From the Barns: Knowing your value

In reviewing my February writing, I realize that quite a few things actually were finished or at least started in the last month — I am pleased to report that! It often seems that with our Illinois weather, things sometimes are impossible to keep on schedule. We did receive 1.25 inches of rain, but none that added to our low pond levels. However, it was a nice finishing touch to our frost seeding and pasture harrowing which was completed just in time for the rain event. It is not always possible to get the Colorado harrow over all the paddocks, but we got that accomplished this year. It scatters the many manure pats from winter grazing and also stirs up the dead grass and any bare topsoil to improve germination of the frost-seeded red clover.

In addition, the track hoe arrived and started work on the pond enlargement project that I mentioned last month. With that project, I have also made the decision to cut off some of the overflow pipe to allow the addition of an elbow with the opening facing up. I will place a trash catcher over that to prevent any plugging.

That 8-inch elbow should raise the pond level overall and at the cattle watering ramp about 1 foot. However, these improvements will only work if we receive any runoff spring rains. I will keep you posted on that. And, I know, “be careful about what you wish” — every Illinoisan knows what I mean by that.

Speaking at the Southern Iowa Grazing Conference was a great experience and so different. There is a large Amish community around the Bloomfield area and it seemed that most of them were at the conference. The attendance was huge, as grazing conferences usually go. The rewarding part was that I had a nice crowd filling the area for my presentation.

We should hear more about whether you can make money grazing and I am sure that everyone needs to. If we keep good records of the grazing days — the number of animals grazing a paddock for a day — and then assign a value to that, we can legitimately analyze a gross value and, after expenses, a net value for each grazing acre at the end of the grazing season. A lender, a landlord and certainly a serious producer might want to see those figures.

We have been keeping those records for a number of years and I have to say that they are impressive, considering that they show healthy net returns on what some might say is land that has little value. With the value of all real estate these days, we should stop focusing all of our attention on weaning weights and gains and such and concentrate on what we can produce per acre. Start keeping those records that will allow that focus.

When you read this, the Illinois Grazing Lands Coalition annual conference in Springfield will be over, but I am sure attendees will have some information they can take back home and make important improvements. Ed Ballard was honored by the coalition for a very special career promoting grazing in our state. Ron Freeman, Tom Saxe and Greg Thoren were recognized as Master Grazers.

I will be attending the Western Illinois University Performance Tested Bull Sale later on today, as I write this. I am curious to see the crowd and the enthusiasm that the sale generates and talk with fellow producers about how they see the national herd expanding. Every indication seems to say that it will be a slow journey.

Stay safe and sane!