SASKATOON – When anxious ranchers call Paul Poupart and ask if he’ll let them take their cattle onto the cold, ungrown Cabana community pasture near Meadow Lake, Sask., he has a ready answer.
“I say ‘Have you got any grass at your place? Well, there’s none over here either.’ “
Community pastures are supposed to grow grass a month earlier than anything else, he notes ironically.
Poupart said the cold spring has held back local pastures so much he isn’t opening his pasture until the end of May. Because feed supplies are tight and costly in droughty northwestern Saskatchewan and northeastern Alberta, many cattle producers are putting their animals onto pasture weeks before the land is ready.
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It’s a phenomenon occurring across the prairies, and one that could hurt cows, calves and especially the pastures themselves.
“Cattle are probably going out before we would like them to,” said Rimbey, Alta. forage specialist Lorne Erickson. “That can hurt pasture growth later in the season.”
Erickson said heavy grazing on unready pasture can easily exhaust the plants, which have not had time to recover from winter stress. Their ability to produce later in the season could be jeopardized.
Vulnerable plants can be killed by early grazing, which will affect the pasture makeup, Erickson said. And even hearty plants can be exhausted if cattle are chewing them early and often.
Erickson suggested producers who feel they have no choice except to put their cattle onto pastures should carefully control them, so damage can be kept minimal.
Keep cattle restrained
Electric fences can keep cattle within reasonable areas so they aren’t plodding all over the pasture, mashing it up and eating the same, fast-growing plants every few days.
Erickson said pastures that have not had time to grow might not provide enough nutrition, with potentially serious effects.
“If they’re trying to re-breed and they have a low energy level or poor quality diet, it’ll be difficult, especially with that big calf nursing,” he said. Cows that producers want to calve in January and February could be especially affected because they need to be in good condition now to cycle in time. For spring-calving cows there might not be as many problems, because they still have a few weeks before the bulls are put out, Erickson said.
Calves probably won’t suffer except in extreme circumstances, Erickson said, because cows will bear the nutritional cost and generally not pass it on.
“The cow will continue to feed the calf off her back if she needs to.”
Unity, Sask. beef specialist Brendan Kowalenko said it’s easy to tell producers not to put cattle out onto pastures, but the reality isn’t so simple.
“Because of our situation it’s kind of hard to suggest other ways to avoid it,” he said, noting the near impossibility of finding feed locally.
“But if a guy does have some feed I’d sure be holding them off till later.”
