This article was originally featured in Progressive Cattle

Can you outguess Mother Nature? What is a “normal” year for weather? What do you consider a normal year? Every rancher has an idea in their mind what a normal year entails for their production cycle of cattle and grass for the area where they live and ranch. What mitigation plan(s) do you have for aberrations from your “normal”?

What is constant in your ranching operation? You as the owner and manager are constant, but yet you are ever changing as you improve your management skills. Are the number of acres you own or manage constant? Maybe, but you can always buy more or lease land. Is how you manage your land constant? Is your soil constant? Can you amend or change it? Is your mature cow size constant? Are your herd genetics constant? 

We know that a certain size cow has certain nutrient requirements (protein, energy, vitamins, minerals, and water) depending on where she is at in her lifecycle and production cycle (growing, dry, gestating, or lactating). This is maybe the one constant that we have to work everything else around to ensure that she rebreeds yearly. Once we know these nutrient requirements, we can start to build our feed inventory. This inventory is comprised of all feedstuffs and supplements, if needed, for the year. 

Here are some things about forages and cattle for you to keep in mind as you plan your inventory:

• When cattle consume forages lower in digestibility, intake will be lower compared to higher-quality forage. Low quality forage has a slower passage rate.
• More forage is consumed by cattle with greater mature body weight and frame size compared to smaller-framed cattle.
• Lactating cows consume more of the same quality forage compared to gestating cows.

Depending on where you are in your production cycle, Table 1 shows nutrient requirements for Dry Matter (DM) intake, Total Digestible Nutrients (TDN), and Crude Protein (CP) for a 1,200 lb cow from middle 1/3 of pregnancy through the first 90 days of lactation producing 25 lbs of milk.

Table 1. 1,200 lb cow’s requirements for Dry Matter (DM) intake, Total Digestible Nutrients (TDN), and Crude Protein (CP) at different stages of production. (Nutrient Requirements of Beef Cattle E-974, Oklahoma State University)

Once you have what you need for your feed inventory for your herd, here are some Mother Nature phenomena and how they can affect inventory, nutrients, and feeding. Do you have a mitigation plan in place for any or all of these?

Cold increases energy requirements. If the winter is colder than normal, your inventory will need to account for the extra energy required. Cold also affects water, watering systems, and equipment. If you live in an area that typically does not have below zero weather and all of a sudden you have a week of below zero weather, are you prepared to combat this and get your cattle fed and watered? Cold and coolness in the spring can delay the growth of grasses, thus affecting our forage inventory for grazing and also hay production.

Drought causes numerous issues for feed inventories from lack of plant growth (quantity), poisonous plants in pastures, nitrates in hay, shortage of available forage/hay to purchase, etc.

Fire can destroy stockpiled forage for winter grazing, destroy bales, damage fences, injure or scatter cattle (could separate dams and calves), destroy shelterbelts, ranch facilities and equipment.

Flooding/wet: Flooding may keep you from haying or grazing acres that you depend on, destroy fences, or deposit silt or sand and change the composition of plants/forage. Rain may also affect your hay harvest, lower the quality of your hay, and depending on how you have your hay stacked and stored can lower its nutritional value. Rain can also increase our forage inventory. Wet haircoats in cold weather increase energy requirements.

Grasshoppers can keep pastures from greening up in the spring, compete with cattle for forage, or destroy hay crops.

Hail can destroy forage that you may be going to harvest as hay or graze. The same for rangeland/pastures that you own or lease.

Heat- Continued hot days without rain can affect forage growth and can cause heat stress in cattle.

Ice can cause footing issues with cattle and if forages/residue get iced down, cattle are unable to utilize it. An example is if you are depending on grazing crop residues for 120 days but ice decreases your grazing days to 60, you have 60 days of unexpected feeding that will affect your feed inventory. 

Mud can cause feeding issues, feed waste, energy expenditure, bedding issues and heat loss, and reduced intake. 

Snow can cover forage and if deep enough can cause feeding issues.

Weeds can decrease available forage for grazing and weeds can potentially decrease hay quality.

Wildlife can compete with cattle for forages, consume harvested feed, and soil harvested feed.

Wind can cause issues with windchill in the winter and can also blow loose feed around (waste). If your cattle water is dependent upon windmills and there is no wind, you may need to change pastures which can affect your feed inventory plan.

Woody encroachment can decrease available forage in pastures.

As you think about Nutrients, Inventory, Mother Nature, and winter management, here are some considerations:

1. Obtain a nutrient analysis of forage resources
2. Inventory forage resources by quality 
3. Sort cowherd into nutritional needs groups (thin cows and young cows)
4. Match forage resources to cattle groups with those nutritional needs
5. Determine supplemental needs and balance diets to minimize costs 
6. Use body condition score (BCS) as a guide and monitor throughout the winter 
7. Target calving BCS of 5 for mature cows, 5.5 for second-calf heifers, and 6 for first-calf heifers.
8. Adjust supplemental energy for cold stress and/or for thin cows.

Article by Troy Walz, Nebraska Extension Livestock Systems Educator.

Interviews with the authors of BeefWatch newsletter articles become available throughout the month of publication and are accessible at https://beef.unl.edu/beefwatch-podcast/ .