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Superintendent
David Davis
21262 Genoa Road
Linneus, MO 64653
Phone: 660 895-5121
FAX: 660 895=5122
Email: DavisDK@missouri.edu

Forage Systems Update
Vol 10, No. 4

While Missouri has historically been a cow-calf producing state with over two million beef cows residing within our borders, there has been a steadily increasing number of producers who have either added stockers to their program or run only stockers on their pastures. It is hard to determine just how many yearling cattle are present in the state at any one time due to tax records and USDA inventories using specific dates for accounting, but some estimates run as high as 1.5 million head of stockers present in Missouri on an annual basis. There are many issues which determine the feasibility and profitability of running stocker cattle on pasture. Most of the profit and loss in the stocker business comes in the buying and selling of cattle. Production management is usually secondary to marketing, but is still important in determining overall success or failure of the business. One of the issues to consider is how long cattle should be kept on pasture in a stocker grazing operation.

A stocker grazing study was conducted from 1996 through 2000 at FSRC to compare continuous and rotational grazing at four stocking rates. In the course of that study we found that stocking rate had a major effect on steer performance while grazing method had a much smaller effect (Figure 1). The bar-chart only tells part of the story as it represents only the seasonal mean average daily gain (ADG). Most cattle producers recognize that yearlings usually gain better during spring and early summer than they do in mid and late summer (Figure 2). High daytime and nighttime temperatures common to the Midwest and Upper South during mid summer limit forage intake and animal performance. Even when forage availability should be adequate to support optimal intake and forage quality is high, summer ADG is often disappointing for many stocker operators. If late eason pasture is available, rate of gain usually increases in autumn, but whether fall gains offset lost summer production remains questionable. Because pasture and animal costs accrue at a nearly constant rate through the grazing season, cost per pound of gain is lowest when ADG is highest and costs are higher as rate of gain slows down.

We have identified dates by which 85% of the seasonal gain was achieved for the different treatments in this study (Table 1). For most management scenarios, most of the gain by yearling steers was achieved before mid-July. This may come as a surprise to cattlemen who have traditionally held onto yearlings until the end of the growing season. Most of the profit in a stocker operation has already been made on the early season gain. Heavier stocking rates achieve 85% of seasonal gain much earlier than lower stocking rates and require earlier removal of cattle from the system, but this strategy also allows a longer recovery period for the pasture. This approach is termed early-intensive double stocking and is used widely in the Kansas Flint Hills as a management practice to maintain health and vigor of native tallgrass range in that environment. This may be a useful management tool to maintain pasture ground cover and vigor, particularly in more fragile south Missouri environments.

Figure 1.Five-year mean steer average daily gain for continuously and rotationally grazed pastures at four stocking rates.	Figure 2. Five-year pattern of net liveweight accumulation for rotationally grazed steers at four stocking rates.

There are several negative effects associated with maintaining cattle on pasture after cattle growth rate significantly slows. Two major factors affecting profitability of the grazing enterprise are very little additional salable gain being produced from the forage resource and delayed marketing in late summer or early fall usually results in lower prices received as the seasonal price trend for yearling cattle begins to drop in mid summer and declines steadily through early winter. The land and pasture cost for the steer gaining 2.5 lb/hd/day in May and June is essentially the same for a steer gaining only 1 lb/hd/day in August. Obviously, the pound produced in June is much more profitable than the pound produced in August. Maintaining cattle on pasture past midsummer usually results in lower price per pound. Combined with higher cost of production for late summer gains, the producer gains very little from late summer grazing of stockers. From an environmental perspective, late summer grazing often results in very low forage residuals remaining after grazing resulting in loss of plant species diversity, vegetative ground cover, and potential increase in water runoff and soil erosion.

Removing stockers from pasture by mid to late July also allows those pastures to be stockpiled for fall and winter grazing. For an operation which combines both cow-calf and stocker grazing this is particularly useful. One of the concepts which is often tossed around in sustainable beef production discussions is matching livestock forage demand with forage supply. While often discussed, the practice is rarely implemented. The cow-calf/stocker combination offers a good opportunity to actually accomplish that goal. The figure at right illustrates the typical pasture growth rate for mixed cool season grass-legume pasture. Spring growth rate is often two to three times greater than summer growth rate. The traditional way of dealing with excess spring growth in a cow-calf operation has been to harvest it as hay to be fed back to the cow herd after the pasture is grazed off. Making hay is an expensive undertaking as is feeding hay. By using an April through July stocker program, the excess growth can be grazed in an income generating manner. After July the pastures where stockers have grazed can be stockpiled for winter feed for the cow herd.

Figure 3. Pasture daily growth rate in mixed cool season grass - legume pasture with rotational grazing.

Most farms and ranches are stocked to provide adequate pasture for the summer slow growth season, not spring flush. Because of this stock policy, the total number of cows on the farm may remain the same whether spring growth is harvested as hay or grazed by stockers. My experience in north Missouri is that the spring stocker herd should be equal to or up to 50% greater than the resident cow herd in terms of forage demand. This ratio depends in large part on the pasture mixture on the farm or ranch and the intensity of grazing management. As an alternative to cow-calf/stocker system, a spring stocker/fall stocker system can also work. This alternative empties the pasture during the hottest months of the year and capitalizes on the ability of young cattle to gain well in spring and fall. Because of the relative shortness of the stocker grazing seasons, consider contract grazing, retaining ownership into the feedlot, and North:South partnerships as alternatives to short term buy:sell stocker systems. As you plan next years grazing program give very serious consideration to short season stocker grazing as an opportunity to both improve pastures and lower costs associated with the cow-calf operation.