Strategic Planning For The Ranch

Manage Grazing For More Production & Profitability

Mon, 06 May 2013 17:13:00 +0000

Everything that we, through our livestock, and Mother Nature do to the land will have an effect on ecosystem process and will cause changes in biological succession. Our management will have a huge effect on the direction of that succession. Will it be positive or negative toward our goals?

Strategic Planning For The Ranch

Solving The "Open-Cow" Dilemma Requires Reproduction & Fertility Management

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 14:42:00 +0000

The bottom line is that nothing about the cow is as economically important as reproduction. Burke Teichert explains how we can solve the "open cow" dilemma occurring in most cowherds.

Strategic Planning For The Ranch

Seven Keys To Ranch Profitability

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:31:00 +0000

The prices of fuel and equipment have risen significantly faster over time than the market value of cattle. Therefore, I prefer a production system highly dependent on soil, sunlight, rainfall, and our ingenuity and inventiveness, than one highly dependent on fossil fuels and equipment.

Strategic Planning For The Ranch

Why Are Beef Producers So Afraid To Cull Cows?

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 15:29:00 +0000

In my last three articles, I’ve discussed managing toward a 30-day calving season, developing and selecting replacement heifers, and culling cows and selecting bulls. If you were to review those articles, you would find some repetition and some interconnection of ideas. The question posed by this article’s headline relates to that inter-connectedness and ideas presented in earlier articles.

Strategic Planning For The Ranch

Tips For Selecting Bulls, Culling Cows

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 15:26:00 +0000

If you raise your own replacements, the bulls you select become the future of your herd. Meanwhile, judicious cow culling can clean up your herd and make it more manageable and marketable.

Strategic Planning For The Ranch

Tips For Selecting Replacement Heifers For The Beef Herd

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 17:51:00 +0000

Managing reproduction starts with selecting replacement heifers. For a long time, I thought that a combination of performance records and visual appraisal would allow me to tell the good heifers from the poor ones. I have now learned different.

Strategic Planning For The Ranch

Three Steps To A 30-Day Calving Season

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 16:35:00 +0000

Management of reproduction really includes the manipulation of genetics, nutrition, fertility and estrus, and marketing. If you change any one of these, you may change one or all the others. Burke Teichert, former vice president and general manager of Deseret, provides the management ideas he’s found helpful in building whole-herd reproduction and profitability.

Strategic Planning For The Ranch

Where Do Great Management Ideas Come From?

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 20:51:00 +0000

I wrote last month about a simple experience that caused me as a young man to begin to expand the paradigm of my thinking. It enabled me to see that there was much more to learn and understand. Since then, I’ve had many opportunities to observe, understand and implement many new ideas. The question then comes, from whence do these ideas come?

Strategic Planning For The Ranch

Is Your Ranch Ready For New Ideas?

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 19:41:00 +0000

Over time, many ranch managers get bogged down into thinking that they’re doing the right things exactly as they ought to be done. When such a paradigm lockdown happens, we’re not as likely to react to changes in the markets, world economy, climate, technological developments etc., and not much progress is made. The great managers actively seek new ideas and better ways to do things.

Strategic Planning For The Ranch

Profit Per Cow, Or Per Acre?

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 16:08:00 +0000

As livestock producers we often focus on productivity per cow. But that focus, along with intensive selection for growth, hasn’t done much to improve ranch profitability over the last 40 years. In fact, it could be argued that, in constant dollars or buying power, profit per acre has even decreased. Thus, the real measure should be profit per acre or whole ranch profitability.

Strategic Planning For The Ranch

A Pitch For Operational Simplicity

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 18:45:00 +0000

It’s probably apparent from my previous articles that I have a strong bias toward operational simplicity. When considering war on cost, the best place to start is overhead.

From ranches I’ve seen, here’s how I’d describe a low-overhead ranch. Let’s assume that a husband and wife with children still living at home are running 600-800 cows with a good number of the calves held over to run as yearlings. Some will be kept as replacement heifers and some will be sold.

Strategic Planning For The Ranch

Moving From Strategy To Tactics

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 15:32:00 +0000

Over the past 10 months, I’ve presented strategies to make most ranches more profitable. Among them are: planned, time-controlled grazing; utilizing heterosis with composite or hybrid bulls to simplify mating plans and facilitate grazing management; calving in sync with nature, which most likely will differ from one location to another; increasing grazing days and minimizing or eliminating feeding days; using strategic or selective supplementation to just take the roughest edges off the natural environment; and selecting cows to fit your environment.

Strategic Planning For The Ranch

What Is Good Grazing Management?

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:56:00 +0000

In the April issue, I described four ecosystem functions: water cycle, mineral cycle, energy flow and biological succession. Our grazing management can have a profound effect on these functions, with the results either improving or diminishing the land’s health and productivity.

Strategic Planning For The Ranch

Consider Ecological Functions To Better Manage Grazing

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 15:17:00 +0000

I believe in “good grazing” or grazing management as a way to be more efficient and more profitable. For me, the topic is much broader than most of us consider when we think of grazing.

Strategic Planning For The Ranch

Moderate Cows With Moderate Milk Work Best

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 17:02:00 +0000

I've revealed my preference in earlier articles for small- to moderate-sized cows with moderate milk production. I'm sure some would disagree with those preferences, and others would wonder why, so let me outline my rationale and clarify my choices.