At first glance, the area southeast of Dundurn, Sask., seems to doze under the early summer sun.
Cattle graze contently in the gently rolling hills and producers have ample time to enjoy the fruits of their labour.
But don’t be fooled by the idyllic rural landscape.
For producers like Chad Haaland, the to-do list always seems to get longer and the pace rarely seems to slow down.
Haaland, a custom grazer, has 1,300 head of cattle on pasture this year, and his grass management system includes frequent herd rotations on more than 5,800 acres of owned and rented pasture.
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In a busy week, he will move every animal in his care to new pasture at least once and maybe twice, depending on rainfall and pasture conditions.
That doesn’t leave much time for rest and relaxation, but according to Haaland, custom grazing offers benefits that are often unavailable to producers who own their own herds.
“It’s a fairly busy lifestyle, but it’s never so busy that it’s not enjoyable,” Haaland said.
“We’re blessed to be working in God’s creation doing something that we love.”
Haaland, a former community pasture stockman, struck his first custom grazing arrangement in 2005.
At the time, he and his parents kept a small herd of their own, but they didn’t have enough animals to stock new pasture land they had acquired two years earlier.
“We bought some land in 2003 and we had a fairly small herd so to utilize that land, we sought out some cattle,” he said.
“It just kind of snowballed from there.”
Today, in addition to the family’s 120 cows, Haaland custom boards 130 more on a year round basis, custom grazes an additional 180 cow-calf pairs and provides seasonal pasture on a contract basis for 140 grasser steers, 165 feeder heifers and 300 breeder heifers.
Animals are put on pasture in early June and normally stay on the range until mid to late October.
The herds are kept on seven pasture systems, each within a 50 kilometre radius of his farm.
Haaland said he adapted to custom grazing without many problems but his experience in the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration community pasture was beneficial.
“The biggest part of the learning curve for me was the management required to keep everything working properly and moving because we manage our rotational grazing quite intensively (to keep the pastures in good shape),” he said.
“If we can manage our land better and hopefully improve it, then we’ll increase our productivity, which will reap us monetary rewards, not only next year but even for our next generation.”
So far, Haaland’s careful management has delivered dividends.
Since his first custom grazing arrangement, he has never had to seek out cattle and his largest clients are return customers.
“My goal is to keep my custom grazers as happy as I can and to keep them as long as I can.”
Custom grazing has been a good fit for Haaland, but he acknowledged that it may not be for everyone.
“It does take a fair bit of management and you have to be comfortable handling large numbers of animals. It takes a lot of stockmanship.”
The terms of his custom agreements vary, depending on the type of animals.
Grazing rates for feeder animals are normally calculated on a per-pound-of-gain basis while breeder heifers and cows are kept on a per-day rate. Because Haaland has a good relationship with his grazers, his contracts don’t specify how animals must come off pasture.
“We don’t have anything written in the contract about body condition,” he said.
“I know that it’s in my best interest to have those cattle come off the pasture in the best condition possible.”
For cows that are boarded on a year-round basis, owners must provide winter feed while Haaland provides management and stockman’s services.
Custom grazing has benefits and pitfalls.
One of the biggest benefits is insulation from market volatility.
“If we owned all of our own cattle, the stress level would definitely go up,” he said.
“We would be more controlled by what the markets are doing and by the value of the dollar and so on. All that stuff would weigh on our minds, plus getting the animals to market would definitely add to our workload.”
He said custom grazing is a secure way to do business.
“We know at the beginning of every grazing season roughly what our income will be. We negotiate our rates, figure out what our target date is to get cattle on the pasture and then it’s simple math.”
However, he said the responsibility of caring for another person’s cattle can be more onerous than caring for his own herd.
Sometimes it’s easier to rationalize a loss if the animal was his own, but it’s not as easy to explain the loss to a paying customer.
In a bad year, carrying capacity of pastures in poor conditions can also lead to headaches, but he said this is where responsible grass management pays off.
The Dundurn area received about 50 millimetres of rain last week so Haaland’s pastures are in pretty good shape this summer.
“There’s always going to be factors like rain and weather that you can’t control,” he said.
“But we’ve been very fortunate. We’ve taken a lot of the risk out for ourselves … and I can’t really say that I’ve ever had to look for cattle. They’ve always found me.”
Haaland said landowners considering a custom grazing arrangement should do plenty of research and seek out advice from landowners who have experience.
