West Central Illinois | oldtiger - 2/4/2026 12:48
Planting all of the above and chopping has proven to be a winner here also, and really shines to have feed last fall when it wouldn't rain, so no stockpile much to graze. The problem that Lb94 has with iron is at least short sighted for some to a degree. But if you tell yourself that enough times, you believe it. I just read an article this morning from University of MO that said intensive grazing maybe has some problems after all. Wait a minute, ya mean to tell us after all these years and grazing schools, maybe it's not all it's cracked up to be? Hmmm, what will academia say next, or should we even listen?
If you're working with farming with no loans from the bank just building from profits the cattle make and savings from day job how does me buying a decent line of used hay equipment to feed harvested feed 6 months+ out of the year, the fuel that comes with putting that up and the fuel that comes with feeding that daily those 6 months make any sense? Let's just call it $40k for easy math, for me that would have been $40k less I could have invested in more cattle, so far with my averages over the years of what i've bought that'd be around 25 hd less I'd be running.
All I'm saying is I see this all the time around here guys that have 20 cows but they have a newer line of hay equipment, a new aluminum gooseneck, a newer loader tractor with a cab, and possibly buildings, pens, gates and more for winter/early spring calving. Then they say most years the cattle have lost them money or broke even with the exception of the last couple years. I have none of those things nor the money to spend on those things so in my mind I need to do the opposite.
That means calving on grass spring and fall, limp through hay season with 40-50 yr old equipment putting up a 90 day hay supply and hope I don't have to feed near that much, and spending the time and energy managing my grazing so I can grow more and better quality forage with the extra management of moving around rolls of poly wire and step in posts about every day. Like I said, we've got to use what advantages each guy has and for each that will be different. For me management intensive grazing just makes sense and I've seen good success with it.
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Expansion? Grass or building?
