Herd Management

A short 50-day breeding season is utilized each year to insist on high fertility. Our main cow herd is solely fed forages and is not supplemented with grain at any point during the year. We expect our cows to maintain good body condition, rebreed early and raise a quality calf solely on forages and a strong mineral program. This management strategy helps us select for fertile, easy-fleshing cattle who thrive on forages.

The herd is turned out to pasture around June 1 each spring. Our pastures consist mainly of established native grass, low lying slough and peat ground, and low-production, rugged bedrock ridges. Only a small percentage of acres at our home quarter include tame grass. This array of rugged landscapes is the reason we apply so much selection pressure on foot quality and soundness. Unsound cattle can’t handle the wet lowlands or rugged rock terrain of our environment. Likewise, hard doing cattle struggle to maintain body condition with the stresses of rough terrain, predators (coyotes, wolves, bears and cougars) and biting insect (mosquitoes, wood ticks, bulldogs, horse flies, black flies, among others) pressures that we experience here. Rotational grazing is used as much as possible to help maintain pasture quality, but wildlife pressures, rock and bedrock terrain eliminate rotational grazing as an option in 60% of our pasture acres. The herd grazes until snowfall prohibits grazing each year, coinciding with the herd coming home in midNovember or early December. Once at home, winter feeding begins with low quality round bale forage shred into windrows out on pasture. The herd walks to water to keep fit for calving. Three weeks before their expected due date, pregnant cows and heifers are moved into up-close pens and monitored more closely until they calve. Round bale forages such as millet silage, alfalfa-grass haylage, native grass hay and timothy straw are fed in bale rings in corrals from post-calving until pasture turn out.