RED DEER, Alta. – When people ask Don and Randee Halladay what they do for a living, they say they’re marketing sunlight.
The Halladays are cow-calf operators 42 kilometres northeast of Rocky Mountain House in west-central Alberta. Since 1985 they have been strong proponents of holistic management and have the healthy pastures to prove it.
Their farm is in the parkland area in a grey-wooded soil zone where it is hard to grow cereal crops. Growing better grass has earned them a satisfactory income and they have become consultants for other families interested in changing their management style.
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Don Halladay has been certified since 1987 to teach this program to others in Alberta and is booked with 15 families this winter to show them what he has learned about whole range management.
The forage industry is not agreed about the correct way to manage rangeland.
Halladay believes some traditional range practices are wrong and he said change will come from producers who want to improve their land base. He knows of more than 200 Alberta families who have taken the 10-day holistic management courses to change the way they do things.
“People will make the change once they understand the principles,” he said during a western grazing conference attended by more than 500 people from the western provinces.
His messages are simple: “The wealth is in the land, not the animal,” and “animals are tools to harvest grass.”
Pasture management is more than dropping the cows off in a field for the summer. That’s asking for trouble, said Halladay. When he shows families how to change their pasture plans to the holistic system, they are told to consider three things.
First, they need to figure out how to make the water cycle more effective. Secondly, they need to see if minerals are breaking down properly in the soil. Finally they have to find ways to capture more sunlight for the plants.
Reasons for overgrazing
A major problem in forage production is overgrazing, caused by several factors.
Sometimes cattle are turned out in a spring pasture and allowed to chew new plants down to the ground. A plant needs sufficient leaves to gather sun energy to regrow and if all rejuvenation depends on the roots, the plants won’t survive.
Another cause is leaving animals on a pasture too long because the cattle keep chewing plants down. Managing the time on pasture makes a dramatic difference in the amount of forage produced, but Halladay warned about resting a pasture too long. Cattle don’t want to eat old, overgrown plants and they don’t perform well when forced to eat forage they don’t like.
Another tip reminds people to ensure their pastures carry a variety of plants becausecattle don’t want to eat the same thing all the time.
On the Halladay spread, animals are constantly on the move to preserve pasture.
“This system is not labor intensive. It’s management intensive,” he said.
Yearlings may be moved twice a day to give plants a chance to regrow.
In his area grass grows quickly in ideal conditions. Each year is unique so he leaves a marker in a grazed field to see how fast plants return before sending animals back to a pasture.
