What exactly is the job description for a cow?
For Jim Gerrish, a grazing consultant from Idaho, the answer is obvious. A cow is supposed to do several things, including find its own food, deliver a calf, provide for that calf and stay healthy.
Assuming those duties are the cow’s responsibility, Gerrish wonders why farmers roll up hay and feed it to their cattle.
“That isn’t your job to carry feed and put in front of them,” said Gerrish, during his presentation at the Manitoba Grazing School, held in Brandon Dec. 7-8.
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“Your job is to create an environment where your employees (cows) can do their job effectively.”
Gerrish, a former University of Missouri professor who helped develop the principles behind management intensive grazing, told a crowd of 150 producers that making hay is a huge expense.
Which means the best way to cut costs and increase profits on a ranch is to reduce or eliminate hay production.
As evidence, Gerrish referred to U.S. cattle producer surveys, which were analyzed by Alan Miller at the University of Illinois beef extension service.
Miller looked at five years of data from the Standardized Performance Analysis system, which allows producers to compare their ranch to other ranches, based on criteria such as weaning percentage and operating costs.
Miller concluded that profits have little connection to standard yardsticks for animal production, such as weaning weight.
“Less than five percent of variation in profit, from ranch to ranch, is explained by weaning weight,” said Gerrish, an animated speaker who strode into the audience and stood on chairs while making his points.
“The big story (from Miller’s study) is that 57 percent of herd to herd variation in profit is explained by feed cost. There is nothing else that comes remotely close to affecting profitability.”
To back up that statement, Gerrish provided a recent history of making hay in North America.
In 1973, when most producers relied on small, square bales, his dad bought one of the first round balers in Illinois, a Vermeer 605C.
“Does anybody remember … Vermeer’s slogan? It was ‘The one man haying system,’” he said.
By the early 1980s, most producers in North America owned a round baler, which enabled them to put up more hay with less labour and effort.
But back in 1973 his dad paid $4,200 for the Vermeer baler. The same baler today would cost nearly $40,000. As another example of soaring costs, Gerrish said he could remember when diesel sold at the pump for 11 cents a gallon.
“That’s about four cents per litre. What are prices today?” he asked.
While production costs have jumped tenfold or more since the 1970s, beef prices have gone up only two and a half times, he noted.
“It (baling up hay) made sense in 1973. It doesn’t make sense today,” said Gerrish, who has written a book titledKick the Hay Habit: A practical guide to year round grazing.
Based on his calculations of labour, fertilizer, equipment and fuel costs,
he estimated it costs a dollar a day more per cow to make and feed hay compared to grazing. If a producer has a herd of 400, it would cost $400 more per day to make hay and feed it to cattle.
Considering the potential savings and increased profitability, producers should focus on the task of managing their cattle, or as Gerrish calls them, employees, so the animals can find and eat their own food.
The frank message in Gerrish’s talk made an impression on Dean Gamache, a cattle producer from Ste. Rose, Man.
Gamache has practiced methods to reduce dependence on feeding hay for several years, including rotational grazing, corn grazing and management intensive grazing. But he and his father-in-law continue to make hay on their farm.
“For comfort sake we make the hay…. For peace of mind knowing I have 700 bales left in my yard at the end of the year…. We’ve been making the same amount of acres of hay but we’ve required less because of the management style that we’ve (adopted). We are probably producing 40 percent more hay than we need to.”
After hearing the presentation, Gamache didn’t question Gerrish’s numbers regarding the cost of hay and the opportunity to make higher profits. But he did question why so few producers take action, even if they accept it as a fact.
“We know that (costs determine profitability). Everybody in this room knows that and most of the guys out there know it. But it doesn’t make a difference as to how they manage their operations,” he said.
“The uptake of new ideas is very slow.”
One positive development, Gamache noted, is that cattle producers are beginning to ask the right questions.
For example, at auction marts he often hears other producers talk about their calves’ weaning weights. Then another producer will ask how much it cost to get those high weights.
“You would have never heard that comment four or five years ago.”
