If Bison Chased Horses & Cattle Chased Rabbits

Why are equines the only grazing animal which seemingly enjoys chasing and dominating other grazing animals? This is a question which has baffled me for years (actually decades) yet it is an important aspect of animal behavior that people seem to miss. I bring this up because of a recent discussion on bison.

I know there are a lot of people out there who are going to counter with “My bison charge anyone on horseback,” but the simple fact is, they aren't. If they were, cutting horse trainers would not risk using bison to tune up show horses worth tens, if not hundreds of thousand of dollars. So why does a herd of bison “charge” people who are horseback? Curiosity.

When confronted with something new, grazing animals are generally either afraid or curious. If they are afraid, they will watch cautiously or flee. If they are curious they will go see what it is. If one or two of a group of grazing animals get curious about something and start running towards it, the whole herd will follow.

In the case of a horseman being “charged” by a bison herd, it is a case of a few of the animals being curious enough about something to run over to check it. The rest of the herd follows. The first thing that pops into the rider's mind is panic, which transfers immediately to the horse. Horse and rider vacate the premises with the bison following trying to see what the heck that strange thing is.

Cattle will do the same thing. A person walking across a field full of yearling heifers who are not used to seeing a person afoot, will come stampeding right up to the person and if the person runs, they will keep following. If the person stops, so do the heifers, but they may come close enough to them to sniff them.

Once I had a steer in a little group of five hundred that was insanely curious about rabbits. One morning all five hundred were running around the pivot, as a herd. I could see noting they were chasing so I rode to that pivot to check it out. When I got there they were all stopped in a big circle. When I got to the middle, the one steer was standing on a jack rabbit's leg while he was licking it. Other than standing on a leg to pin it down the steer was not doing anything aggressive towards the rabbit. On the contrary, he was grooming it!

This was not a one time affair with this steer. In the several months I had this group of cattle, I had to move them back and forth across some desert ground to some remote pivots. This steer was naturally in the lead, and whenever a rabbit jumped up in front of him, he'd take off chasing the rabbit.

There is a similarity between the rabbits being chased by that steer, and riders being chased by bison. Instead of thinking about what was really going on, they both ran like heck to get out of the way. All the bison are wanting to do is check you out, and all that steer was wanting to do was give the rabbit a bath.

The point to all of this is that bison can be worked horseback. You have to put some thought into it and acclimate them first. After all, if bison choused horses, Indians would have ridden bison and lived in horse hide teepee. 

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The Value of Holistic Herding

Many people look at what I am doing with holistic herding don't see the value. The first misconception that most people have is that, on their ranch, it would be impossible to do. The owners of the cattle I am currently herding once thought that as well. I first presented the idea of combining their cattle into one herd five and keep them moving years ago. Their reaction was "It is impossible to do" in this area. Now that they have been forced by drought (less than 10 inches total over three years) to lease pasture and have their cattle herded on the Circle Ranch  they are totally sold on the idea.

The benefits of holistic herding are:

1. You know where your cattle are 
2. You know what the condition of your cattle are
3. You can gather your cattle in one day, without hiring day help
4. Cattle actually do better in a herd situations than in small groups
5. Take advantage of grazing areas cattle don't normally graze
6. Concentrating the cattle and moving them concentrates manure and herd effect, which in turn helps build soil and increases both the amount and diversity of forage while improving hydrology of the land
7. By increasing forage and areas you can graze increases your ability to either run more cattle or lease grass for yearlings.
8. Reduces the amount of infrastructure to maintain in order to keep the cattle watered
9. Reduces overall fuel, maintenance and labor costs.
10. Reduces the amount of water needed

 Numbers eight and nine are hard for people to wrap their minds their minds around. Using the Circle ranch as an example, this is easy to explain. There are an average of five water points per pasture. In a herding situation, it is possible (and preferable) to water the herd at a single water point. By placing a single water point with covered storage in each pasture the Circle ranch would reduce the amount of driving to check water by as much as 80% (The costs implementing this could be offset by selling your now defunct drinkers)

How can it reduce the amount of water you need? A five foot diameter drinker has an annual evaporation rate of 750 gallons per drinker meaning that each of the pastures would require 3,000 less water per year or 51,000 gallons less water for the whole year (not counting the 1,000,000 lost in evaporation in the existing uncovered storage tanks ). How much would this reduce your ranch's electric and fuel bills in a year?

Once a person get past the excuse of not being able to herd holistically, there is no reason not to do it.

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Grazing the Impossible

   Since my last post, we changed our grazing plan to include grazing Giant Sacaton, which most people think cattle will not eat. There is more about that  on the Circle Ranch website.                

     Other than a problem with the water that had the cattle spread out, searching for water,  the cattle have been generally staying in the areas I put them. There were roughly 25% that did not like the Sacaton, so I pushed them on the side of a "hill" and let them work it. This "hill" is one of those areas which are left out of grazing plans because they are "too steep to graze.

    The owners of these cattle are amazed that these cattle are grazing this high as they have similar country which goes unused because the cattle refuse to graze it. All it took to get them to graze it was to start them up the hill very loose and let them work their own way up. Rather than putting pressure on the back, ride down the side of the cattle so that the ones in the back pick up and move with no pressure from the back. The feed is there and it is good enough that the cattle stay high and keep working. This will improve the hydrology from the top down by producing more feed when the rains come.

     The cattle are also starting to act more as a herd. In the picture below, the cattle are leaving water on their own. Notice how they are trailing out in single file, following the first animal to leave, and going back to where they were previously placed. There are approximately 180 head strung out up that trail.

In the video below, you will see the cattle grazing in the Giant Sacaton.  As we are having calves born nearly  everyday, when I make a pasture move I leave the gate open just in case a calf was left behind. None of the cattle went back.

In the next couple of weeks I will be grazing some more areas that are "too steep" to graze. In the meantime I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas. If you are still shopping for Christmas, there is time to order some of my books from Amazon in both paperback and kindle. They are available at 2lazy4U Livestock & Literary Company

Cowboys Agreeing With Animal Rights Groups?

     A recent conversation began with a person complaining that the feedlot he was working in was putting fresh calves on a straight ration without feeding any hay. The participants of this discussion were all men who take pride in handling cattle with the least amount of stress, and keeping their death losses as low as possible. By the end of the discussion, we all agreed that perhaps we were more in agreement with animal welfare groups and food activists than we are with the cattle feeding industry.

   The basis of this conclusion stems from what we have been told by nutritionists and feedlot veterinarians that the bottom line shows it is more profitable to push cattle too hard on feed than taking two weeks to start them without the acidosis caused stress and resulting death loss. Aside from the fact that this line of thinking aligns directly with views of PETA, HSUS and natural food activists, it is also dead wrong on the profit/loss margins.

   Every animal being treated is a cut into profits, as is every animal that dies. Bud Williams has proven numerous times that it is possible to cut both morbidity and mortality rates in feedlots by 50% just by changing the way cattle are handled.  Despite this, the feedlot industry seems to think they can increase profit by mass treating every pen of calves then pushing them on feed so hard that they are guaranteeing they will lose more cattle and spend more money on drugs (not to mention the overtime for pen riders and hospital crew.)

   One study by Dr. Pete Anderson  shows that pens of 700 lb steers with no death loss gained 13% faster and had 9% lower feed conversion values than pens with 2% or more death loss.  There is a direct correlation between morbidity in feedlots with not only cattle handling procedures, but in the acidosis related stress by pushing cattle onto feed rations too fast. 

   By taking the time to start calves a little slower, and emphasizing low stress cattle handling techniques feedlots would be eliminating half (or more) of their antibiotic costs, over half of their death losses while increasing feed efficiency. This all adds up to higher profits for the feedlots. At the same time, it takes the wind out of the arguments of animal welfare groups and those who want a safer food supply with fewer antibiotics and hormones. 

Grazing Alkali Sacaton

 Normally sacaton grass is burned off and grazed early in the year as cattle "refuse" to eat it when it gets taller.  Just out of curiosity, I placed roughly half of the 420 cows into a sacaton draw. The results are pretty dramatic and show that cattle really like this grass when it is at a stage where there is green underneath the cured grass. Almost a perfect diet as they are getting roughage and protein in every bite.

As you can see in this picture, this grass appears as if it would be too dry and coarse for cattle to graze...

However as you can see by the following picture, that assumption is wrong

 Normally cattle will not graze alkali sacaton on their own at this stage. Yet these cattle, even though they have access to several kinds of gramma and bushy muley in this pasture, had to be pushed out of this area to utilize the rest of it.

From the standpoint of a recreational ranch trying to develop habitat, this is leaving cover for quail while at the same time, creating visibility for them to see approaching predators.

Herding A Bovine Potpourri

Some people have asked how herding cattle in this way is more efficient than controlling them with fences. For starters, you don't have to buy, build and maintain (or continually move) extra fencing,and you need fewer water points. Using this method on yearlings or dry cows (and receiving them all at once) is much, much, easier than receiving a Bovine Potpourri a little at a time. Despite the challenges, and necessary adjustments the program is still working, and improving.

One adjustment I've had to make is using more than one water point. It seems that these cattle have a tendency to jump in the five foot drinkers and stand there, then break the float on their way out. Once, I saw  a cow standing in a drinker with her calf next to her, nursing (something I have never seen before.) This forced us to designed and install a modification to the existing float guards which will hopefully take care of this problem. While having to work off of more than one water point makes it take longer to place cattle, it has been a learning experience. 

The second pasture in the rotation I  had five water points to work off of. The interesting thing was that, even though the cattle were mixed where they were grazing, they would return to the water point they came from. In the case of grazing associations, this could have some benefits if the herd instinct was instilled in each herd before going to summer pasture. The association rider could place the cattle on different water points, and keep the cattle separate within the same allotment. At the end of the grazing season it would be simple to gather each owner's cattle separately, and decrease the shrink involved with sorting several herds simultaneously (which would in return, increase profits a minimum of 3 to 5% ).

Despite the difficulties this particular project has, it is still working. Rather than spending money on labor building and maintaining (or moving) fences several times a week (or daily), one person spends three days placing cattle where they need in the pastures. Because of the social and physiological differences within this herd, and using multiple water points, placing within the pasture does take all day. If the water system was simplified to a single water point, and the cattle were all the same class, placement within the pasture would take four hours or less (for a total of 12 hours of labor per week.) 

Despite  the diversity of this group of cattle and using multiple water points, we are still getting the desired results of taking roughly a third of the forage and also getting animal impact distributed across the pasture, as shown in the following photograph.                           

 While they are spread out to fit feed density, the following picture shows roughly 100 head working as a herd. Notice how they are all grazing in the same direction. Once we make the next pasture move at the end of next week, we will be able to wean the bigger calves at a set of pens next to a water point. Once the cows have bawled off, I will start all of the cattle up a canyon in the direction of the next pasture in the grazing plan  and allow the cattle to sort themselves into two groups.

Open cattle, older calves, bulls and those in the first and second trimester of pregnancy will pick up and move out easily, while those cattle in their third trimester, calves under a month old and older thin cows with calves on them will take their time getting started. This will make it easier to instill the herd instinct into the cattle and (hopefully) keep the bulls away from the cows which are calving. (One problem with running bulls year round is that 12 to 24 hours before calving, cows change from producing progesterone to estrogen. This change in hormones causes cycling cows and bulls to seek out and ride cows beginning to calve, causing dystocia.)

Week Two of Holistic Herding on 32,000 Acres

One thing I want to emphasize before going any farther, is that instilling the herd instinct happens much faster when when using the same class of cattle in a herd, and all of the cattle arrive at the same time. This project is being done with the cattle coming in over a period of three to four weeks, and consisting of everything from open yearling heifers, to older dry cows, to week old pairs and calving cows.

Instilling the herd instinct in a mixed group of cattle like this is harder (but not impossible) as the younger open cows move out readily while the springers will move slower, and cows with young calves have to pick up their babies and can only move as fast as their calves. Never the less, The cattle are basically grazing the areas of the pasture they are being placed into.

As mentioned in last week's post, the weather threw a kink into the program when a cold front moved in ahead of a storm and the cattle drifted into the brush. Tracks showed that the cattle were staying together until one part of the herd hit a fork in the trail and split them into two bunches. Somewhere in the middle of the brush, part of the one group stopped while the other kept going into the next pasture, as the fence has been down in that area for years. As Monday was my day for changing pastures anyway, I gathered the draws and placed those cattle in the southwest corner of the new pasture. The following video shows how easy it is to gather in the brush and put the cattle through a gate and still have the cattle paired.

Because of the way things wound up the first week, and the move, the cattle are now in three groups, watering in three different places. Despite this, the cattle are still grazing in the same general area of the pasture, it just requires me to pick up each group off of their water point and place them. When they go to water, each group is going back to the water point they are familiar with. Despite the current stage in the training process, we are still getting the desired animal impact from concentrating the cattle as in the picture below.

When I make the move into the next pasture, the cattle will be placed into two groups on two different water points. The open cattle, cows in their first or second trimester, along with older pairs will be place on one water point, while the young pairs and cows ready to calve will be placed on a second water point. Because of their different rates of travel, this will be easy to accomplish as the first group will travel faster. I will have a person helping me on this move and one of us will simply bend the second group to one water point and hold them while the other continues with the other group to the desired water point. This will allow me to graze two different parts of the pasture simultaneously while working each with each group to get them to acting as a herd. The cattle will be in this pasture for 14 days before being mixed together as one herd. The move after the next pasture will be long, and up a steep grade. At this point the cattle will probably once again be ran as two herds in the same pasture. This would not be necessary if all of the cattle were open, or at approximately the same stage of pregnancy (or had the same age calves).

The optimum situation would have been to have all of the cows dry (or yearlings) and to have received them all at the same time. This would have shortened the training period from 4 to 5 (or 6) weeks to only a couple of weeks. However using different classes of cattle, receiving them over a period of 3 to 4 weeks, and training them in pastures with brush is allowing me to demonstrate that there are not many situations you cannot instill the herd instinct into cattle.