Ranching and the Future of Sustainable Land Management
Post by Clemson Montana Summer Program student Rachel Parnell
“I’ll listen to my cows before I listen to a computer,” said a Montana cattle feedlot manager. If there’s one thing that I have learned from the time that I have spent in this beautiful state, it is that ranchers are the most qualified to manage the land that they love and the animals that they respect. They know exactly what they’re doing and know what their cattle need. The cattle industry is anything but a simple life; you must know the types of feed that each cow needs for it to be at its best depending on what the cow is being used for, how to sustainably manage your grazing, vaccinate your herd, regulate the forest for fire prevention, and much more. It is a declining lifestyle in our country, but there will always be the necessity for food and agriculture.
Cows are ruminant animals, meaning they have four-chambered stomachs and are capable of digesting grass and other plants that are harder to digest for humans due to their ability to ferment and ruminate. Fermentation is possible due to the collection of bacteria that cows hold in their guts which help to break down the cellulose in plants much more efficiently. Rumination, or “chewing cud,” is when cows basically regurgitate their food back into their mouths to be chewed repeatedly until it reaches a particle size small enough to be passed through to the remaining three chambers of the stomach. The stomach bacteria are very important, and it is necessary to keep the population and pH balanced so that the digestion process remains efficient. For example, alfalfa hay is highly nutritious but is rich in protein and too much can disrupt the balance, causing pasture bloat.
When it comes down to it, nutrition seems to be the most important managerial aspect when running a cattle operation, whether it be a cow-calf ranch, a feedlot, or backgrounding. A cow-calf operation generally has a herd that produces a calf crop that may then move to backgrounding where they will build weight and continue to grow, thereafter they finally are “finished” in a feedlot and once they reach an optimum weight they are sold and processed. The ranchers and operators watch over the cattle every day and take care to meet their needs. My group visited the Frosty Creek Ranch, a cow-calf operation, where we aided them in sending 50 head of cattle through the hydraulic chute to be vaccinated and tagged. This process was smooth, quick and humane. Terry Frost told us about his continuous grazing practices, the benefits of fall calving, as well as the details of an operating coal mine that is on his property. I asked him what he would say about the ranching experience; he smiled and said he can look back on a hard day’s work and love the time and effort that he has put into his cattle and his land. Like many other ranchers, his kids have moved off to have “backup” careers, but they would move back if they could. It concerns me that this tough lifestyle is declining, but it prides me to see the love and care that these ranchers put into their work. I would hope that those who have left will return and that our country can develop more respect and appreciation for how much the industry means to our society.
Not only are the cattle an imperative cog in the system, but the forest that surrounds the grassland that the cattle also inhabit requires supervision as well. My group and I met a Montana DNRC forester, Jeff Hermanns ,who explained to us the importance of fire prevention and stressed the necessity for fire plans. The State of Montana doesn’t have plans for how to prevent fire and they do not conduct prescribed burning. We learned the pros of logging and thinning the dense pine trees that dominate the hillsides. This decreases the amount of fuel for fires and opens up the area for grazers and wildlife during the day. On the contrary, leaving more dense forest on the opposing hillside provides cover at night and shade for wildlife. If fire occurs, this dense forest will go up quickly but will be broken up when it reaches more open land and forest. When intense, devastating fire does occur, at least in Montana, it is devastating for vegetation as well as for homes. We saw land that had sustained an extensive, very hot fire about 30 years ago that caused 100% vegetation mortality; today it is almost completely treeless and bare grassland. This opened my eyes to the need for wildfire education and the need for prevention plans. It was surprising to me that a state in which wildfire is such a huge concern for its population is not more proactive in forging new prevention strategies as well as educating the public on the fundamental influence that fire has on the natural landscape and on the need for private landowners to manage their forests in healthy ways.
As our population continues to expand and our environment increasingly changes, I believe that rangeland management, ranching, and agriculture industries will become more important to our society. After learning about how the ranchers manage their land and cattle in sustainable and mindful ways, I am hopeful that we can continue to do more research and formulate plans to better conserve our country’s land and wildlife.
Cows are ruminant animals, meaning they have four-chambered stomachs and are capable of digesting grass and other plants that are harder to digest for humans due to their ability to ferment and ruminate. Fermentation is possible due to the collection of bacteria that cows hold in their guts which help to break down the cellulose in plants much more efficiently. Rumination, or “chewing cud,” is when cows basically regurgitate their food back into their mouths to be chewed repeatedly until it reaches a particle size small enough to be passed through to the remaining three chambers of the stomach. The stomach bacteria are very important, and it is necessary to keep the population and pH balanced so that the digestion process remains efficient. For example, alfalfa hay is highly nutritious but is rich in protein and too much can disrupt the balance, causing pasture bloat.
When it comes down to it, nutrition seems to be the most important managerial aspect when running a cattle operation, whether it be a cow-calf ranch, a feedlot, or backgrounding. A cow-calf operation generally has a herd that produces a calf crop that may then move to backgrounding where they will build weight and continue to grow, thereafter they finally are “finished” in a feedlot and once they reach an optimum weight they are sold and processed. The ranchers and operators watch over the cattle every day and take care to meet their needs. My group visited the Frosty Creek Ranch, a cow-calf operation, where we aided them in sending 50 head of cattle through the hydraulic chute to be vaccinated and tagged. This process was smooth, quick and humane. Terry Frost told us about his continuous grazing practices, the benefits of fall calving, as well as the details of an operating coal mine that is on his property. I asked him what he would say about the ranching experience; he smiled and said he can look back on a hard day’s work and love the time and effort that he has put into his cattle and his land. Like many other ranchers, his kids have moved off to have “backup” careers, but they would move back if they could. It concerns me that this tough lifestyle is declining, but it prides me to see the love and care that these ranchers put into their work. I would hope that those who have left will return and that our country can develop more respect and appreciation for how much the industry means to our society.
As our population continues to expand and our environment increasingly changes, I believe that rangeland management, ranching, and agriculture industries will become more important to our society. After learning about how the ranchers manage their land and cattle in sustainable and mindful ways, I am hopeful that we can continue to do more research and formulate plans to better conserve our country’s land and wildlife.
