Determining Stocking Rate to Benefit Cattle And Quail Part 3 of 3

Now that we've got that supply, and we know that that usable forage that we're going to utilize of a thousand pounds has been also maintained for that healthy plants' vigor and also maintains that good quail habitat. How do we figure out the demand side of it for livestock? When we talk about demand, we need to know actually how much of that forage that is required by a livestock unit to or an animal unit to meet their requirements for a year, and typically, we don't set stocking rates for a month or two weeks. We set them for a year, so we have an annual stocking rate. Typically, that's expressed as acres per animal unit. When we talk about animal units, that's generally one 1000 pound cow and her calf up to six months of age. So that's just a standard it's a standard unit that we tend to use when we're setting stocking rates. That way, if you have 1300 pound cows, you can adjust based on that. So, we use 1000 pound cow as the the animal unit equivalent. When we start talking about demand, it's a pretty simple calculation. It's a thousand pound cow times three percent of her bodyweight times 365 days. So, if you make that calculation, it comes up to 10,950 pounds of forage that she needs every year rain or shine to meet her requirements. So, that's 10,950. So, we know our supply now, and we also know our demand. So, to set a stocking rate, those are the only two real things you need to know to set an initial stocking rate. So, you take the demand: 10,950, and you divide that by 1,000 pounds of usable forage and that will give us our initial stocking rate of one animal unit to about 11 acres. 10.9 right at 11 acres per animal unit. That's our initial stocking rate. Now, we're not done there. That would be if the forage were similar from fence to fence. How many ranches in Texas grow the same amount of forage from fence to fence? I couldn't really. Not many. Not in a native situation. That's very true. So, one of the biggest misconceptions or mistakes made when setting stocking rates is stopping right there. That's my initial stocking rate of a cow to 11 acres and we're going to open the gates. Well, not compensating for those acres that aren't producing that same level of production is what that mistake is. It's called not compensating for graze-able acres. As we look across this pasture back here, we have a lot of these live oak mottes that aren't producing those kinds and amounts of forage. We talk about those brushy areas, really steep areas, cattle are pretty, I don't want to say lazy, but they like to eat on flat rather flat slopes. So, they're not going to climb those 30, 40, 50 percent slopes and eat up there if they don't have to. So, water is also another another thing. A lot of us have lakes or very large ponds that take up a considerable acreage in a pasture. We need to take those acres out. They don't grow grass either, if you will. So, if we take that stocking rate of eleven acres per animal unit, and let's say we made an estimation that 30 percent of this pasture or this ranch is non-graze-able and 70 percent is graze-able, we would take our 11 acres per animal unit, divide that by point 7 or seventy percent graze-able and that comes up to a stocking rate of a little over 15 acres per animal unit, and that's what we would call a corrected stocking rate. That's what I would start with. Again, it's a plan. It's an estimate. It's always an estimate. The best thing to do is to set that stocking rate and to be out in the pasture monitoring your forage conditions over the year. And, build in some flexibility. Different land owners have different objectives and different goals, and so, is it always good to set that carrying capacity of that corrected stocking rate or should we vary it a little bit? You always want to go back to whatever the goal and objective is for the landowner. So, even if they're only interested in livestock production, I would set the stocking rate at a conservative rate, or at least, I would recommend that. And, the reason I do that is most of the time we're in a drought in Texas. The majority of it. We'll have wet years. We'll have dry years. If you're stocked at a conservative rate, let's just say 80, well, 75 to 80 percent of what that carrying capacity is then you've automatically built in some flexibility. So, in those dry years, you may not have to cull into your breeding herd, because you've built in some buffer. In wet years where you've got above normal production, you can come in with stockers or yearlings, and make up that difference. Or, if you're a wildlife minded producer, you could leave that buffer alone and help build more habitat and forage and more nesting habitat for quail.