WAWOTA, Sask. – Cattle have grazed on Sunnybrae Farm near Wawota for nearly 100 years.
Recently, the grazing system on the farm has become a bit more intense. Neil and Barbara Dennis initially made a switch from conventional to rotational grazing in 1983.
“I’d heard about rotation grazing. It was supposed to carry so many cattle and you could do great things with it,” said Dennis.
“I thought I’d try it. It worked for a few years, but the next thing I knew, every little slough was full of water and I had no grass. It was great for spring grazing. There was green grass and all the sloughs were full of water, but it didn’t last very long.”
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He didn’t know why until he took a holistic course in 1998 and found he wasn’t giving the grass enough rest to put down a root system.
With the original rotational grazing system, Dennis split the home quarter into 10 paddocks of 10 to 15 acres. Each paddock would be grazed three or four times a year.
After taking his first holistic management course, he looked at two paddocks that were getting more rest than the others.
“I was using two paddocks for AI-ing cows. When I finished that, they wouldn’t get used until the next year. They were completely different than what the rest were,” he said.
“How I got onto higher stock density was I had bale grazed one year, had a paddock that was 10 or 15 acres and there was another paddock that was only six acres. When I moved the yearlings on it that year – I had 330 – I put them all on the six acres for 24 hours, but left them longer on the other to clean it up. The next year, there was way more growing where I had the higher stocking density. So I started then.”
His stocking rates have moved from 330 the first year, to 650 in 2005 and 801 head this year. The farm now has about 1,150 acres of pasture, broken into 130 paddocks.
“The biggest one would be about 10 acres. Then I split them up. If I want to take a holiday, I leave them in bigger paddocks. But I realize how much more money you can make by spending a bit of time to move wire, so the smaller the paddock the better. I’ve taken those 800 head down to half an acre, but most are from an acre to an acre and a half,” he said.
“What I do is start close to the water, give them an acre or an acre and a half, at about six in the morning. They eat, lay down and when I come out to move them again, they get up, have a crap and a leak, walk into the new paddock, then walk back through all the manure for a drink, spread it around and tramp it all in.”
When moving cattle from paddock to paddock, Dennis uses homemade six foot lifters to shift the wires. He pushes the wire up in the air, props it up and the cattle move underneath the wire to the next paddock.
There are usually three moves in the morning and three more in the afternoon. When he has other things on the go, like harvest, that might drop to twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon.
The cattle are free to move through all the paddocks opened that day. The next day they’re closed and a new set of paddocks are opened.
With 2.5-acre paddocks and 650 head, he was getting 83.7 animal days per acre, or ADAs.
When he moved to seven-acre paddocks, when he wasn’t available to move them as often as he’d like, the ADAs dropped to 38.
“That was 45 ADAs more by the higher stocking density. That worked out to $23 an acre more by doing the moving. I figure I’m going to make between $70 and $90 an acre, moving these cows around this year. It takes me about 3.5 hours a day, of extra moving time.”
Dennis said one piece of land that had been hayed for a while produced 28 ADAs when he started grazing it. With 1.75 pounds per day and 40 cents per lb. of gain, that’s $19.60 an acre.
“This was in a straight meadow brome field. I top dressed it with alfalfa, plus some sainfoin in one of the paddocks. The legumes add nitrogen to the soil and help the grass grow.”
In 2005, Dennis said he took 107 ADAs off – at 1.75 lb. per acre and 40 cents per lb. of gain – for $74.90 per acre, $55.30 an acre more than the initial year.
In paddocks that don’t have clover growing, he’s spread some clover seed in strips. When it first grows, it’s too small for the cattle to eat. After 60 to 90 days of rest, Dennis said the clover is fairly mature and about a metre tall.
“With the high stocking density, they’ll come in and take a lot of the lower stuff, but leave some seed on it, so it goes to seed. Then in the winter time, it traps snow for me.”
He said sloughs will often blow completely bare, while areas with the clover can trap nearly two feet of snow. Discussions with researchers at the Ag Canada research station in Brandon, suggest that with 25 centimetres of snow cover, frost will be within 25 cm of the soil surface because of the insulating effect. With 50 cm of snow, that frost is right at ground level.
“When I’ve got 22 inches (55 cm) of snow (the frost level) is right at ground level. I’ve got the deep root system of the clover, so the water follows the root system down,” said Dennis.
Dennis said in conventional grazing systems, cattle eat the plants they prefer and ignore the others.
Eventually, the less desirable plants take over because they haven’t been grazed as hard. With small paddocks, all the plants are grazed equally, so they’re all stressed and there isn’t one group of plants taking over.
“I think I’m going to be able to put 1,600 head on an acre, if I have time to move them. I’ve put 800 on a half an acre and it’s just like the buffalo. It stirs everything up, and that gives you a longer rest before you’re back.
“I get a better distribution of my manure and urine over the field. You get more hoof action and it’s stirring up a lot of seeds. There’s 27 native species on my land now, but I’m not seeding them. They’re coming from somewhere.
“We would have lost the farm if we kept going the way we were. We actually have to pay taxes. The land’s getting healthier, the cattle are getting healthier and my vet bill is lower.”
When the cattle first come on in the spring, Dennis said he’ll have stockpiled grass. He’ll also feed bales until the grass gets going.
“It’ll be a minimum of 60 days before they’re back on, up to 90 days. When the grass grows fast, you move them fast. When the grass quits growing, you put the higher stocking densities on,” he said.
“If guys are short of rain, what they should be doing is instead of making big paddocks, they should use smaller paddocks and put all their herds together in one group. Do exactly the opposite of conventional thinking. Everybody takes less, but keeps them on for a longer time. Instead, hit the whole thing hard, but just for a little while. Then you get a longer rest, it lets your root system go down.”
Dennis is convinced the higher stocking rate is making him more money in his custom grazing operation. In one situation, with five-acre paddocks and 430 steers, he got 127 ADAs, at 1.75 lb. a day gain and 40 cents per lb. of gain, for $88.90 an acre.
“The five acres beside it, I used a low stocking density of 43 steers, four yearling bulls and a couple of older bulls and I got 88 ADAs x 1.75 x 40 cents is $62.09. It was $26.81 an acre more with the high stocking density,” he said.
“Then the following year, I skim grazed those, only hit them once that year. But where I high stocked the year before, I was making $18 to $23 an acre more.”
Dennis said some of his paddocks have made $114 an acre. He thinks he might hit over 200 yearlings on an acre for a day. That is, one acre would feed one yearling for 200 days.
“I’ve gone from 28 ADAs to over 100 and I’m not using any fertilizers or sprays. All I’m doing is riding a quad and pulling a wire around,” he said.
“A young farmer could get started in this and not have a whole bunch of money tied up in iron. You could have a couple of quads, a post pounder and an old loader tractor. You don’t need a pile of equipment to do this.”
