Got extra forage? Graze fall-weaned calves this winter to boost profits

Whether they’ve been blessed with abundant rain this year or have calculated the cost and opportunity of targeting a non-traditional market, many ranchers who enroll in the Noble Grazing Essentials course are curious about strategies to overwinter spring-born calves, says Charles Rohla.

Rohla, a senior regenerative ranching advisor at Noble, says ranchers may realize more value for their calf crop if they avoid selling when the market is saturated in the fall. If forage resources permit, they might consider holding weaned calves over through the winter for a spring or early summer market. But in order to do so, “You’ve got to start planning now.”

First, make sure you’re being frank about your land’s ability to carry the load. Calculating carrying capacity involves putting current numbers to your grazeable acres, forage production, seasonal utilization rate, daily livestock intake and the number of grazing days.

“A lot of producers are running at a historic carrying capacity that should have been adjusted over time, or they’ve been supplementing with hay so much that they don’t have a clear view of their land’s actual capacity,” he says.

If the numbers don’t show you have the true potential to carry calves through, pause and evaluate how you might use the soil health principles to help grow your grazing capacity to make that plan more feasible in the future.

Options for fall and winter grazing plans for weaned calves

If your up-to-date numbers give a green light to carry calves over, Rohla says the next step is to evaluate forage availability in quantity, quality and seasonal timing. You might employ one or a combination of the following strategies to extend your grazing season to accommodate weaned calves:

1. Stockpile native range and supplement as needed

If you’re dealing with primarily warm-season native pastures, one strategy might be to stockpile forage and offer supplemental nutrition through the winter months. Under the right conditions and management, you could get a light graze early during the growing season, but plan to allow upward of 60 days of active growth for recovery. Cool-season natives will need similar rest during the fall flush to carry over, too.

Dormant grass will not provide the nutrition young calves need, so plan for their supplemental requirements now and weigh the pricing options. Remember, the goal is supplementation, not substitution. Determine the breakeven price for hay, cake, grain or other supplemental purchase now, and make sure this strategy is a profitable one.

Young calves will be picky about eating less palatable dormant grasses. When grazing stockpiled forages, consider using small paddocks or a strip-grazing method with quick movement to encourage an even graze.

2. Use cover crops to graze, give soil health a boost

If you’re dealing with more introduced pastures, consider planting a cool-season cover crop to graze.

“This is a strategy that could not only help you extend your grazing season, but boost your soil health, too, by keeping those living roots in the ground year-round,” Rohla says.

When preparing to broadcast or no-till-drill the cover-crop seed, plan to graze those pastures fairly heavily right before you plant to ensure good seed-to-soil contact for germination.  Rohla suggests a cover-crop mix that offers at least three different seeds, but he often turns to those with upward of 12 or more. He encourages a mix with a grass species, a broadleaf, a legume and perhaps a brassica, too.

3. Plan a late-season burn for late-season burst of fresh growth

A late-summer prescribed burn could force a flush of fresh growth for late-in-the-year grazing. If that’s an option, plan to graze that pasture early and lightly to allow the necessary fuel load to carry the burn to accumulate. Be prepared to wait 45-60 days after the burn before you graze it. 

“You need to get that regrowth high enough in quantity and quality before you can actually do some adaptive grazing on it,” Rohla says.

4. Consider alternative weaning strategies

If the calves you’re planning to overwinter are your own, consider alternative weaning strategies. Perhaps not separating cows from calves – keeping them together using devices that deter suckling, or allowing the calves to wean naturally – could help realize stock density goals, reduce labor, increase adaptive grazing possibilities by managing of one herd instead of multiple, and even take advantage of mama-cow sense. 

“There is power in using that maternal instinct of the cow to teach her offspring to graze,” Rohla says. “Especially if you’re looking at retaining those heifer calves, they will learn a lot about how to graze, how to make it through a winter, how to behave, if they’re learning from their mothers.”

That strategy comes with plenty of tradeoffs, but he says the practice of entertaining new ideas like this will help you understand all your options. Whether you choose to implement the strategy or not, a close examination will either give you a fresh view or further confidence in your current approach.

Considerations for the calves – what they need to succeed.

Next, calculate your average daily gain goals for the calves, and make sure those goals correlates with your forage and nutritional availability.

“Especially when we’re pushing for gain on these calves, they need the highest quality nutrition in front of them all the time,” Rohla says. Keep a fresh grazing area in front of them as often as possible by speeding up paddock movements.

Pay special attention to mineral availability in late fall and winter grazing, when dormant or stockpiled forages will be lacking in some nutrients. Clean, high-quality water is the simplest nutrient calves need, and it can be easy to overlook when seasonal ponds dry up or freeze over.

Take time to train the young calves to an electric fence. After weaning or upon purchase, take a couple of days to make them navigate a hot fence for water or feed to help them learn to respect it.

Plan for every possibility, but prepare to adapt, too

When implementing a new practice on the ranch, Rohla says creating “opportunity triggers” as checkpoints is essential. These triggers might be based on weather: “We got X inches of usable precipitation by this critical date, so we can run a heavier stocking rate.” Or the trigger might be based on markets: “If the 7-weight calf market hits X dollars, it makes sense to sell, even if we planned to keep.”

“Each person needs to determine what their decision-making triggers are,” he says.

One of the critical components of having a trigger-induced plan is having it written down on paper. The power of the written plan is not in following it exactly, but rather using the plan as a guide to make adjustments along the way.

“Just because you plan, it doesn’t mean you have to follow that script,” Rohla says. “It’s flexible, but when you have it written out in front of you, it’s easier to adjust instead of scramble.”