AIRDRIE, Alta. – The challenges of drought and hard winters have forced cattle producers throughout Alberta to be cost conscious.
Alvin Kumlin, who ranches in the southwestern foothills, and Wyett Swanson of northeastern Alberta, are among those innovators who work to shrink feed bills and maintain healthy cow herds.
In hindsight, Kumlin said he should have done some things differently on his Cochrane area spread.
“I wish I had culled harder and I wish I fed less last year,” he said at a seminar sponsored by the Foothills Forage Association.
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“I don’t think any one of us thought this drought was really going to happen.”
In his area, drought is not usually as severe as elsewhere in the province. Dry summers are typically followed by a hard winter with plenty of deep snow, presenting a different set of obstacles.
This year, he weaned his April-born calves in September. He normally keeps them on the cows longer.
“If you get those calves off early and let them look after themselves, they’ll make it,” he said.
He shipped more cows this year when a greater percentage failed to conceive. He blames the drought for poor conception rates.
He prefers moderate-sized cows for his environment near the foothills.
“I have found over the years genetics determine more than anything how these cows come through the winter.”
Kumlin does not condition-score his cows because he prefers not to handle them.
Instead, he picks a few sample cows and watches their progress throughout the year.
To make sure the younger cows get adequate feed, they are wintered separately from the mature ones. In bad years, he has seen healthy cows lose 250 pounds but still produce a healthy calf in spring.
On the other side of Alberta, Swanson found this year tested a system he developed over the last decade to raise a thrifty, productive cow herd.
Drought came early and has not yet departed. It is unusual to experience back to back drought in the Provost region, so he hopes for a weather recovery next year.
His cows typically graze on alfalfa during the summer, but by the end of June he had less than 30 millimetres of rain and his pastures were burned off by Aug. 1.
In normal years, the bottom 10 percent of the herd gets culled. This year he was more severe.
“Through selection you can really cheapen up your feed costs,” he said.
This year, rather than turning out 250 replacement heifers, he reduced the number to 150 and the rest went to his feedlot.
If conditions persist, he will shut down the feedlot and as a last resort cut even further into the 1,300-head cow herd.
His operation has almost no water left so he had to haul it from wherever he could find it.
In better years, he stockpiles forage and some years the silage pit overflows. It has a capacity for 20,000 tonnes but by building up walls of straw bales, he has increased the inventory to 30,000 tonnes of silage to carry through the thin years.
He records everything that happens on the farm and has learned some important lessons. One is that cows must be fat as they head into winter. He also prefers cows to weigh in at 1,200 to 1,400 lb. Smaller cows cannot survive the winter in his area.
In a condition-score system of one to five, he prefers cows to reach a four by September. By spring, they might have shed 250 lb.
“If those cows are thin in January, you are going to have a feed bill like you won’t believe.”
Of great benefit to the cows is early weaning when calves are four months of age and about 400 lb. This year, the weaned calves were 50 lb. lighter on average.
He started early weaning in 1996 when conditions were dry. He finds these smaller calves perform well in the feedlot where all are weighed and monitored to provide a complete spreadsheet on costs.
“You would not believe the feed efficiency of these calves. There is almost 20 percent more feed efficiency compared to calves that start later,” he said.
The bad years also taught him to work with his neighbours.
“Grain farmers and cattle farmers have to work together.”
He approached a neighbour who reluctantly agreed to let him turn his cattle onto a stubble field which Swanson agreed to fence.
“He went to the coffee shop and started bragging about how he got $800 a quarter for letting me run my cows on there. Pretty soon I had calls and I get more and more every year,” Swanson said.
This year, he fenced grazing land around dried sloughs. Cows went out on cut hayfields and onto old farm sites where there were often bore wells from which they could draw water.
Working with a nutritionist, rations are carefully balanced for protein, energy and cost.
He compares everything against the price of barley and is willing to try a variety of byproducts. Chaff, mixed with silage and minerals, has been a mainstay for his operation.
However, he finds modern combines do not leave as much chaff behind so the nutrient quality is diminishing. He has also fed oat hulls, lentil and pea screenings, grass hay, canola bales and canola fines.
In winter, he feeds the cows every other day and provides straw in a self feeder so they can fill up on the off days. One bale per cow per season seems to be adequate.
Flax straw is a new product this year.
“They tell me they’ll eat flax straw so this winter, we’ll find out,” he said.
