The Stewarts, who own and operate Pine Ranch along with Erika’s parents Bill and Terry Strande, say they’ve been learning about and applying the principles of sustainable production practices as much as they can in recent years, as they work to develop a more resilient ranching operation near Morse, about 40 minutes east of Swift Current.

Their ranch management skills and sustainable production practices earned them recognition earlier this year as Saskatchewan’s Outstanding Young Farmers for 2024.

Erika grew up on the family ranching operation near Merritt, B.C., and she and Cyle married in 2011. For reasons that included getting away from growing urban pressures on their B.C. ranching operation, the Stewarts and Strandes sold and relocated, cattle and all, to Saskatchewan in 2017.

Their place at Morse includes about 18 quarter sections of deeded land with almost an equal amount of government lease land. They have about 800 acres of tame grass pasture and hayland on their home place, with 90 per cent of all deeded and leased pasture being native prairie grassland.

“It’s been a test of our management as we’ve had to deal with drought for the past seven years,” Cyle says.

Along with downsizing the beef herd to better match cattle numbers with forage production, they’ve implemented measures to help make efficient use of available resources.

They’ve paid particular attention to developing a more efficient beef herd, selecting genetics geared toward more moderate-sized, British-breed cattle that have been raised on a forage-based ration.

On the tame grass pastures on their home place, they use an adaptive multi-paddock (AMP) grazing system, which involves creating smaller paddocks to be used with high-density, short-duration grazing — in other words, using the grass but then allowing it time to regrow and recover.

“We are developing some cross-fencing on our native grass pastures as well,” Erika says. “It’s not as intensive as we use at home. By ‘smaller pastures,’ that still means they are three quarter-sections in size, but it still allows us to move cattle to different areas.”

The ranch is also expanding the summer pasture water system by installing about three miles of waterline and new portable troughs that will bring water to areas of tame grass pastures as well as parts of the native grass pastures.

“It is an ongoing project, but if we can improve the water supply on pasture, that helps with livestock distribution and overall improved grazing efficiency,” Erika says.

With cows bred for 50 days and replacement heifers for 42 days, the Pine Ranch herd begins calving in April before heading out to tame grass pasture later in May.

“Using the AMP system we keep them on tame grass as long as we can,” Cyle says. “It all depends on growing season moisture.”

The herd usually heads out to native grass in July and remains there until October.

The steer calves are pre-sold while on pasture usually in late July or August. “We have a good relationship with a local feedlot and can complete the sale with a phone call,” Cyle says. “The steers are sold in July, for delivery at weaning in October.”

As the Stewarts apply low-stress cattle handling practices, the ranch introduced a pre-weaning program a few years ago. The cow-calf pairs are brought in for vaccination booster shots in mid-September, then returned to pasture for another month.

Around mid-October the herd is brought home again for the steer calves to be weaned and shipped.

“With the pre-weaning program it is a little easier on the calves in that they’re not being processed and weaned on the same day,” Cyle says. “And with reduced stress they adapt to the feedlot easier.”

While the steers are shipped, the heifer calves will remain with the cows, probably through November or into December. The delayed weaning with the heifer calves is something new the ranch is trying, Cyle says.

“We want to leave the calves with the cows longer in the fall so they get more used to grazing, and the extra time may ease the calves into natural weaning, but we don’t want to leave them too long so that they begin to draw down cow condition,” he says. “We are trying to figure out the best timing.”

Once the heifers are weaned, the cows will remain on pastures with stockpiled forage, hopefully to December or January. As winter sets in, the cows move to bale grazing on pasture. The herd is split with mature cow-calf pairs in one group and second- and third-calf cows in another group.

The heifers are backgrounded over winter, with decisions on which heifers will be kept for replacements made in April. Those not making the cut become grass yearlings on pasture, usually sold in July.

Cyle says the past five years have involved a lot of learning about ways to improve production practices.

“We have asked a lot of questions and received a lot of help from other people who have similar goals and practice a similar management style to ours,” he says. “We have been able to connect with a lot of people and form some great relationships. The Beef Cattle Research Council is also a great resource.”

“Looking forward, it is a matter of applying these sustainable production practices,” Erika says. “As we develop an efficient beef herd well suited to this environment, we are also doing a number of things that will hopefully work together to improve grazing efficiency, benefit forage production, and hopefully improve soil health.”

The post Cyle and Erika Stewart appeared first on Grainews.

And this is no longer the 1980s, even though we may want them back at times. Your daddy’s bell-bottoms, muscle cars and mullets had their place, but these aren’t their cow herds anymore. Nor should they be. Cost aside, the modern cattleman has come to grips with the conclusion that a cow and calf need to be taken care of to a higher standard than ever before. It’s not just for our own conscience, but also for the sake of appearance to the consumer.

I have always been a fairly organized, mildly obsessive-compulsive person, thanks to my parents drilling into me, at a young age, the importance of being a productive, hard-working citizen. And later, having a significant other in my life also reinforced the need to being open minded and disciplined. I’ve seen these qualities in good owners, co-workers or neighbours I’ve had the privilege of working for and with, and in my opinion they lend themselves well to the challenge of preparing the calf crop for the trip to the summer pastures.

Open to ideas

Good owners are not necessarily followers, but are open to new ideas. They work together with veterinarians on a plan to send out a calf herd that has the best chance to be healthy, efficient, productive animals. So many things need to be planned for and accomplished before this can happen, including purchasing proper vaccinations, castration, branding and dehorning supplies, tags, implants and louse control plus the repair and cleaning of tools and equipment. Don’t be caught short on supplies the morning you want to process the calves. Good organization cannot be underestimated.

Now it usually takes quite a bit to get us old cowboys and pen checkers down from our mounts, but the morning of this undertaking was one where I didn’t mind giving old Sonny the day off and offering my services at ground level. Hopefully a dry, preferably grassy area had been chosen for the processing job, keeping in mind infections need to be avoided as much as possible. Remember the organization part?

Those were special days were filled with the laughter, pranks and camaraderie of workers, neighbours and friends working hard for a common cause, getting down and dirty with nary a worry. But one change I have seen through the years is more attention being paid to the bigger picture. Remember why you’re there and what it’s all about. Remember the health of the calves. In the past, with some outfits, the goal had been to get it done and over with, no matter the cost. The animal’s well-being was often an afterthought. But these aren’t your daddy’s cow herds anymore. Do your best not to overly stress the cattle with unnecessary repetition of work processes. Take care of the investment and do things right.

When all is ready and the cows and calves are processed and healthy and the grass is sufficiently green and thick, the morning comes when the herd will be moved to pasture. This was always another special day when old Sonny and I would get a chance to escape the confines of planks and wind-boards. With butterflies in our stomachs we’d follow behind as the herd would turn from the corral and string out down the roadway. Soon we would recognize the leaders who had done this before striding on ahead with purpose. And even though we’ve all done our best, there are still the stragglers, the cows and heifers with the younger calves and the generally slower pairs, but that’s all right, because once the last pair crosses through the pasture gates, it’s out of your hands — at least for today.

The post These aren’t your daddy’s cow herds appeared first on Grainews.

Some pen checkers and barn staff just couldn’t seem to figure it out, or maybe they just didn’t care enough to even think about it. They would ride or walk into a group of cattle attempting to make a sort, and generally cause chaos of varying degrees, usually ending with an out-of-control mini stampede or catching a stray hoof somewhere they weren’t expecting it. At the time it was both frustrating and funny.

The hard part is that every pen of animals is different. Just like I suppose, every animal species would be different. How would you handle a pen of deer, or a flock of chickens or a forest of slow-moving sloths? What about a herd of cats? It’s the same problem with cattle. There are so many differences.

Some pens of calves are just naturally wilder than others and take a special kind of treatment when you are moving through them. There are so many things to consider. Does the animal you are approaching see or hear you? Are they surrounded by unease? When you reach the edge of their flight zone, do they bolt up and over their friend and neighbour just to continue chewing their cud 10 feet further away, or do they race into the corner of the pen to hide behind everyone else? In the past, I believed to be a good pen checker, you should just know these things.

In one instance, during the monotony of riding in a semi-automatic state, I had a thought about how livestock flight zones could be related to those of people. When we are pressured to a certain degree, it’s in our nature to react. And just like cattle, there are always a number of factors. Maybe it’s our personalities? Maybe it’s our backgrounds and previous experiences which have tended to shape our responses. Are we the type that can withstand a large amount of pressure to the edges of our comfort zones until we explode and bolt away, scrambling over our friends, coworkers and neighbours, wildly searching for buses to toss everyone under? Maybe we stand and lash out with our so-called hooves at others when they get too close, or race away to hide.

Thinking changed with age

As I grew older and became more experienced as a pen checker, my thinking on this subject began to change. It’s certainly important to understand how to manipulate the varied flight zones of cattle. We need to be able to adapt. I like to think that over time, as I accepted this could at least be a partially learned skill, I became a better pen checker. In a strange way, I was giving myself permission to continue building knowledge. Just like in people, things change with age and experience. The way I handled tough situations or outside pressures of life as a teenager are not usually the way I do now. It is important to learn how to deal with the stresses encroaching on our personal space and lives without running over, hiding behind, or tossing our friends under buses.

I eventually changed my earlier premise and came to my own decision that just like learning the do’s and don’ts of handling livestock as it pertains to flight zones through age and experience, one can become a better person as well by the way we respond to events in our life. But then again, this is only my interpretation and what do I really know? Riding around in pens of cattle looking for sickness and other problems certainly doesn’t make me an expert in anything. But some days, pen checking delivers numerous empty hours of riding filling the mind with all kinds of things — like flight zones.

Maybe it’s something to think about anyway? Or not.

The post Flight zones can teach some lessons appeared first on Grainews.

Usually we older pen checkers don’t worry too much or want to be bothered about numbers and statistics and such things, as we can be easily confused. We generally like to be left alone to do our thing and Sonny and I being of an ever-increasing age, had limited energy that needed to be conserved by not pulling cattle unnecessarily.

After the morning rounds, I stopped at the treatment barn to see if there was a way to answer my question about the Hereford steer. The girl at the office humoured me and with a few clicks of the computer mouse and taps of the keyboard, I was looking at some detailed spreadsheets and listings. A couple more clicks and the data of my Hereford steer appeared. She showed me a massive amount of information on said steer, starting with his CCIA number, followed by when he had arrived at the feedlot, how heavy he had been, what kind of feed he was on, his projected finished weight, his implant and vaccination history, when he had been treated last and what drugs he had received. The lists and pages seemed to go on and on. I knew the bare bones basics of livestock health systems but I couldn’t believe how much they had improved and how in-depth they now were.

As I put Sonny away for the day, I had to wonder about all this technology and what it really meant. Of course it was good to know the facts and the numbers of the livestock we raise and take care of, but is there such a thing as too much of a good thing? Brushing the dust and sweat from Sonny, I could hear some fellow pencheckers discussing the previous evening’s sports scores. Another couple stared at their cellphones and talked of an upcoming thunderstorm. One was texting or tweeting. As I opened the gate and slapped Sonny on the backside my pocket began to vibrate and I instinctively reached for my own cellphone. It was my wife informing me of her plans for the morning.

It used to be that if I wanted to know who won the hockey games last night, I would have to listen to the radio, or watch the sports news on television. If I needed to do some multiplication or division I would have to do it in my head, or if that failed bring out my pencil and notepad. My wife would have to tell me her plans when we talked in the morning, or I just may not know them at all. Sometimes I felt that this age of technology and instant access and knowledge came at the cost of actual communication and interaction, but maybe that’s just me being stubborn and set in my old ways.

But how does this apply to the modern feedlot? Is there a point where we lose the physical connection to the pens of feeder and finished animals and the calves and the grassers and all we go by are the numbers on the computer screen? Technology has given us such unbelievable almost magical tools to be efficient, productive and exact. Surely there is a balance to be found in actual daily physical down-in-the-dirt interaction with the cattle using our own eyes and brains plus making good use of the numbers, calculations and statistics? Why would we want to waste these opportunities?

As I left that day, I passed by a group of grass cattle along the roadway and noticed one that was limping. I could see the bright numbered ear tag he wore and instinctively reached for my notebook to mark his information down. After writing it, I stopped. Maybe I should just have the helpful barn staff look him up for me in the computer come morning. I’m sure with the proper numbers, information and statistics we should be able to get him all fixed up.

The post The era of productive information overload appeared first on Grainews.

This process also helps me to set some expectations of performance in both our cow herd and our retained calves that I can use to measure the plan versus the actual animal response as we are feeding. Further, knowing our animals are properly fed and cared for helps me to sleep at night.

Through the process I also like to calculate my yardage out for different feeding options and planning future scenarios. There is a pretty good yardage module in the program, but yardage is not really that difficult. It can be defined as every cost of feeding cattle that does not include the cattle or the feed. Yardage is labour, fuel and electricity to heat the water bowl, parts to fix the tractor, depreciation on equipment and facilities, the cost of building and fixing corrals and the cost of cleaning corrals. If it is not the feed or the cow, it is yardage.

It’s a profit killer

Yardage is a highly dangerous profit killer for a variety of reasons, including:

• Yardage happens every day. A few pennies a day over a few head of cattle, over a few days all of a sudden becomes significant if you are feeding cows all winter. For easy math, if we took a 100-head cow herd working on $0.75 per head per day for yardage for a 200-day feeding period, we would be looking at $15,000. That is a big number, and what is even more intimidating is that realistically many operations have yardage costs that are well over $1 without even paying the operator for their time. If you can find a mere $0.05 per day savings in this situation you have just saved $1,000.
• It can be hard to track yardage because of the nature of the costs. For example, the initial construction cost of facilities may be several thousand dollars, but the cost is really spread out over all the years you can use the facility. We just have to remember that we have to include repair costs as well. That new bundle of slabs also counts towards yardage.

Another good example would be corral cleaning. This may occur long after cattle are out of a feeding facility, but it is a cost that is incurred by feeding the cattle.

Part of the fuel bill, the electric bill and interest costs may all contribute to yardage costs. To give an example of how quickly a small seemingly insignificant expense can tack onto yardage, consider a single 1,500-Watt floating tank heater. If the heater is plugged in for 200 days and you are buying electricity at $0.08 per kilowatt hour that single heater costs $2.88 per day or $576. If you can water from one trough, instead of two and use a single heater, you have saved nearly $600. On our 100-cow herd that is $6 a cow.

• Yardage costs are often not readily visible; this is particularly true with depreciation, which sneaks up on us. We don’t notice too closely when the new fence starts to weather, until one day the wind blows it down. It is one big replacement cost that has happened quietly over time. Machinery depreciation is another good example. However the very best example is unaccounted for operator labour.

So what do we do about it?

The first thing to do about yardage is to accept that it is important and work to understand it both at a higher level and for your specific operation. Without having any idea of what your costs are, it is tough to say if you are making progress or backsliding. The importance of being cautious with yardage is that in times of good markets it is often one expense we let slip by. But it is a cost that bites into profit and may make us unprofitable when markets move downward.

One of the most obvious ways to reduce yardage is to feed more cattle with the same resources. This is how modern feedlots work and part of why many of them have grown so large. For example, a $20,000 tractor spread over 100 cows is significantly more than if that same tractor is used to feed 200 cows. If we are feeding 20,000 the math changes again.

While this seems obvious, just getting more cows may not be the solution for everyone. Some options could be neighbours or family pooling cow herds in the winter so that one set of equipment and facilities feeds more cows. By trading labour it is even possible that each cow herd owner gets a “winter holiday.”

Different feeding systems can also work wonders. One winter when we lived in town while my father was recovering from surgery. We fed calves weekly by putting feed into three different pens and closing gates. That way we could run the tractor once a week for a couple of hours and in five minutes every two days we could feed the calves. The amount of yardage it saved by preventing an hour of road travel and two hours of tractor time every day amounted to a huge sum.

To really combat yardage we need to continually look at alternatives to the “way we always do it.” While not always an option some of these solutions may also include alternative grazing systems such as swath and bale grazing which greatly reduce the need to move both feed and manure and can dramatically drop costs including labour and machinery costs.

As a personal example, I can place approximately 100 bales an hour in the fall for bale grazing and will not touch them again all winter. We track all of our labour and last winter we fed nearly 400 head averaging just over four hours a week in labour, without running the tractor. There is no corral cleaning cost.

If you want a good start on information about yardage, do a quick Google search for livestock or feedlot yardage. To make real inroads though, simply work on tracking your expenses at home. To find the Cowbytes program visit the Alberta Agriculture website.

The post Managing yardage — The silent profit killer appeared first on Grainews.