News
Cattleman’s Brenham Livestock Auction Special Replacement Female Sale
Saturday • March 18, 2017 • 12 noon 2405 Highway 105 East • Brenham, Texas Featuring
800 Head
of Quality Replacement Females
Pairs • Breds • Open Heifers Photo courtesy of Robert Fears
Half of forage production should be left as residual and 25 percent is lost to trampling, defication, and insects leaving 25 percent for grazing.
Rates, from Page 12 greater than 10 percent or areas more than two miles from water, so when establishing a stocking rate for cattle, exclude steep areas and areas too far from water. There are two perspectives in determining stocking rates. One is land resource and the second is animal performance. It is possible to stock properly from a resource conservation perspective but overstock in terms of animal performance because of animal forage preferences.
Available forage
The first step in determining stocking rates is to estimate amount of available forage. Rainfall is usually the primary controlling factor for forage production in Texas, so amount of available grazing will vary with soil moisture. Conduct forage inventories in late June or early July and again in October and March. Then
make stocking adjustments based on estimated forage supply. The most accurate and time-consuming method of measuring forage inventory is to clip and weigh palatable forage from a representative number of small square areas, average the weights, and adjust the total to a per acre basis. A quicker, yet accurate, method is use of the Natural Resources Conservation Service measuring stick. After one of the two methods is used several times, many people learn to estimate available forage just by walking the pasture. A major goal of good grazing managers is to leave enough forage in a pasture to protect the soil and maintain plant vigor. The old rule of thumb, “take half — leave half,” does not mean that half the forage can be allotted to grazing animals. About 25 percent of the forage disappears through
Also Featuring Approximately 40 Bulls:
Call us for consignment updates and current information on this special sale.
Cattleman’s Brenham Livestock Auction
See STOCKING, Page 14
The Land & Livestock Post
March 2017 — Issue 1
Sale Every Friday P.O. Box 1207 Brenham, TX 77834 979-836-3621 office
5 - Registered Angus 2 - Registered Brahman 2 - Registered Charolais 5 - Reg. Herefords from B&C Cattle Co.
cattlemansbrenhamlivestock.com
979-830-7769 Scottie Schwartz 979-277-4987 Mark Schwartz 979-877-4454 Doug Bass
13