- Author: Emily C. Dooley, UC Davis
Matching herds to landscape can support animal growth and ecological needs
Not all cattle are the same when it comes to grazing. Some like to wander while others prefer to stay close to water and rest areas.
Recognizing those personality differences could help ranchers select herds that best meet grazing needs on rangelands, leading to better animal health and environmental conditions, according to a new paper from the University of California, Davis, published in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science.
“Cattle can actually be beneficial for the rangelands,” said lead author Maggie Creamer, who recently earned her Ph.D. in animal behavior at UC Davis. “Vegetation in rangelands actually need these kinds of disturbances like grazing.”
Ranchers can add elements to the rangeland such as water, mineral supplements and fencing to influence where cattle graze, but little research has been done on how those efforts affect individual cows. Considering personalities could save money.
“If you're spending all this money to add a management tool in order to change the distribution of your animals, that's a huge cost to ranchers,” said Creamer. “Thinking about other tools, or selecting certain animals with these grazing traits, might be a better way to optimize the distribution on rangeland rather than spending a bunch of money for something that may ultimately not pan out for all your animals.”
Effects of grazing
Livestock graze on an estimated 56 million acres in California, and healthy rangelands host native vegetation and animals, foster nutrient cycling and support carbon sequestration.
Uneven grazing can degrade water quality, soil health and habitats. Optimizing grazing — including the even spread of cow pies — can improve the ecosystem while also reducing fuel loads for wildfires.
To better understand individual grazing patterns, researchers went to the UC Sierra Foothill Research and Extension Center in Browns Valley and tracked 50 pregnant Angus and Hereford beef cows fitted with GPS collars.
The research
The cattle, which were tracked from June to August over two years, had access to 625 acres of grasslands and treed areas ranging in elevation from 600 to 2,028 feet. In the second year, a new watering site was added at a higher elevation.
Across the two years, the cows showed consistent and distinct grazing patterns even when water sources changed. Age and stage of pregnancy did not affect patterns, though cattle tended to clump near water and rest sites on hotter days.
The cows that ventured into higher elevations and farther from watering sites had more variability in their grazing patterns than those that stayed at lower elevations near water. That suggests it may be harder for non-wanderers to adjust to some landscapes.
“Thinking about the topography of your rangeland and your herd of cows can benefit both the animals and the sustainability of the land,” said Creamer, who next month begins work as a postdoctoral scholar in North Carolina.
Gauging personalities
Keying in on personality type may sound difficult, but the researchers also found some clues as to how to pinpoint the wanderers and homebodies. Unlike cattle at feedlots, the breeding cow population, especially on rangelands in California and other western states, live largely “wild” lives and are rarely handled, save for vaccinations and weaning.
Research due to be published later this year found that paying attention to individual cow reactions during those events can help determine personalities. The cows that appeared more passive during those handling interactions tended to be nomadic.
“We found that you can maybe predict those hill climbers if you kind of look at how they act when the veterinarian or rancher handle them,” said senior author Kristina Horback, an associate professor in the Department of Animal Science at UC Davis.
Informing practices
For ranchers, the findings could be invaluable, said Dan Macon, a livestock and natural resources Cooperative Extension advisor in Placer and Nevada counties for UC Agriculture and Natural Resources.
“Any time we can improve our understanding of cattle behavior, particularly at the individual level, it can improve how we handle livestock and manage the landscape,” he said.
Macon said that during the recent drought, it was hard to get cattle into higher country, but if ranchers could have selected the nomads, it may have saved money in terms of ranch labor and other efforts.
“If you ask a rancher who has been attentive to their cattle over many years, they know the personalities,” Macon said.
For Creamer and Horback, the research opens new doors into understanding herd behavior and dynamics, one that could be a cheaper alternative to high-tech solutions.
“Animal science tends to look overlook the mind of the animal when searching for solutions to challenges,” Horback said. “It's always been a direct line to genetics for immunity or nutrition, but nothing about the mind of the animal. And that's such a loss. There's so much we can learn from behavior in the end.”
The Russell L. Rustici Rangeland and Cattle Research Endowment supported the research.
This article was first published on the UC Davis News site.
/h3>/h3>/h3>/h3>/h3>- Author: John M Harper
It has been many years since UC Cooperative Extension aka Farm Advisors have done an educational interest survey and updated our client contact database. There have been a lot of changes in our staff and many new farmers and ranchers have come into our counties so the time is right to update old information and let others, that are not familiar with our programs, join our clientele/supporter contact list.
We've also decided to go to a more modern program for informing the public and our supporters about the educational and research programs we offer in Mendocino and Lake Counties. The name of the program we'll be using is called Constant Contact.
We've learned from the Covid restrictions how to offer some of our educational programs through webinars, zoom conferences and social media. We realize not everyone likes some of these formats, or have poor Internet connection speeds. We are offering our traditional public workshops and field days again. We want to make sure you get our information through your preferred delivery methods. For some of you who may not be familiar with our programs, a few questions below will help you to know the specific areas we can provide information and research on and will insure you only get what you're interested in.
Thanks in advance for taking the time to fill out our survey. Personal information provided to us is confidential and will never be shared with anyone. If, after filling out our survey and receiving information from us, you no longer want to be contacted by us you may at any time asked to be removed from our contact database. All participants who submit a survey are eligible to enter a random drawing to win one of three Amazon $100 e-gift cards. We will be drawing for winners from everyone who opted in for the drawing and complete our survey.
The survey is on-line at: https://surveys.ucanr.edu/survey.cfm?surveynumber=7082
Please also share the link with others who would be interested in our programs. Thanks!!!
- Author: Dan Macon
Raising Livestock on Rangeland is not an Indoor Sport...
Larry McMurtry's novel, Lonesome Dove, was published the year I graduated from high school (way back in 1985 - before blogging was a word)! Four years later, the novel became one of my favorite television miniseries, featuring Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, and Danny Glover (among others). While there are a number of memorable scenes and lines (from both the book and the miniseries), one that sticks with me as a rancher is Agustus McCrae's eulogy for Danny Glover's character, Deets:
"Cheerful in all weathers. Never shirked a task."
I've been reminded of this line frequently over the last several weeks - as we've had cold rain and wind here in Auburn, and as other ranchers in California have been dealing with never-ending snow. Rangeland agriculture - grazing sheep, goats, and cattle on the vegetation that Mother Nature provides - requires us to tend to our animals regardless of the conditions we (and they) are facing. We may not always be cheerful about unrelenting snow or sweltering heat, but if we've ranched for very long, we know that we can't shirk a task when it comes to our livestock.
But working in all weathers is much easier when we're intentional about our management systems and production calendars. We lamb on pasture, so we time our lambing to coincide with what is usually the onset of rapid grass growth in late winter (we're still waiting for rapid growth this year). This system requires that our ewes have strong maternal abilities - that they can lamb mostly without our help, that they can turn our rangeland forages into enough milk for their lambs, that their lambs get up and going quickly, and that they can count at least to two. Rather than trust to luck, we've utilized an objective selection process that allows us to keep our best ewes and their daughters, while culling the ewes that don't measure up.
Our intentionality extends to our grazing management. On our winter rangelands, we have open hillsides that we graze before lambing begins, which allows us to save the more sheltered areas (with trees, brush, and topography that provide shelter from wind and rain) for lambing. We watch the weather diligently during lambing season - while sheltered paddocks are important, there's no better shelter for a lamb than a belly full of milk. If we know we have cold or wet weather coming in, we'll move the ewes to fresh feed so that they don't have to walk very far to fill their rumens with forage. And we've found a cost-effective, biodegradable plastic raincoat that helps keep the youngest lambs warm and relatively dry in really nasty weather.
Even the best management planning can't change the weather, though. Sometimes, like January-March last year, it doesn't rain at all. We adjusted by building larger paddocks in steeper terrain to give the ewes access to more forage. Sometimes we get sleet or even snow in early March; we adjust to these conditions by increasing the number of times we check the sheep (including checks every two to three hours during the night). This year, due to some extenuating family circumstances, we've purchased feed for the ewes to supplement what they are able to graze during the current stormy stretch.
And despite our best planning efforts, sometimes Mother Nature simply doesn't cooperate. I have friends who are spending 16-person-hours a day feeding the cows they can find in four feet of snow - and arranging for helicopters to drop hay to the cows they can't reach. Other friends have hauled sheep and goats to higher ground during lambing and kidding - lining up trucks and building corrals on very short notice can be extremely stressful. This diligence is more than just an economic consideration; caring for animals is a responsibility that goes well beyond dollars and cents.
Finally, I suppose that being intentional extends to our wardrobe and equipment choices as ranchers. My friend John Helle, who ranches in western Montana, says his Norwegian grandfather used to say, "There's no bad weather, only bad clothing." Someone else once told me, "don't buy cheap boots or cheap cold or wet weather gear - you'll always be sorry." As I get older, being cheerful in all weathers (or at least being less grumpy in bad weather) is directly related to my own comfort and safety. Wool clothing, Gortex(tm) rain gear, and waterproof boots are part of my winter wardrobe; my summer gear includes broad-brimmed hats and sunscreen!
Last weekend, we held our annual Pasture Lambing Workshop. With rain and sleet in the forecast, several folks canceled at the last minute - but the two young women who did show up were enthusiastic and eager to learn. We talked about the planning and preparation that goes into any successful rangeland-based production system - planning that allows us to trust our animals and trust ourselves to cope with whatever the weather throws at us!
- Author: Dan Macon
Like many of you, I expect, I've recently debated whether to keep my social media accounts - Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram sometimes seem like a bottomless pit of advertising and argument. But then something like this happens....
Last week, I wrote about the idea of an "ecological calendar" - a way to think about our production calendars from an ecological perspective (read the post here). I included my first rather awkward attempt at graphically displaying my own sheep production calendar - and shared the graphic on Instagram.
Within several hours, I had the most wonderful response from someone who listens to our Sheep Stuff Ewe Should Know podcast - complete with an actual, real-world ecological calendar from a famous sheep-producing region in France! Yeva (@why_suarez on Instagram) shared this:
"The inner orange circle says “troupeau en montage” (herd in the mountains) and troupeau en crau (the Crau is a geographical area). Most sheep farmers in the south of France move their sheep to the mountain areas (like Haute Savoie, the mountains between Italy and France. Pyrenees is another system yet again) as there's not enough green pastures available, because of the high temperatures that dry out the land and/or because the irrigated areas are used to produce hay (there are more reasons, but that's the short version!). Wolves are a big issue, they will be guarded by a shepherd throughout the summer. But back to the calendar.
"You see two blue lines pass through all the circles, one: mid-June; one: beginning of October. That's when the sheep are away, which matches with the outer circle that says “estives dans les alpages.” Estives means summer pasture. Most of the sheep will be taken there, represented in the tiny sheep symbols. Outside that period is says in the circle “enneigement en montagne,” which is basically snow in the mountains!
"The arrows show the movement of the sheep to the different kind of pastures. In the Crau, you basically have two kinds, the green one that is irrigated and produces the hay and the dry one or the “Coussouls” that have a very specific kind of biodiversity and is known for its many rocks.
"It's a bit complicated to explain because it's a circular system, so it's all linked – which also makes it very cool, because the entire calendar is pasture and hay based, including lambing dates, etc. But basically, Foins de Crau is a very famous hay that's produced with a complicated irrigation system and is subject to many rules if it wants to qualify as “foins de crau,” as it's known for its very high quality. They cut it three times a year (in the calendar it says “1ere coupe = first cut, etc.). Each “cut” has a different nutritional component and is marketed differently. The fourth cut is not actually cut; it is eaten by the sheep when they return from the mountains. That's why you see the sheep symbols between October and February in the same circle as the “cuts” – we call those kinds of pastures the “prairies.”
"Half February (the blue line only overlaps the prairies and coussouls) they are then moved to the coussouls. The prairies will start growing again for the first foins de crau cut and the cassouls offer enough food. Some other shepherds bring sheep to hill areas nearby instead of the coussouls – it tends to depend on the particularities of that farm. The amount of sheep symbols has grown in the cassouls circle, because the herds tend to be much bigger as this calendar reflects an autumn lambing period, which is the overall tendency here.
"Outside the inner circle is a smaller blue one that shows when the prairies are irrigated with water and when not (“arrossage de pres”). The specific timing of the movement of the herds would be a much longer story! But I hope the different layers of the calendar are clearer now and why they are linked."
I shared this calendar explanation with my friend Dr. Hailey Wilmer, who is the Research Rangeland Management Specialist at the U.S. Range Sheep Production Efficiency Research Unit, in Dubois, Idaho. Her observation was that "calendars can help tell stories across landscapes." I agree - looking at the calendar Yeva shared, and the explanation she provided, helped me look again at my own calendar. I asked myself these questions:
- What is the heart of our sheep operation in terms of nutrition and forage? For us, I think, it's the annual rangeland we use in the winter and again in summer.
- What is the second most important forage resource? In our case, it's our irrigated pasture. Pasture is more productive - and also more costly. With sheep, we could probably figure out how to get along without it.
- Finally, how do our production needs (vaccinations, shearing, lambing, etc.) fit within these underlying forage cycles?
All of this brings me to a question for you! How does your production system fit the ecological cycles in your region? I hope you'll share! And I guess I'll keep my social media accounts for now....
- Author: Mike Hsu
The pandemic has brought more people into nearby parks and public lands for hiking, biking and other recreational activities. In areas like the East Bay Regional Parks – a San Francisco Bay Area park system totaling more than 120,000 acres where about 65% of the land is grazed by livestock – visitors might see goats, sheep and, most likely, cattle.
Those encounters with animals (or their manure) represent a prime opportunity for members of the public to learn about agriculture and the ecological benefits of rangelands, according to Larry Forero, a UC Cooperative Extension livestock and natural resources advisor.
As livestock grazing (mostly by beef cattle) constitutes a significant portion of land use across the state, Forero – along with fellow UCCE advisors Sheila Barry and Stephanie Larson – recently authored a UC Agriculture and Natural Resources publication summarizing the mechanics of cattle production.
“Beef Cattle on California Annual Grasslands: Production Cycle and Economics,” published in October and available as a free download on the UC ANR Catalog, describes the seasonal phases of cattle production and the factors that impact ranchers' financial calculations and management decisions.
“This concise publication walks through annual stock flows and calendar of operations and gives tables for estimating costs, return over cash, and gross income under various scenarios,” said Forero.
“Even if only a relatively small percentage of park goers are interested, you still touch a lot of people with a document like this,” Forero explained.
He said he hopes park signage and QR codes will direct visitors to the publication for more information about the cattle and their seasonal movements.
“People often wonder where the cattle go when they leave the park and when they will return,” co-author Sheila Barry said. “The cattle may go to grass or feed yards in other places in California or even out of state.”
But, as this new UC ANR publication explains, the cattle production cycle turns over anew.
“There will be more cattle next fall, I promise,” Barry said.