Winter Feed Management

Winter Feed Management

I’m KayDee Gilkey and welcome to Open Range. Here’s Greg with today’s report.

Thanks KayDee. Making sure your livestock has enough to eat during the cold winter months is tough. Add to that drought conditions and it gets really challenging according to rancher and blogger, Kim Brackett.

BRACKETT: This is one of the toughest situations my husband and I have faced. It is just heartbreaking. It really is. What we’re personally doing here, we’re trying to find grass. We run cattle in multiple states and so we’re able to ship our cattle to different areas that have more grass and we’ve been doing that.

She says they have also sent cattle to some leased ground as well.

BRACKETT: We’re trying to decrease our numbers as much as possible. In the meantime we’ve been buying feed, trucking in hay and lots of local by-products, buy a lot of protein supplements and haul that out every day to keep them going. It is a lot of management and it is a cost. It’s very expensive and it’s agonizing to watch these cattle not be in the condition that we want them to be in.

Of course they are not alone in these challenges. It is a very hands on time.

BRACKETT: We are out there at least two times a day. Usually three times going through and making sure that they all have access to water and we’ve got enough feed in front of them. Making sure we’re feeding enough for them not only to maintain their body condition but we need them to gain so we are constantly reassessing.

I’m Greg Martin and that’s today’s AgriBeef Minute.

Thanks Greg. Don’t forget Greg will be back each Wednesday with the AgriBeef Minute. Agri Beef Co - Real Families, Great People, Exceptional Beef. I’m KayDee Gilkey.