BASHAW, Alta. Ñ Dave Green doesn’t know if every cattle producer will adopt swath grazing, but it’s an option more are looking at as a way to save money.
“I don’t know if it will be the norm, but you’ll see it trend that way,” said Green, who grazes 140 head of cattle on a quarter section of barley swaths from October to March.
“You just have to figure out how to do things cheaper.”
He has swath grazed cattle for six years as a way to save time and money. In the first three years he estimated he needed three-quarters of an acre per cow to last 150 days of feeding. However, drought has increased that in the past few years to an acre or more per cow.
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Grant Lastiwka, a pasture specialist with Western Forage Beef Group, said a five-year study in Lacombe, Alta., from 1997-2001 showed swath grazing saved 47 percent in feed costs compared to a straw silage ration: 68 cents per cow per day versus $1.24. The savings worked out to $30 to $40 per tonne, based on the cost of putting up and delivering feed compared to having cattle eat it in the field.
“Depending how you feed your cows, there are opportunities here for saving,” Lastiwka told a group of producers during a County of Camrose winter cattle feeding tour.
When the researchers started their study, they had trouble finding more than 135 people across Western Canada who swath grazed. Now it’s not uncommon to find swath grazing on many farms across the Prairies.
“The ability to do it has essentially empowered people to look at it as a viable alternative to cutting costs or simply creating a time-flexible means of delivering winter feed to animals,” Lastiwka said.
Dale Fankhanel of New Norway, Alta., said he’s looking at swath grazing as a way to reduce his dependence on machinery and save money.
“We’re machinery poor. We’ve got machinery to go with everything,” he said.
His one concern with swath grazing is that by delaying seeding to delay maturity, producers miss the spring rain needed for germination.
Lastiwka said it is a balancing act to seed early enough to catch spring rain and late enough to not have the swaths ripen completely and become grain and straw in the field. Early-seeded crops also run the risk of lying in swath in the fall before frost, where they can be downgraded by bad weather.
Warren Bloomquist of Ponoka, Alta., has swath grazed his cattle for 15 years.
“I’m raising beef as cheap as I can raise it,” he said.
Bloomquist estimates that with land factored in, it cost 82 cents per cow per day for feed. Without factoring in the land, it works out to 42 cents a day.
He said it takes only 15 minutes to move the electric fences along the rows of the oats, barley, triticale and pea mixture. Depending on the weather, he moves the fences every one to three days.
“I’m trying to do stuff as lazy as possible.”
Neighbour Jess Hudson has swath grazed for 11 years.
“The reason we did it was to save time and watch the kids grow up,” he said.”It gives me time to do other things than chores all day long.”
He said he could feed 300 to 400 head of cattle without hired help.
