HOLDEN, Alta. – Elgar Grinde’s cows looked like kids in a candy store when he pulled back the electric wire to let them into a new area.
They raced behind Grinde as he reeled in the electric wire and then they headed straight for the fresh swaths in the field. The 340 cows went from one swath to another, stopping to take a bite before rushing off to find an even tastier bite of barley.
Grinde said they will pick all the good bits off the top during the first pass through the field. Two hours later they’ll pick deeper into the swaths for heads that they missed the first time. Twelve hours later they’ll clean up the rest of the field.
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Like kids, the cows will leave the food they don’t like until last, he said during a tour and seminar featuring five Alberta producers who are trying to lower their winter feed costs by extending their grazing season.
Grinde has grazed his cattle on swaths for six years in an attempt to reduce feed costs. Now other producers are looking over the fence at his success.
Depending on the farm, the costs of feeding cattle during the winter can range from 31 cents to $2 per head per day, said seminar organizer Grant Lastiwka of the Western Forage Beef Group.
He said producers can reduce winter feeding costs by 47 percent by moving away from the traditional method of baling hay, hauling the bales to a central location and then bringing them to the animals.
Grinde calculates that it costs him 35 cents per day for winter feed, which includes pasture rent, seeding and cutting.
“If you’re still feeding cows in corrals or in a confined system, fine … but I can’t afford to do it,” Grinde told about 100 producers and industry staff who attended the seminar on one of the coldest days of the year.
He said he has also saved thousands of dollars on fertilizer and fuel costs.
Rarely does Grinde need to start the tractor in the winter to bring feed to cattle. Instead, cattle are guided through the swaths an acre at a time using electric fence and a little leg work.
“It’s great not having to call up the fuel guy and have to pay a fuel bill every two months.”
On warm winter days Grinde and his wife, Annie, string five reels of electric fence parallel to each other with about an acre of feed in between each wire. Each fenced-in area has enough feed for one day.
Every day Grinde reels up a length of electric wire and puts it up behind the back wire, a job that takes about 20 minutes. On cold days he just rolls up the wire.
Grinde has also dramatically reduced his fertilizer bill. With 340 head of cattle in a small area, manure is spread evenly over the field, eliminating the need for extra nitrogen fertilizer.
Lastiwka said there is no single recipe for swath grazing, but there are good, solid principles that work. Key is trying to reduce the amount of time spent handling feed, which is also called yardage.
“Simply choosing a system with less yardage will cut your costs in half,” said Lastiwka, who estimated there is a 58 cents per head per day difference in feed costs between swath grazing and traditional feeding.
Doug Wray of Irricana, Alta., has also been trying alternative feeding methods since he switched from mixed grain farming to cattle in the late 1990s. Swath grazing was one way to extend grazing on his native and tame forage.
Wray doesn’t restrict grazing to swaths. He has also grazed cattle on a neighbour’s hailed-out wheat crop and a drought-affected canola field as a way to find economical feed.
Over the past four years Wray has extended the grazing season by four to six weeks by working with neighbouring farmers to graze their stubble land and crop residue.
“It cleans up land for them and provides us with some extra very economical grazing,” he said.
“The grain and cattle guys aren’t working together like they could.”
Like Grinde, Wray tries to moves his cattle every day, but as a one-person operation, if he needs to be away for a few days he will give them three or four days of feed.
“There is less waste if I feed them every day. By limiting feed, you gain a 30 percent feed usage.”
Wray prefers to graze oats and while they may not be as palatable as other crops, he thinks oats are able to take advantage of rain throughout the year. Last year the crop stopped growing by the end of July, but more moisture in August gave it a boost and it stooled out, adding tonnage and quality to his feed.
“Oats have the ability to react to moisture and that has been pretty important.”
Depending on the year, Wray can graze his cattle all year. In drought years he needs to supplement the swaths with extra feed, but this year he has more swaths than cattle.
Doug Horte of Kingman, Alta., said he attended the seminar to look for ways to save costs. He feeds his cattle in the field, but he starts his tractor every day to do it.
“I’m looking for alternatives.”
George Williams of Strome, Alta., said he’s been swath grazing for years, but not to the same extent as Wray and Grinde.
“These people are dedicated,” said Williams, who was interested in learning more about the fences and how they’re moved.
