Monthly Archives: January 2014

Meet Robert Harper, Cattle Producer.

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100_1148 (1024x768)Robert manages cattle as part of a partnership called Cross River Farms, LLC. Robert’s operation is located at Dungeness Farm, which has fascinating roots in early American history. Dungeness was built by Isham Randolph in the early 1700s, and Thomas Jefferson’s mother was raised there. Today at the Goochland farm, Robert specializes in several aspects of cattle production. In addition to running a cow-calf operation that includes Red Angus cattle, he custom-raises Holstein heifers for a nearby dairy farm. He also manages a group of females for the Amelia Area Cattlemen Heifer Development Program. Heifers in this program are produced and owned by individual livestock producers from across the region, but they are brought together to live at Cross River after they are weaned.  They are bred in December and undergo further development through the winter. In the spring, most return to the herds on their home farms where they were born. A few are sold in April to buyers looking for high-quality females for their cow-calf herds. 

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To keep up with so many cattle, Robert must carefully manage his feeding program to ensure that he has adequate pasture and hay available to the cattle throughout the year. Because each set of cattle on his farm has a unique purpose, Robert must tailor his feeding and management to suit the needs of each particular group. His brood cows in his cow-calf herd need enough energy and protein from feed to produce milk for their calves from birth until weaning. The calves, in turn, need to grow steadily before and after weaning so that they will perform well at a finishing operation later in life and provide high-quality beef for consumers.

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However, the young female calves in the heifer development herd require a different approach. Unlike their counterparts that will not remain in a herd for many years and must instead reach a robust “finished” weight in a timely fashion, the heifers need to grow at a more moderate pace. The young heifers must build bone, fat, and muscle tissue at a rate that promotes longevity and sound reproductive traits in preparation for a future career living on pasture and raising their own calves on a cow-calf breeding operation. To meet this goal, the heifers are run on pasture and receive a daily ration of silage, commodity feeds, hay and grain to grow and mature in preparation for breeding. Robert periodically weighs the Cross River heifers to gauge their growth and make management decisions.

100_1207 (1024x768)Once the heifers reach an appropriate age and body size and undergo a reproductive soundness check from a veterinarian, they are ready to be bred. Robert Harper and the rest of his fellow cattle producers in Virginia have the option to use a live bull for breeding or rely on artificial insemination. Both options follow the natural cycle for cattle reproduction, allowing females to produce one calf each year as they would do if left to their own devices. After breeding, cows remain pregnant for nine months before calving, and the calf nurses the cow on pasture for several months before it is weaned.

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P1070882 (726x1024)Unlike most horses and sheep which only can be bred during certain seasons, cattle cycle naturally throughout the entire year. However, instead of leaving the bull with the herd full-time and allowing heifers and cows to get pregnant and calve sporadically, producers aim to confine calving to a single season, often the fall, so that calves within a herd are all of approximately the same age and can receive the same health treatments such as vaccinations at the same time. This practice reduces stress on the animals by limiting the number of times that the herd must be brought in close proximity to humans for handling. For these reasons, Robert and the Amelia Area Cattlemen choose to breed the heifers at Cross River in December so that they will calve during the following fall season. To ensure that the animals can all be bred around the same time, they follow a heat synchronization program that causes all of the heifers to cycle on the same schedule. Once the group of heifers collectively comes into heat, they are bred. This herd is first bred using artificial insemination. This advanced, well-studied reproductive method puts little stress on the heifers and allows herd managers to bring cutting-edge genetics into the herd from bulls all over the country.

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100_1179 (1024x768) The heifers at Cross River wear heat detection patches. When the silver surface of the patch is rubbed off, the heifer is ready to be bred.

If a producer wants to use a live bull, he or she will not have to spend time synchronizing cow and heifer cycles or watching animals for signs of heat—the bull takes on this job himself. However, a locally-purchased bull’s genetic traits may not always be predictable, and the producer will need to rotate a new bull into the herd every few years to ensure that the quality of the herd and its collective genetic potential continue to progress. If producers choose instead to buy units of semen from a company that offers a catalog of bulls available for artificial insemination, they can select semen from bulls with well-documented performance traits that match their goals to improve traits like mothering ability, meat quality, animal build, or a plethora of other factors.

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Bulls that are selected for use in an artificial insemination program are considered the “top of the line” in the industry and are subject to extensive performance testing and offspring data collection. Hence, producers like Robert Harper and members of the Amelia Area Cattlemen who choose to breed via artificial insemination have the means to improve their herds far more quickly and increase their genetic diversity far more easily than they could with a live bull. However, old-fashioned bulls still have their place and there are still many high-quality bulls sold locally that may never be featured in a semen company catalog. These animals are useful even to a herd that relies on artificial insemination, as not every heifer will successfully conceive through this means. Hence, the “cleanup bull” is turned out with the artificially-inseminated heifers so those that do not “catch,” or get pregnant, come back into heat and have the opportunity to get bred by the bull.

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Like many producers, Robert likes to stay on top of the curve and adopt progressive practices that improve the health, performance, and longevity of his animals and the animals he custom-raises for fellow cattlemen across the region. His creative edge has allowed him to increase the scope of his operation over the years, but anyone who visits the Cross River Farms partnership at Dungeness can easily sense that Robert’s passion for working hard to raise high-quality cattle has been the ultimate force driving his success.

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P1070888 (1024x768)Additional Resources for Readers:

Getting Started in the Cattle Business in Virginia

Replacement Heifer Development Steps

Ten Steps to Buying the Right Bull

Artificial Insemination vs Natural Bull Service-Where are the Economic Benefits?

Meet Mike Henry, pasture manager.

100_1241 (1024x768)He has worn many hats over the years—Extension agent for Chesterfield County and then Amelia before he retired, cattle producer, and founding member of the regional Amelia Area Cattlemen. He is also one very excellent pasture manager. He spent the last several years improving the pasture on his Amelia farm, adding fencing and water sources as he went. When he first set out, his goal was to sustain enough forage to successfully support a beef cattle herd on a year-round strip-grazing management system.

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Pasture land in central Virginia is abundant, hence the number of cows in the region, but not all producers are able to sustain animals year-round on pasture alone. Why? The availability of pasture forage depends on the seasonal growth of the species in the pasture. Because this region is set between the cold northern climate and the warmer South, cool-season and warm-season grasses can both be grown here and many pastures contain a mixture of both.

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Mike Henry’s pastures contain a mixture of tall fescue, orchardgrass, clover, and even some ryegrass that emerged in early winter.

Cool-season forages grow most actively in spring and fall when the weather is cool, but go dormant in the summer when little moisture is available. Many producers must resort to feeding hay during this season while they wait for fall pasture regrowth. Tall fescue is the most common cool-season forage in most pastures, but other plants like Kentucky bluegrass, orchardgrass, timothy, and clover are also in this group.  Cool-season grasses stop growing during the winter, but can be preserved or “stockpiled” during the cold. Tall fescue is the hands-down best choice for stockpiling, retaining its nutritional value for several months after the growing season even under snow and ice. In order to stockpile a tall-fescue pasture, the manager must remove the animals from the area in the late summer, giving the pasture a chance to recover and initiate heavy fall growth. The animals can return to the well-grown pasture in December or January, resulting in an extended grazing season that heavily cuts the costs associated with feeding hay.  Mike Henry practices stockpiling on his pastures, as do many of his peers in this region.

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Warm-season forages like Bermuda grass or crabgrass have the opposite growth pattern. Their growth is dominant during the hottest part of the year, but they go dormant at the end of the summer and do not take off again until the spring. As a result, producers with pastures full of warm-season plants must either feed hay during the cool seasons or establish a cool-season pasture in a new area to keep cows fed during the fall, winter, and spring. 100_1232 (1024x768)

Mike Henry’s pastures contain mostly tall fescue, but other elements including crabgrass, orchardgrass, clover, and ryegrass are present and contribute to the diversity of the available forage. The clover mixed with the cool-season grasses is a legume plant, meaning that it contains a high level of protein and supports the needs of young, growing cattle and lactating brood cows. To establish and maintain dense stands of these forages and choke out competing weeds, Mike has stayed on top of mowing, seeding, reseeding, and nutrient management, but the economic benefits have outweighed the costs.

100_1227 (1024x768)In a “continuous grazing” system, cattle are given access to the entire pasture acreage at once, so they have the option to overgraze forages that are highly palatable, stressing the plants’ root systems. They under-utilize other areas, and they tend to create muddy spots near central hay feeders and water troughs. Finally, they may not distribute their manure very evenly, resulting in both mucky areas with a glut of nutrients and neglected areas that receive very little natural fertilizer. The alternative? Many producers have adopted “rotational grazing,” whereby a pasture is split into a few sections and animals are moved from one section to another every few days or weeks. As a result, each pasture section has an opportunity to rest and build strong roots, resulting in a longer-lasting, more robust stand of forage. Furthermore, the animals consume the existing grasses more evenly and efficiently. Manure is distributed far more uniformly in a rotational system, which aids in desirable nutrient cycling and reduces fertilizer expenses.

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Mike Henry practices the more intensive cousin of rotational grazing, known as “strip grazing.” In this management system, cows are given a small strip of pasture at a time and are moved from one strip to the next as frequently as once a day or sometimes even every few hours. The pasture utilization rate increases dramatically when animals are tasked with eating one small area at a time. Mike knows that the key is making sure that the cows always have something to eat, so he will be the first to tell you that strip grazing brings an economic advantage but also a new requirement for labor.  Nonetheless, since most cattlemen check their herds frequently, the time it takes to open or close a temporary fence to a pasture strip is negligible and affords an opportunity for the producer to get a close-up look at the cows.

100_1230 (1024x768)Mike’s pasture setup is conservation-minded. He has excluded his cattle from the dam and waterways on his farm, and on the occasions when he has had to supplement his pasture with an occasional bale of hay, he unrolls and spreads the hay in a new area each time so that the cows do not heavily disturb the soil in one particular location. 

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As a former Extension agent, Mike understands the value of helping other farmers, so he has had the opportunity to show his system to several beginning cattle producers and even a few experienced ones who wanted to see strip grazing in action. He has also noted one unexpected benefit from all his time spent moving fences and walking the pasture to check on his forages—the heifers he manages have become more docile from close daily exposure to his presence and follow him wherever he goes, making it easy for him to take them wherever he needs them. Add up quiet cattle, a thriving pasture, and annual hay savings to get one content cattleman.

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P1070823 (1024x768)Additional Resources for Readers:

Planning Fencing Systems for Controlled Grazing

Controlled Grazing of Virginia’s Pastures

Rotational Grazing Recycles Nutrients

Making the Most of Tall Fescue in Virginia

Stockpiling Tall Fescue