Year-around  planned grazing is very rewarding after you have mostly completed the learning curve.

The major expense of cattle ownership and often the major veterinary concerns occur during what most North American producers consider the normal hay feeding season(s) of the year.

Walt Davis says that it is rather easy to fatten cattle during the winter but it is always expensive. Walt is correct.

The removal of hay making, buying and feeding is likely the largest single economic positive a cattle operation can make. I am not aware of a single manager who has returned to conventional wintering practices after successfully grazing a standing haystack for three or more years. I am sure that if I run into someone who has turned away from year-around planned grazing there will be a severe head injury in his recent past.

Possibly the easiest way to view winter is to look at the season as a time of drought. Winter planning and management are near identical to drought planning and management. If we fail to be planning and executing for these two events most every day of the year, chances of our success become bleak.

Many of my friends feel that it is just too much trouble since they have seen us go without hay for 10 years. It is easier to crank tractors, write checks, create mud, build barns, and give up 50% or more of annual profitability than it is to have fun.

I believe a few of our readers have serious interest in moving to hay-proof and drought-proof their operation. These same producers have sincere interest in land management improvement.

My list on how to do this is less than exhaustive but should be useful. Consider a download and stick it to your favorite refrigerator for regular review.

Skills and knowledge to kick out hay and drought
• Learn your ecosystem -- soil types, structure, fertility, moisture patterns, plants, sunlight, temperature swings and extremes, and most every natural issue that will affect the operation.
• Marry a mindset that totally adopts the fact that cattle are our major tool of harvest and marketing for what nature grows on the land we manage, not all the material we can handle.
• Never forget plant diversity and its importance when making every decision.
• Learn to extend the growing season in all four seasons, whether wet, dry or normal. Learn to shorten winter while being prepared for the bad one.
• Use stocking rate as your insurance. You’re most always better off with a few too few cattle. Use a variable time as to how long you keep calves and yearlings. Build in flexibility. A little feed that you seldom use is in order as long as you seldom use it.
• Have the right cattle for your land and forage. Train them for their job and then use them and keep them trained.
• Learn the natural model to the point of a true understanding. Fighting with nature is a war you will not win.
• Get a real handle on knowing how much feed by some measure like cow days of grazing is out in front of the cattle. Update the cow days of forage (standing haystack) weekly.
• Keep a spiral notebook and make regular entries. Look through and review a couple of times yearly.
• Make a few friends that are doing something right and talk with them regularly.

In our part of the country if we do not have 85% of our winter forage standing out in front of our cattle by mid-September there is a real good chance we will not make it through the winter. We start this “haystack” long before July comes around. Failure to do so is expensive in many ways.