Beef Cattle May Be Easy Way to Put Pastures to Work

By Kenneth G. MacDonald.

If you have pasture and hay land on your few acres, raising some cattle for beef can put meat on your table and a little money in your pocket perhaps more easily than any other way of farming. You can use land not suited for other purposes, and in some cases equipment and buildings that otherwise would just gather dust.

Beef cattle thrive on a wide variety of land types, forages and pasture. A lot of small acreages are rolling and must be kept largely in grass. A beef cow herd is one means of selling this grass.

You can start small. Three beef cows with calves can be expected to develop into 30 females in ten years if all the good heifers are kept. Besides that, there have been some steers to sell and the family meat supply provided for with a minimum investment.

A reliable supply of water is of prime importance. If you don't have it, don't try to raise beef calves.

Each cow should have at least two acres of good pasture.

If your pasture land is covered with brush and scrub trees or rock, five or more acres per cow will be required. Shelter for beef cattle can be kept to a minimum.

Good hay will be needed. If hay is the only source of winter feed, a cow requires about 20 pounds of mixed hay (grass-legume) per day or about 2,400 pounds of hay during a four-month winter feeding period.

In most cases the management time spent with a cow herd is at best minimal, so it's wise to buy cows of breeds that are unlikely to have much calving difficulty.

In other words buy the traditional British beef breeds, Hereford, Angus, Shorthorn or crosses from them. The number of cattle of these breeds or their crosses are also more plentiful.

Cattle of the so-called exotic breeds are apt to have more calving difficulties than the British breeds. Selecting cows of these breeds would not be advisable for the small part-time operator who in all likelihood will be away during calving time.

In addition the continental breeds such as Charolais, Limousin and Simmental are not as well adapted to marginal management and feeding situations. But if a small herd owner is willing to accept these facts and provide the extra management needed, the continental breeds can be very productive due to their additional growth and muscular ability. To obtain the best results, these larger and more muscular breeds should be crossed with bulls of the British breeds.

Artificial breeding in a small herd makes crossbreeding more practical because it does away with the need of keeping bulls of different breeds. Crossbreeding can improve pounds of calf produced per cow by 10% to 20%.

Whatever system you pick, crossbreeding or straight breeding, use the best bulls available.

Fencing, Housing

Fences should be planned carefully and constructed properly. Woven wire, barbed wire, a combination of these, or boards can be used for permanent fences. Woven wire normally is used in situations of high animal pressure or where cattle and sheep may share the same pasture. Barbed wire will control cattle under most farm conditions.

The secret of good fences is having well set corner posts to which the fence can be fastened and stretched.

A two-strand electric fence makes an ideal temporary fence. Electric fences are best used to subdivide fields for improved pasture management rather than as line fences or perimeter fences. Electric fence wires can be attached to wood or steel posts by using insulators, or fastened directly to fiberglass or plastic posts. For safety, use fence chargers with the Underwriter Laboratory (U.L.) seal. Locate gates in or near fence corners rather than in the middle of line fences, to facilitate the movement of cattle out of a field.

Beef cows need only minimum facilities and do best if kept outside under most conditions. The digestive process that takes Place when forages are fed produces large amounts of heat that is used to maintain the cow's body temperature.

The critical temperature of a mature beef cow adapted to a cold environment is 0 F or below. When the temperature goes much under zero the cow will need extra feed to furnish the energy needed to keep her warm.

Weather conditions during which a beef animal will seek shelter are wind and/or cold rain. Access to a windbreak, a woodlot, or an old barn will usually take care of this need.

Have a calving pen or two under a roof where cows with new calves can be held one or two days until it is apparent the calf is being taken care of. And if an animal needs treatment it can be handled or observed much easier when confined to a pen of this type. A 10 foot x 10 foot pen is adequate.

One of the most serious mistakes a small herd owner can make is to feel sympathy for the cattle and shut them up in a barn. This brings on the problem of scours and contributes to respiratory trouble.

Managing Pastures

Permanent pastures are basic to a cow-calf enterprise. Bluegrass usually makes up the forages, along with wild white clover, if it is encouraged by adding fertilizer and is kept closely grazed. A good stand of grass alone will respond to the application of nitrogen.

Permanent pastures can be improved by good management, liming applying manure and fertilizers, and seeding with pasture legumes such as alfalfa.

Good management includes mowing to control weeds, and no overgrazing. Permanent pastures vary greatly in their carrying capacity. Some produce less than 50 pounds of beef per acre. With improvement, these pastures can be made to produce five to ten times that much.

The problem with permanent pastures is they go dormant in July and August. During these months a few acres of improved grass-legume pasture can be invaluable. In years of short summer rainfall, feeding hay may be the only way to carry cattle over this period of short feed supply until fall rains bring permanent pasture back so they may be grazed until early to mid November.

Rotation pastures that are well-managed, fertilized and composed of productive grass-legume species will have a carrying capacity much higher than a permanent pasture. Alfalfa is the most commonly used legume in conjunction with grasses such as Brome, Orchardgrass or Fescue.

Legume-grass pastures remain productive throughout the summer. Grass pastures without legumes peak in spring and early summer and are not too productive in late summer. When alfalfa is used in mixtures it should be rotationally grazed because it cannot withstand constant grazing pressure.

Generally, straight grass pastures should be fertilized with nitrogen, and grass-legume pasture with phosphate and potash. However, use soil tests to determine exact fertilizer requirements.

Permanent pastures such as bluegrass, Brome, or fescue that have not been pastured during the late summer or fall provide much winter feed for such cattle as replacement heifers and brood cows. Winter pastures should have good natural drainage to lessen the damage from trampling in wet weather.

It may be advisable to harvest the first cutting of hay from fields that are intended to be left for winter pasture. If round bales are used, the second cutting can be baled and left in the field. Strip grazing these round bales will increase carrying capacity of the winter pasture.

Timber or hills provide protection from wind, and cornstalk fields located near winter pasture will furnish additional winter feed.

In the Corn Belt, cornstalk fields may be grazed during late fall and winter providing the snow does not get too deep. Two acres of good cornstalks that yielded 100 bushels of corn per acre will carry a cow for about 80 to 100 days. A loose mineral supplement along with trace mineralized salt must be furnished. In addition, a protein supplement fortified with Vitamin A must be fed at the rate of one pound per head per day using a 40% supplement as the basis of this recommendation.

Cows will graze more palatable portions of the corn plant first. They will go after whatever grain is present, followed by the leaves and husks, and then the cobs and stalks.

You cannot expect to recover 100% of the corn plant residue by grazing. From 15% to 30% of the potential dry matter present will be recovered by the cow in grazing a stalk field. Thus if the yield of residue dry matter is about 2 tons per acre, expect to recover 0.3 to 0.6 tons per acre of feed.