Stockmanship 101 Now Availible on Amazon!

Thanks to those who supported the project, the English version of Stockmanship 101 (rebooting herd instinct)  is now available on Amazon. This video was premiered at last week's school at Rancho Terrenates in Chihuahua, Mexico, where some students actually watched it a second time. It was also well received at a short seminar in Chihuahua City, Mexico where several students from my first school at Rancho De Las Damas were in attendance. Humbling to know that such a high percentage of those you teach are able to carry on the concepts when they get home!

Fundraising For Drone Based Video

Using the right grazing management can bring back your grass to where it was 100 years ago. This is made easier using stockmanship methods which allow you to follow grazing plans without using fences.

Several of the ranchers in this video use are using the stockmanship techniques I taught them in regenerating these ranches as it allows them to concentrate their herds where it is nearly impossible to build fence.

Currently trying to raise money to produce a professionally filmed, drone based, video of these techniques on the Circle Ranch in Hudspeth county, Texas. In order to make the information available to as many as possible, there will be versions in both English and Spanish. Both versions will be available for free in segments on YouTube, as well as for sale on Amazon in all available formats.




A $30 donation will get you a copy of the cd when it is finished! Corporate and non-profits partnering with me on this video will be able to get as many as they want in either version at cost plus shipping, plus be acknowledged in the credits of the video. (please contact me direct for information on partnering with me on the video)  https://www.gofundme.com/2et8s5as

How Removing Grazing Destroys Grasslands

Despite Alan Savory's Ted talk, there are still a lot of disbelievers out there promoting the removal of livestock to conserve the land. I've been in a running discussion with a local ranch trying to convince them they needed to start grazing before they destroyed some large areas of grass. Last year it was obvious that large areas of grass were at the point where they were going to oxidize and die, but they would not believe it. Last week I visited the ranch and took this video. There are several thousand acres in this same condition.

Desert Garden(s) of Eden

This video produced by the the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory in collaboration with several northern Mexico ranchers shows just how much grass and diversity can be created in a desert environment. All it takes is asking the simple question of "Why is grass disappearing?"

Scientific Evidence Behind Holistic Managed Grazing

Despite millions of acres of evidence supporting it, our colleges and universities have a tendency to ignore holistic planned grazing, or dismiss it as a hoax.  However Dr. Richard Teague (PHD)  of Texas A &M
not only has researched multi-paddock, planned grazing, he has done a three county, multi-ranch study. This study not only shows the benefits, it also points out the reasons why previous university studies did not work. 

Dr. Teague sent me pdf files of his study to post. Part one is here. Part two is here.

Differences Between Conventional Cattle Placment and Placing to Graze As a Herd

 In conventional placing, we hold the cattle in one place until they are grazing in different directions. This means that, while the cattle are in the same area, they spread out which also spreads out the herd impact. In placing cattle for holistic, planned grazing, the object is to have the cattle mimic a herd. To do this the cattle need to be as close together as feed and terrain will allow, while grazing in the same direction to maximize herd impact and reduce selective grazing.

To do this we must first move the cattle with the least amount of stress as possible, then slow down the front of the herd until they start grazing and allow the rest of the cattle to catch up. While we can help the cattle in the back catch up, we need to let it all happen. Much of the time it will only take four or five grazing stops to have the cattle acting as a herd and grazing out together, and going to water together.

While on the Ganaderia Valle Colombia Ranch in Mexico we were working on several sets of cattle the first two days rather than concentrating on just one group. We started working on the cattle in this video on Wednesday, and by Friday they were beginning to come together as a herd. At the end of the video you will notice the cattle coming up and grazing towards the cattle at the lead and grazing as a herd.

In another few moves they will have all of the cattle grazing tightly together and be able to graze where they want, when they want, without building more fence while having their herd impact more concentrated than they do in their smaller pastures in the valley floor.

Innovative Fence Idea for Cell Grazing

Anyone who has ever ran more than two bulls is familiar with how much fence a couple of bulls can tear out. While at the Ganaderia Valle Colombia ranch in Mexico last week, Octavio Bermudez showed me how they keep the bulls from tearing up the fences at the cell centers. It is a slick method that could be used in other areas.

Beyond Stockmanship At Rancho Las Damas

The problem I was asked to solve is one of the reasons many cattlemen do not want to try holistic, planned grazing. During calving season the cows would leave their calves behind on the daily pasture changes, resulting in a loss of 15 to 20% of the calves. As it turned out, this was a simple problem to solve. This short (2:36 ) video shows how dramatically you can change cattle behavior in a short five days.

 One of the benefits of instilling herd instinct in your cattle is that it allows you to create herd impact in areas cattle ignore without going to the time and expense of putting up and tearing down additional fence. The cattle in the picture below were placed there the night before, and spent the night because they wanted to, not because they were fenced in.

While what was accomplished with the cattle is impressive, even more impressive is the amount of forage they have created in only eight years, with nearly half of that being under drought conditions. Before beginning their grazing program, the ranch looked like their neighbor's did in the picture below.

This is what most people assume the desert should look like. Because this is what we have seen land in desert regions look for most, if not all of our lives, we wrongly assume this is what this land is supposed to look like. When talking to old timers, and people whose families have ranched here for generations, we discover that the Chihuahua desert was an immense grasslands up until the last hundred years. Then we started building fences, adding windmills and letting cattle "take care" of themselves.

With a change in grazing patterns, it does not take long for the desert to turn into lush grasslands like the picture below. Alejandro Carrillo was explaining how this grass he is standing in looked exactly like the picture above less than eight years ago. His grazing techniques were the only tools used. No plows or seeds planted other than what the cattle have done.

Looking straight down into the grass, you can't see the ground.

However when you trample the grass down and part it you can see how much seed is getting to the ground.

Occasionally Alejandro feeds cattle, or spreads straw to create litter. The picture below is of a spot where he fed a few bales earlier this year. You read that correctly, this was bare ground only a few months before this picture was taken.

The above results were obtained without the use of any mechanical equipment or seed. The only fertilizer used was that provided by the cattle. While looking at this I was thinking of the number of ranches that will feed calves in a set of pens all winter. Wouldn't it make more sense to put a set of foamed, flat proof tires on your pickup and feed them in a different spot every day? Doing that would allow you to put the gains on your calves while basically getting paid to create more grass!

One other thing which has been happening is the reduction of brush and mesquite without using herbicides. As the grasses get thicker, they are literally choking out the woody plants and killing them as in the picture below. Why would you want to control brush by spending money and time on burning expensive fuel to pull equipment or spraying chemicals which are bad for the environment when you can do it all by simply changing your grazing methods?

The amazing thing about all of this is that the seed is already in the ground. All it needs is enough animal impact and a little rain. Alejandro has been consistently adding grass to Las Damas, even through the drought of the last several years. The diversity of grasses is incredible, including the sprangletop he is pointing out in the picture below.

 If you are ranching in an arid, brittle environment, you could be transforming your ranch into one similar to the Rancho Las Damas.  For more information on how to accomplish this, visit Holistic Management International and the Savory Institute. Contact me if you would like to hold a stockmanship school on your ranch.