Destocking is a prevalent practice during a drought. Doing this is rarely easy to do and will still cost you most of the time. However, drought is a common consequence of ranching, so it will still need to be made. It is important to include plans for when droughts occur so producers are always prepared.
The object of making this decision is to preserve any potential forage growth when the rains come back. It requires maximizing the options available to you by keeping an eye on current and future forage supplies and animal demand. Making these choices early enough will be less severe than waiting too long.
In order to be effective, you must look at your overall goal as well as some guidelines that you should follow. Now is the time that you must take a very pragmatic look at your herd. Letting your personal views make your decisions can end up costing you in the end. Here are some things to consider when looking at destocking:
Why use destocking?
The basic definition of this term is to remove any animals that you have grazing forages in your pasture. When things get very dry, it is often necessary to preserve forages. The less demand that is placed on your grasses, the better they will be able to rebound from the current conditions.
The primary objective of destocking is to optimize the animal performance of the herd that is left in relation to the forage supply. If demand is higher than what is being provided, then you will need to remove some of that demand. Knowing forage supply will require you to know what kind of production your forages are capable of.
The sooner the problem of things being too dry is identified, the sooner you can take appropriate action. Making stocking adjustments sooner will mean the less severe your destocking will need to be. Also, if things are terrible, the sooner you liquidate some of your herd, the better financially you will be because as more and more people sell off their herds, the lower prices will go.
You want to leave enough forages around to capture and utilize any rain that will fall. Leaving enough forages will also help to reduce any evaporation losses that can occur. The number of forages left will determine how easily it can bounce back when things improve.
There are some common mistakes that producers make when faced with the possibility of destocking, such as: holding out on deciding in hopes that rainfall will occur. Another is that they think that just early weaning calves will be enough. Also, they will choose to keep the young ones at the expense of the more productive mature cows.
When to use destocking
Any plan involving drought should include a trigger date and condition. A trigger date usually means something like if you get X inches of rain by a specific date. This plan will give you an idea of the amount of forages that will be produced. A forage plan will say if it will be enough for X number of cows. Your ranch’s drought management plan should include this type of idea.
Forage production
As I stated earlier, many ranchers hold out longer, hoping enough rainfall will occur to improve forage production. The problem with this strategy, among other things, is that even if you get plenty of rain, when it falls can play an important role. Research conducted in the Rolling Plans has shown that 60-80% of the annual production on native pastures occurs by the end of July. For example, if the drought breaks and you get plenty of rain from July, average forage production will only be 20-40%.
Forage plants need a minimum amount left over in order to maintain enough root and above-ground growth. Enough root growth will ensure plant health and be able to use what limited rain you have effectively. Taking the forage base below this threshold severely limits its ability to recover. The usual rule of thumb here is that you want to leave about half of the forage.
Two options
Depending on your situation, there are two options that you can go with. You can use Destocking or Relocation to another pasture. Relocation is possible if you get suitable ranges somewhere else. However, it cannot be accessible with fuel prices being as they are. The University of Nebraska at Lincoln has a very informative article on what to look at when considering relocating your herd.
Most, if not all, cattle producers cannot afford to continually provide hay for their herd. Not to mention with years like this one, the is the strong possibility that you may not even be able to find bales. If you need to feed something and hay may not be an option, I went over some options in a previous post, “How to replace hay in a drought year.”
How to properly reduce herd numbers
When it comes to making decisions on what to get rid of, it can be very easy to let your personal feelings take hold. Letting your personal feelings take hold can, however, end up costing you money and production. When deciding, it is best to look at which ones are providing the best return on investment and which ones aren’t.
1st ones to go
The first culls to get rid of should be any spring or summer-calving cows with no calf at their side. Considering normal pregnancy and death losses will result in about 5-15% of the herd meeting these criteria. There is a better time to wait for next year’s income. You should include any replacement heifers that you have that still need to be put into production.
Removing the replacement heifers will result in a 7-10% reduction in stocking rate as well as forage demand. You will also see a decrease in supplement needs because these heifers have a high nutrition demand. Just following these two, you can see a 12-25% herd reduction without impacting the weaned calf crop.
Any short-bred cows fall calving cows should be next on the list to go. This technique is necessary to identify cows by their pregnancy stage and palpate them. Congratulations, by following these 3, you can obtain a 15-40% reduction in numbers without affecting your calf crop.
Next to go
Now that we have gone over which are the 1st to go, we can look at other options. It would help to look at the cow’s anatomy and current production levels. Look at any production or herd records you may have to identify any “borderline” cows in your herd. Without records, you can visually identify which ones may need to be discarded.
It may seem bleak now, but any decisions you make now can improve the overall performance of your current herd. Removing any questionably productive cows can improve the general genetic pool for when the rains come back.
