The single greatest advantage a cow-calf operation has over other
livestock production systems is the ability of a cow (and her calf) to graze and harvest forages in places you cannot plant corn and soybeans, or that you cannot feasibly access with a windrower and baler. Even though ruminants “may” contribute somewhere between 5% and 8% of all greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, their unique ability to turn most any forage on the planet into usable human nourishment, insures a bright future for the beef industry around the world.
While we can formulate, mix and deliver a highly specialized diet (likely formulated by a Consulting Nutritionist out to 4 decimal places) to a steer in a feedlot every day, this level of precision is usually somewhere between infeasible and impossible for most cow-calf operations. A cow is returning the most money when she is grazing your lowest cost feed, that being, un-harvested/stockpiled forage on range or pasture.
Read the full article HERE.
