's just tough to explain what you can expect out of it, because we get so much more than we were expecting.

And Holistic Planned Grazing is much more than just rotational grazing. We did rotational grazing, and had limited success. Partly due to my own trial and error way of doing things, leaving animals on a paddock too long, or coming back to a paddock too soon. Once we implemented HP Grazing, we're seeing some much better results, and we have only done the bare minimum we could be doing.

Hope that helps.
 
I have nothing wrong with HRM-Shauna and I took the course ourselves-what I had problems with is some of the attitudes of the self professed gurus that are roaming the country spreading the word. I think RSL has a good a philosophy as any. In some cases HRM is becoming more of a brand label than a philosophy-much like the plethora of horse trainers that buy a John Lyons tape or whatever and then put up their shingle. To me a pure holistic thinker would be interested in improving everyones situation be it financially,agronomically or your family life from what I see some of the teachers have a different set of goals. It would be nice to be able to get a bus and tour some of the operations that are on ranchers.net-I've been to a few of them and there are some intriguing outfits out there. One of the most interesting tours was with Turkey Track Bar's Mom and Dad when we were in New Mexico. Big Muddy Rancher and Pure Country also are worth a visit-actually everybody's place is worth a visit just not enough time in the day. Myself in about twenty years I'll have my place in shape to tour.
 
Thanks for the compliments NR - your place was a memorable trip for me and the boys, too.

As for some HM teachers and their "different set of goals", just curious, what do you mean? Everyone I've met in HM thus far have gone out of their way to help others.
 
That's a conversation over a beer at the Hardisty rodeo-an anaology could be how a televangelist will save your soul in three easy installments. there is some hypocrisy in the deal that I just have trouble getting my stomach around-even when I still had a regulation size one lol.
 
I guess it will have to wait, 'cause I still can't think of what you might be talking about. The course itself is 1/3 the price of Ranching for Profit, and nothing you do these days as far as edumication comes free.

I really enjoy giving free lessons around here, it just that nobody seems to listen to me. :lol:
 
Thanks for all your replies. I have attended half of a workshop on planned grazing and read the Holistic Management book and holistic Management Handbook, healthy land, healthy profits and look at the financial notebook. I am struggling thru the HM a better framework for decison making for a second time. My philosphy is alot like RSL;s keep learning and pick and choose which ideas to try.
 
When I attended the Ranching for Profit program we were told at the end of the course to write a letter to ourselves and predict how our operations would look in 10 years. At the time I was picking and choosing a few of the ideas that we had covered the previous week. I wasn't fully convinced of the whole concept so in my letter I chose a few of the practices that I thought I could convince my Dad to try when I got home. Dave Pratt gave the analogy that using just some of the principles taught was like trying to water ski when the boat was only going about half the speed it needed to go to keep you up on top of the water. It took me 15 years but eventually I came around to his way of thinking on my ranching operation. Funny thing is I waited until I bought the place from my parents to fully implement most of the management changes. My Dad is very traditional, as some of you can surely relate to.
 

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