Regenerative Ag Stories on the Grazing Grass Podcast

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NOTE: There were 2 speakers identified in this transcript. Speaker separation errors can arise when multiple speakers speak simultaneously.

0:00:00 - Matthew
Work under someone who has got experience and knows what they're doing, and just spend as much time as you can learning before you start out on your own.

0:00:13 - Cal
You're listening to the Grazing Grass Podcast, sharing information and stories of grass-based livestock production utilizing regenerative practices. I'm your host, cal Hartage. You're growing more than grass. You're growing a healthier ecosystem to help your cattle thrive in their environment. You're growing your livelihood by increasing your carrying capacity and reducing your operating costs. You're growing stronger communities and a legacy to last generations. The grazing management decisions you make today impact everything from the soil beneath your feet to the community all around you. That's why the Noble Research Institute created their Essentials of Regenerative Grazing course to teach ranchers like you easy-to-follow techniques to quickly assess your forage, production and infrastructure capacity in order to begin grazing more efficiently. Together, they can help you grow not only a healthier operation, but a legacy that lasts. Learn more on their website at nobleorg. Slash grazing. It's n-o-b-l-e dot org. Forward slash grazing. Matthew, we want to welcome you to the Grazing Grass podcast. We're excited you're here today. I'm happy to be here, cal Grazing Grass. Matthew, to get started, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your operation?

0:01:52 - Matthew
I am a sixth generation farmer and rancher in Waller County, Texas. That is in between Houston and College Station. It's about 70 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, Very hot, humid climate. We get about 45 inches of rainfall a year. Oh yeah, we have a horse quality square bale business, but we also have a grazing business. We graze cattle on areas that we don't have a core about hay production in. We own some of the cattle we custom graze for other people and in some rare occasions we actually put some of our cattle out with others.

0:02:42 - Cal
So you said multiple generations. So how long have you been there? Let me clarify, not so much you, but your family.

0:02:52 - Matthew
My ancestors landed in Galveston Island on New Year's Day of 1847. And they just started, like most German immigrants that came to Texas. They did come to Texas with some resources, purchased a small amount of land, but also was able to participate in some homesteading that Texas had and received a land certificate no-transcript. Oh yes, teens and the 20s. From family records we found they were reasonably successful at doing that and continued on through the Great Depression. Unfortunately, my great-grandfather died in 1933, right in the middle of the Depression, so there was a little bit of a division of property there. But it's been passed down two more generations to me and my sisters, and then I also had some cousins that are still involved. We still work together as a family and although our operations and enterprises are completely separate, but we still work together and we're neighbors and we help each other and continue on a little family tradition that way.

0:04:25 - Cal
Now you mentioned your sisters, Are they part of your business or are they separate?

0:04:31 - Matthew
It is my business, but my sisters are landowners and my mother also mother and father. They're good landlords and they believe in what we're doing and actually they participate. In fact, one of my sisters helps me move cows. She's on duty every other weekend to make our moves and I'm very thankful to have family members that not only believe in what we're doing but will actively participate in it as well.

0:05:00 - Cal
Oh yeah, that is nice. Now I know from reading your website I hate to even say this on the podcast, but you graduated from that college that in Oklahoma we don't like to say its name and you might say University of Texas right off, but it's that other college down south.

0:05:17 - Matthew
Don't let the collegiate affiliation fool you. Although we are diehard I don't know whether I should say that or not we are multi-generation Aggies here. Oh yeah, although we are diehard, I don't know whether I should say that or not. We are multi-generation Aggies here. Oh yeah, I will freely admit that very little of what I practice today. I learned at that institute.

0:05:39 - Cal
Well, you know I've mentioned it numerous times I went to Oklahoma State, but most of the stuff I do came about a long time after that time. Now, when you went to Texas A&M, did you go for ag?

0:05:51 - Matthew
I did Just so many of my neighbors and my ancestors before me and even some of my classmates growing up. We went for an animal science degree. We wanted to learn about cattle production particularly, so that was my focus there. I did not return to the family business immediately after school. At that time, our family business was in transition and, for lack of a better term, was on pause Transitioning, for lack of a better term, was on pause. I went to work for a really large preconditioning yard and spent a lot of time learning about feeding cattle and backgrounding and preconditioning cattle business and then eventually ended up owning a full service ag service company feed fertilizer. We were. I was the exact opposite of what I am today. I was an input seller and and promoted any and all inputs and, of course, everything that our universities taught us to do and practices to add and products to promote, and I spent about 11 years doing that.

0:07:11 - Cal
What caused you to change to the model you're following now?

0:07:17 - Matthew
The beginning of my journey started with a dear friend and a respected horse trainer from Idaho named Martin Black.

And a respected horse trainer from Idaho named Martin Black One of my best friends or definitely my best friend and an employee of mine, Stephen Lewis, and I provided some cattle for a horse clinic that Martin was putting on in our area and we got to participate in the clinic, kind of in exchange for the cattle.

And Stephen and I believe ourselves to be fairly qualified stockmen, especially when it comes to horses and low-stress stockmanship horseback with cattle. We spent our lives working on that and trying to perfect that as a skill. And we went to this clinic and Martin proceeded to explain to us exactly why we were doing everything, exactly backwards, and just sort of berated us for four days in a row. He's really hard on us and tough on us and we held our tongues and listened and after some time went by, we decided that we were going to try some of his methods and try some of his principles and, lo and behold, they worked so well and we were amazed at what we were able to do oh wow, Putting those practices into place, especially with a lot fewer people we were doing things by ourselves or the two of us? Oh, wow, and so that made me decide to question every practice that I had ever participated in, whether we'd been doing it for a year or for 100 years.

0:09:14 - Cal
Oh, yeah, and at that time you'd provide some cattle to it. So you were grazing cattle at that time.

0:09:22 - Matthew
Yes, by that time we were I told you before the family business was on pause. I went through that time period I was describing earlier, but eventually we did. I did transition back into operating our family business and then again, after that incident, just upset the whole apple cart. The apple cart had fallen over apples everywhere and again we just started to question everything and decided we're going to put the apples back from start over, from ground zero, in a way.

0:09:57 - Cal
When you started questioning everything, what process did you go? Did you go to some conferences to listen? Did you find some books, YouTube at the time? What was your process to really gain knowledge in these areas and see is the way we're doing it good? Do we need to change?

0:10:17 - Matthew
So there was another person who I met. Martin was very influential just from that questioning side, not to mention that stockmanship is so important in everything we do. I didn't know at the time how important better stockmanship was going to be in grazing, so I think it's interesting. That was literally the first part of it. But another gentleman named Burke Teichert, who I met at an event that was completely unrelated to agriculture, but we started talking, we ended up eating lunch and we're visiting. So we had that in common and I really was fascinated with some of his experiences and some of his means and methods. So I just searched him on YouTube. Look for some any talks or lectures that he had and that it probably originally started as a kind of a YouTube rabbit hole. So once you search for Perk Tyker, then you get other suggestions, so then you get Jim Garish, and then you get Alan William, then you get Greg Judy, and a list goes on and on, and every everything that I heard made me. It intrigued me so much. And then I started hearing the commonalities.

I started hearing these things that are, although they're not exactly the same. But you start hearing about these principles that you've got everybody, in essence, saying the same thing just in a different way, and I said, man, this is not crazy business. Somebody's got somebody knows something I don't know and I want to find it out.

0:12:03 - Cal
So what? So you start researching this more. You've had a couple of relationships that really helped you. What was the first practice you changed on your ranch, the?

0:12:16 - Matthew
first practice was to practice, and I mean practice electric sensing. I mean that in a joking manner. We were definitely practicing. We had never used electric sense. And again, it's ironic I used to think when I was trying to decide the direction that the grazing business might go. I kept thinking what would it be like if we could build more cross-fencing? And what would it be like if we could build more cross-fencing? And what would it be like if we had more pastures? And of course that in my mind that was actually just coming from. If I would have put that into place I would have been grazing completely incorrectly because my idea of what rotational grazing is supposed to be was completely flawed. But still I kept thinking, wouldn't it be nice if we could have more pasture? But it was always. The cost was always stopping me.

I can't afford this fence. This fence costs too much money. Even if we build it ourselves, we would never be able to pay for this fencing with the production level that we have, for this fencing with the production level that we have. And then, when we got into electric fence and then it opened my eyes and said this is a lot less expensive. You can do one wire, I can use this one charger and I can use one charger for 500 acres. Oh, and so that was the first practice, just learning that we could use electric fence. And of course we did everything wrong that you could do.

0:13:50 - Cal
But we learned. Yeah, I know when you say that, I think back to when we dairied and we started dabbling with electric fence and moving our dairy cows a little bit, and every time I went out there I had a few animals out. I didn't understand the principle. For one thing, you've got to ground your energizer. We never did. We just hooked it to a fence or didn't really make a conceited effort to make a good ground. We were buying low-cost energizers. When we changed that around and really invested in a good energizer, did the grounding system as recommended that totally changed. I went from playing with electric fence to it becoming a tool. Yes, exactly.

0:14:37 - Matthew
I couldn't say it better myself.

0:14:39 - Cal
Yeah, I think back to it and I'm always like, why was I such a slow learner? But that's just me, so we'll go with it, cal, we're all a little guilty of that.

So you have your, you got an electric fence going. You're starting to graze, rotate your cattle or move them a little bit more and more adaptive. Let's talk a little bit about your cattle and what you're grazing. I know you have your own cows and you do some custom grazing. Let's get into first your own cows and how you manage them and what you have.

0:15:13 - Matthew
So I'll give you a quick little preface. The next big change we made was changing our calving season.

0:15:23 - Cal
Oh, actually that's a great topic we should talk about.

0:15:26 - Matthew
Okay, we can do that real quick and then we can go to the cows Really and truly. The kind of cattle you have, the kind of cattle I have, what color they are, what shape they are, it's completely. It's one of the last things I worry about. As long as they sit your environment, it doesn't really matter what they look like.

0:15:50 - Cal
It doesn't matter and I'm always guilty because I love to find out what breeds people are running but really there's enough difference within a breed that you got to find animals that work for you in your context, and that's the most important part.

0:16:05 - Matthew
Yes, sir. So shifting over to that breeding season in your context and that's the most important part, yes, sir. So shifting over to that breeding season, that was tremendous, we were winter calvers. We would calve in December, January and February, and I probably spent a year resisting changing the calving season. I certainly missed at least one. I'd have to go back and look. I might have missed two bull turnout the opportunity to change because, I was it made.

it did make sense, but at the same time I just no one in my area does that. It was so contra. In my area you either have no calving season or you leave the bull out year round. Or you are a fall calver or you're a winter calver. I knew no one who intentionally calved in the true spring for us, so it was really difficult and I kept worrying about calving the spring. That means you breed in the summer, and summers are brutal here.

0:17:14 - Cal
Oh yes.

0:17:15 - Matthew
We're talking close to triple digits for three, four months, 90s, all the time. Last year we had 72 days of triple digits. Oh wow, that was an anomaly, but still 72 days of triple digits here and very high humidity. We're 70 miles from the coast.

0:17:34 - Cal
Oh yeah.

0:17:35 - Matthew
To say all that. I was very reluctant when someone explained to me that you need to calve and sink with your forage resource. That made sense. Why should a calf be hitting the ground in january and in february, which is the worst month of the year for us? That is the hardest months for a cow to survive in our environment, everywhere. Oh yeah, why do I want to make that cow start to lactate and ask her to do even more? But I just couldn't. I wasn't sure about that summer breeding. But finally we did make the change and it has been amazing. It's just been amazing to see that it can be done and how much it changes your level of inputs, how much it reduces your level of input.

0:18:29 - Cal
It does, yeah.

0:18:31 - Matthew
Just quick math. It's probably now saving me somewhere between $150 and $200 per year.

0:18:42 - Cal
That's huge. Yes, it is Now. One thing you mentioned there. Part of your reluctance was that breeding during high summer, that hot weather, high humidity how did breeding season go for you? Were you able to just take your cows, change the time you turn out your bulls and it work for you.

0:19:07 - Matthew
It did not work and I think mainly it was because of the transition year. If I had to do over again, I would do it differently. Uh, there were several of my cows that made the chain and rebred and have subsequently rebred every year, day in the herd. I had some cattle that I purchased in that process that absolutely were not adapted at all and could not handle the heat regardless.

Regardless, and then we have had some success with some of our own replacement heifers that were conceived here, born here and bred here, and they're doing better.

0:20:04 - Cal
Oh, yes, yeah, I guess the answer to the question was there's a little bit of everything you mentioned there, that transition year. If you had to do it over, you would do it different if you had to do that over. How would you do it?

0:20:17 - Matthew
I would have either sold the entire cow herd and bought a different one, or I would have done a better job of wintering the cattle the first winter. When you decide to change your breeding season, you delay, or in my case you delay bull turnout. Yes, but that the problem is not solved yet. That is next year's calf crop. The problem's not solved yet. That is next year's calf crop. The calves from the previous breeding season and breeding decision that you made you still have to deal with, and so I still had a cow herd that was still calving in January and February and I did not feed them well enough.

I thought to myself. I thought these cows, instead of me turning the bull out in March, I'm going to turn it out in June. They're going to have a couple of months of really good grazing and thus should be on a high plane nutrition and they ought to breed up. But I think what actually happened was all that extra nutrition. They just turned it into milk and gave it to their calf and they didn't improve their body condition enough to get bred.

If I had it to do over again, I would go ahead and have those cows in December and January and I would just feed them whatever it takes to keep that good body condition over the winter, set them up for spring and just don't let them go backwards one bit. You've got to hold your nose and get through the first year until you can reap the benefits of calving later. Oh yeah, and I do think there's a percentage of cows that don't respond just because it's a shock to their system. I still think when you're changing, you could probably do everything right and you're still going to have some cows fall out because they're eight, nine years old and they're used to breeding in May and March and April every year and that's when we get bred and our bodies are synchronized that way and then all of a sudden you introduce a disruption to the system and they just don't respond.

0:22:35 - Cal
Did you have any trouble with bull fertility breeding during the hot summer?

0:22:37 - Matthew
No, and we definitely selected heat-tolerant bulls. We made a huge change in our bull bull, the cows we tried to use the cows we had. We had cows that had heat tolerant genetics at different levels. Some of them were very heat tolerant, Some of them were just slightly heat tolerant and some of them weren't heat tolerant at all. And keep in mind that the majority of our acres there's no shade. Oh yes, so they have to. The only shade they get is from 9 pm to 5 am.

0:23:14 - Cal
Yeah, and with your bulls you said you made a little bit of change. What kind of type of bull did you go with when?

0:23:21 - Matthew
you made that change. We started with some South Pole bulls, oh yes, and we're happy with those, and I'm still happy with South Pole as a breed, mainly because of heat tolerance and being raised in a low input system. And then we also have quite a few Red Angus times, cinnapole or Red Angus times, mishona or Red Angus times different percentages of quote, unquote a tropical breed. Our goal here is to try to keep our bulls about 50% tropical breeding, either Mishona, cinnapole or even that Romo Sinuano bull from Spain or a breed from Spain, yes, and then Tom Red Angus is trying to get the most. We want a very slick, short-haired animal but that has as much muscling as we can get right. But the number one thing is that they're raised in a low input system, grass-based yeah, no grain, low growth.

The system or the program that the bulls come out of, in my opinion, is more important than the pedigree and and more important than the breed composition. I don't get hung up on that's only 25 mishona or that's only that's three, eight centipole, and I don't get hung up on that, I get hung up on program and then generally just a phenotype of the bull oh yeah, look at his hair coat, look at those secondary sexual characteristics, obviously, fertility, feet and legs, all the other things. You just have to start with all of those fundamentals and basics. You have to start with all of those fundamentals and basics If the bull thrives in a low-input system and develops in. That's another thing. The bulls I buy, other than that, I brought some bulls from Missouri, but Missouri in the summertime definitely has a very similar climate to us. Their winters might be a little different but their summers are pretty close. Yes, but most of the other bulls that I buy are born in the southern environment and they're developed certainly in a climate similar to mine.

0:25:37 - Cal
Oh yeah, On a forage program, so they're not. When you get them, they don't fall apart because, oh, there's no green available now.

0:25:45 - Matthew
No, and I am happy to show people my bulls that any time my bulls don't get anything, they thrive on sea, salt and sunshine. That's all they get. We don't, and we only touch them once a year when we fertility test them, and they are in excellent body condition and that's what makes me always feel good about what we're doing, Although we still are transitioning and we're still having a lot of challenges with those cows trying to breed them up. I can go look at that bull battery and say these bulls are making it on nothing. They're passing those genetic ponds to the next generation.

0:26:22 - Cal
So we've just got to be patient and stick with it, and are you finding the daughters of those bulls functioning well in your environment?

0:26:32 - Matthew
Yes, they're not 100%, because 50% of the genetics still come from the calf and we've still got some cows that are pretty big, pretty framey and have a higher maintenance requirement. Therefore, on a low-input system sometimes they're going to react a little negatively. But I think once we start stacking these generations, we've got some two-time generations on the ground now. You bred back to those low-input bulls and then their daughters bred back to those low input bulls and then their daughters bred back to a low input bull. Those are hitting the ground now and then, of course, we'll be conceiving some third generations here in about a month.

Oh yeah, I think we're going to have some compounding effect here in the next two to three years oh yeah, I think so yes and for something I know you're going to want to hear about in in order to speed this process up, we're definitely using some Corriente cattle, oh yes, to provide an adaptive female that we can just purchase and she will adapt as is and doesn't need two, three or four generations down the road before they're adapted, and so we run quite a few straight Corriente cattle and even some Corriente time beef, and was able to even find some Corriente time South Pole cattle this past fall and we're very happy with those.

Just a side story August Horseman on his podcast a week or two ago he said some guy came and bought all Corrientes when he stocked out with me.

0:28:10 - Cal
Oh, that was you yeah.

0:28:12 - Matthew
And they're doing well.

0:28:14 - Cal
Oh, very good. Yeah, I'm a fan of the Corriente cows. They're doing good for me.

0:28:22 - Matthew
Yeah, instead of trying to breed framey conventional cows down now, we're trying to breed Corriente cows up, and I think the answer is somewhere in the middle. The answer generally is always going to be a balance Something. So we're not hardliners here. The only thing you have to do to stay here on our place is walk and get pregnant.

0:28:46 - Cal
Yeah.

0:28:46 - Matthew
If you walk and get pregnant, you can stay, not a problem Now when you wean your calves.

0:28:53 - Cal
are you selling them shortly after weaning or are you grazing them for a while? How are you marketing them and growing them out? What's the process after weaning so traditionally?

0:29:05 - Matthew
every year, except last year. We keep all our yearlings. We precondition all our yearlings. Oh yeah, we expose every heifer and allow them a chance to get bred in a 60-day season. If they get bred, they can stay. If they don't, we sell them as a feeder heifer and we will graze those steers for an additional year and sell a long-yearling. Last year we had to implement our drought plan and we sold every— we preconditioned everything, but we did sell it. We did not retain it because we did have the feed resources to winter the animals, and that's part of the system. The idea is that we retain those and count on those yearlings to graze, but if we don't have the forage or if it gets too dry, we can sell them first, and last year we pulled the trigger on that.

0:30:00 - Cal
And I really like that model because you get those long yearlings, you can graze them, and if grass becomes short, for whatever reason, that's your first out.

0:30:11 - Matthew
Yes, sir.

0:30:11 - Cal
That class leaves the farm and you're able to destock without getting into your cow herd. Yes, sir, are you marketing any? Are you taking any through processing or are you selling them all through traditional channels?

0:30:29 - Matthew
Because of our numbers. We're still selling through traditional outlets. We graze for our own use and a few friends and neighbors and we will do some attempting to grass finish some animals and we'll grain finish some animals. We have a customer, that's what they want. We'll provide whatever they want, but that's a very small scale. We've got pretty high numbers and we're although we would like to someday, I would be very interested in working on a more consistent way of grass finishing from animals and direct marketing some. But right now we've got to get the basics down right first.

0:31:07 - Cal
Oh yeah.

0:31:07 - Matthew
We've got to concentrate on grazing, concentrate on our genetics and getting those animals consistent supply of animals that thrive in our environment, and then we may move on to to the next get you that consistent product you can put out because your animals are consistent and uniform. Yeah, it just doesn't happen overnight it certainly doesn't, and I'm an impatient person by nature, and I think this is another way of god teaching me patience oh, yeah, yet yes, yet another way.

0:31:42 - Cal
Yet another way. I can attest to that as well. Yeah, in addition to your own cattle, you are custom grazing some animals. Yes sir, let's just talk about that program for a little bit. You bring them in the summer, grazing them, or in the spring grazing them through summer, out in the fall, or how's that working Right now?

0:32:07 - Matthew
we actually have full-time cows, year-round cows, that we're custom-grazing for a customer. We would take stockers if it's appropriate. Right now we have a customer whose production system is not exactly like ours but similar to ours, and for me custom grazing is a business decision. It is a way of being a diverse. I'm happy having custom grazing cattle, probably at somewhere between 20 to 30 percent of my carrying capacity, regardless. I just think that's a wise business move because even though sometimes I may be able to have a higher profit on the cattle that I own, the custom grazing is steady and it provides some cash flow. I'm not saying that someone ought to be all custom grazing is steady and it provides some cash flow. I'm not saying that someone ought to be all custom grazing and someone ought to have all cattle ownership. I just like having a little diversity in there. So I like having a certain percent custom grazing, a certain percent stockers and a certain percent cow-calf. It just spreads the risk out and it provides a more consistent cash flow.

0:33:25 - Cal
Yeah, just on the subject of stockers, we're jumping back just a little bit. Are you only using the calves you raise as stockers, or are you bringing in some stockers as well?

0:33:35 - Matthew
No, I have not brought any stockers in from outside. Oh yeah, I'll also make this statement. I am not 100% sure that our environment is really conducive for stocker cattle because of our forage base, because of our temperature. Still doing a little bit of research on that, grazing my own animals to see what kind of average daily gains we can really achieve Right, even with daily moves and maybe even twice a day moves. There's no sense reinventing the wheel. There's no sense putting so much effort into something that is just not really I hate to use the word meant to be, I hate to try to paddle upstream. That's what I'm trying to say.

In our area I think traditionally more stockers would be a cool season and it'd have to be a cool season annual. That was planted, oh okay, and the cost and inputs are so high I have not really been able to make that pencil. Inputs are so high I have not really been able to make that pencil Right. In grazing perennial warm season grasses, that cost is very low. But if our gains are low we may be better off just grazing cows, because if the forage base meets the cow requirement on a low cost, that just may be where we are. If we're trying to put. We may be trying to put a square peg in a round hole with stocker.

I'm the jury's still out on that, maybe yeah yeah, jury's still out on that, but I think that's one of the other reasons why I'm experimenting on my own cattle, because if I take some outside cattle and I'm getting paid on the gain, even if we've got a low cost, if we're only gaining three quarters or a pound a head a day, a customer is not going to be happy. I'm not going to be happy in my bank account I'm not going to be happy.

0:35:32 - Cal
Yeah, yeah. All excellent points there. And using your own animals, you can see what's possible there with genetics that's made for grasses or for forage only.

0:35:43 - Matthew
Yeah, and I do think that as we get better at grazing, we're going to get better gains Again. That's just still. We've still got to measure that and confirm that.

0:35:54 - Cal
Put it that way yes, there's usually about two weeks every spring. I think I'm a great grazer. Yes, there's usually about two weeks every spring. I think I'm a great grazer. And then the fescue all seeds out and I'm like, oh boy, how do I not slow that down each year? Anyway, off that tangent.

0:36:10 - Matthew
Yeah, I feel for you.

0:36:13 - Cal
But on that subject, what are you grazing, what are your forages there?

0:36:27 - Matthew
So we are working on mainly Bahia grass. There is there's some Bermuda grass component and then there's some. There are still some warm season perennial native forages. We do have a component. It's not a huge component, but it is there. Yes and Cal, I'm going to tell you we graze a lot of weeds. That is a very large component of our warm season forage. Base is an annual weed and that's one of the things that Corrientes have done such a good job at doing. We're getting so much more utilization because of their non-selectivity, oh yeah, and I am also convinced that those Corriente cattle are teaching the conventional cattle to eat more weeds.

0:37:16 - Cal
Right, yeah, I said this. It's been quite a. It was probably a year ago. I said this on the podcast. I'd read I'd got the e-book on training cows to eat weeds from On Pasture Can't think of the lady's name and I should be able to, I apologize. Anyway, I got that e-book and I read it and I'm just going to get my cattle to eat thistles more because this is the problem thistles more because it's just a problem and I read the book. I'm getting stuff around and I go up there and I go move the cows and I'd put them in an area that had some thistles and those corientes had took off all the flowers on those thistles. I guess I'm finished training them. I need them to train my other cow.

0:38:00 - Matthew
I would encourage you to be consistent and stick with it and, of course, increase your density as much as practical and that's ask the animals to eat the weeds. That's what I call it. When I'm working on the grazing plan and you're looking at what's out there and you're going to determine how big a paddock am I going to make, a lot of that says there's this much grass and there's this much weed. We're going to ask the cow to eat the weeds and then we're going to observe and then we're going to respond accordingly. And if 80% of your cattle are thriving on that weed and grass mix, I think you're probably on the right track. You may have some cattle fall out, but if you can have 80% of your cattle utilizing or increasing your utilization by 50%, you can probably afford to cull that bottom 20%.

0:38:56 - Cal
Yeah, I think you're onto something there.

0:38:59 - Matthew
I look at weeds now as my diversity, because a lot of our children.

We're at a monoculture, kind of bahia grass, because that's what's been here and I would love for perennial natives to provide my diversity, and that is. It is there, and I think better grazing is going to increase that. But weeds are my diversity. They're providing different leaf structure and they're providing different roots and they're affecting the soil biology in a different way. And if my cattle will eat them, or even if they will eat half of them, oh yeah, it's been working. You just have to have the right kind of animal, an animal that's willing to try and willing to eat them and that's something you mentioned earlier about training your other cows to eat it.

0:39:49 - Cal
Those future generations of your animals are going to have a much more varied diet because those other animals are eating those weeds and then the other animals are seeing that they're training the calves. See that it's just going to improve as you move forward I agree.

0:40:09 - Matthew
And again, my bulls are treated the same way and they're passing those genetics on. Oh yeah, and we we're very low input on the cows. We don't deworm, we don't vaccinate the cows. I will doctor a foot rot and try to catch it early and preventative and then I'll mark that cow and most likely market that cow pink eye or a foot rot. And I was just observing today it is June the 5th and I was out there earlier today doing this rudimentary fly count and I couldn't find a cow with more than 50 flies. Oh yes, and a lot of people said you need to spray flies and I'm like if I sprayed that cow in a week she'd have at least that many flies right back on her. I didn't do anything but spend money If I was only 50 flies on a cow, that's as good as it's going to get. You need to be happy.

0:41:09 - Cal
And I'm sure if you look at your cows, you've got some cows that have super low number of flies and you've got other cows that the flies just seem to flock to.

0:41:19 - Matthew
Yes, that's true.

0:41:20 - Cal
Those ones that want to carry all the flies need to go to someone else's place.

0:41:25 - Matthew
Yes, sir, I agree. It just takes the willingness and the discipline to do that.

0:41:34 - Cal
Yes, and that discipline is really tough. But yes, if you have the discipline and willing to do it for the long haul, you can make some difference there, Sir. Well, Matthew, I've really enjoyed the conversation thus far and we haven't really dove too deep, but it's time for us to transition to our overgrazing section.

0:41:54 - Matthew
Okay.

0:41:54 - Cal
The overgrazing section is something we take a little bit deeper dive into. What you're doing on your operation is something we take a little bit deeper dive into. What you're doing on your operation. And our over-greasing subject today, or topic, is not one we've even talked about yet. It's apple cider vinegar. First off, for our listeners who haven't heard about apple cider vinegar, what are we talking about?

0:42:17 - Matthew
about Apple cider vinegar raw, unprocessed and unpasteurized. Those are the keys. It's the apple cider vinegar quote, unquote with the mother. It is effective for a lot of things and there are a lot of people and there's podcasts and there's books and there's YouTube. There are a lot of people and there's podcasts and there's books and there's YouTube and there's a lot of things. You can find out different ways and different benefits from apple cider vinegar. I can tell you what we use it for and what our experience is. I think that's what would be appropriate for this overgrazing, for a product that I could use in the wintertime to increase the utilization of my standing poor quality stockpile.

Oh okay, our goal is to graze the grass up in the growing season and we're fortunate that we can continue to graze in November. Sometimes even through December, we can still have grass with a little green to it and it's still technically quote unquote alive. But when we get to January and February, we're going to get cold weather, we're going to get a freeze and we're going to get rain, and that's one of the big things. That's different between grazing stockpile in Oklahoma, grazing stockpile at Minky Farm and Ray at Chiv. Oh yes, our grass begins to actually deteriorate because generally our winters are wet and you're going to have, I just call it, rotting Grass rots. Now we've got dry cows in January and February. So lower maintenance requirement, lower nutrient requirement in general. But we maintenance requirement, lower nutrient requirement in general. But we're not feeding hay. We graze 365. My main herd. I have not fed a roll of hay to my main herd in three years.

But we do have to supplement something to help them utilize that poor quality forage. I traditionally would use cottonseed cubes and I would just feed them a level of cottonseed cubes on a per head per day basis until their manure started to flatten out. So if that was, two pounds a head a day.

That's great. A little bit later in the year maybe got to go to three pounds, maybe got to go to four pounds, but that's how I judge. When the manure flattens out, then I know that I'm feeding right and trying to reduce that cost and then also trying to reduce the labor, because 650 cows in one mob and you're feeding them four pounds a head a day of cottonseed cubes, that's a lot of physical tonnage that you have to get distributed out and get consumed in a consistent manner. Apple cider vinegar definitely will increase the digestive efficiency. That's really what it's doing. It allows the cow to extract more nutrients from the plant than without it. To extract more nutrients from the plant than without it.

And there are a lot of people that I talked to that said they were able to graze through winter stockpile with a dry cow and so many ounces of apple cider vinegar ahead of day and that's all was really needed. So that was what we tried and we use what's called the dosatron. I actually put the apple cider vinegar in their water. Our grazing systems are all on pressurized water. We have ponds or dirt tanks, but they're actually sensed off. We sense off our dirt tanks. We only use them for emergency, if we lose power or if there's some other type of disruption with the water system. So that means if a cow is going to drink water, we in essence have a way to force feed them the apple cider vinegar.

And not only that, we know that the cows are basically going to get it on a consistent basis, because every cow drinks water and in general they drink water based on their body weight.

So in other words, a little six-weight yearling is going to drink the amount of water for her body and then therefore get that percentage of apple cider vinegar. And a 1,000-pound mature cow is going to drink more water and therefore get more apple cider vinegar. And with that Dosatron it was so easy. All we have to do is fill up a tote of apple cider vinegar, connect it to that dosatron and turn the water on. It's not electric, it works on the flow of the water. So every gallon of water that flows through the dosatron, it meters so many ounces of apple cider vinegar into the water. And other than periodically having to refill the tote, that's all the labor. The only other labor is going and checking and monitoring how many ounces of apple cider vinegar you're distributing every day and then looking at the results and looking at how the cow are performing and adjusting the apple cider vinegar accordingly.

0:47:18 - Cal
And when you started doing that, I assume you used cottonseed one year and then the next year you went to apple cider vinegar. Did you go whole hog and do the whole herd that way?

0:47:31 - Matthew
I did. I went whole hog and did the herd that way and my answer for one year trial is apple cider vinegar alone is still not enough. It did what it did as advertised and you can see it in the manure. You can see the particle size of undigested fiber go from an inch or three quarters of an inch down to a quarter of an inch. It is amazing. But there is time, especially in the month of February, where our forage gets so poor that it's still not enough.

0:48:11 - Cal
So the answer is next year.

0:48:13 - Matthew
I'm going to start feeding apple cider vinegar, probably in December and I'm going to watch that manure and then, when it starts to flatten out, I probably will have to give some cubes also. But I think, based on my calculation, I will probably feed less than half the cubes I normally feed, and even with the cost of the apple cider vinegar it's still going to be quite a bit cheaper to winter the cow on a total dollar amount, and that's all that really matters. What's the total cost for the end of the year?

0:48:45 - Cal
Well, very good. Have you noticed any other benefits or anything that was surprising to you?

0:48:57 - Matthew
No, other than it is well known that apple cider vinegar helps with internal parasites and a lot of people in the grass-fed world are all natural and don't want to use a dewormer. I've had success using apple cider vinegar to reduce or eliminate internal parasites, so I feel like that's just another thing. If our cattle are on apple cider vinegar for four months out of the year, not to mention our daily moves and all our other practices reduce our exposure to internal parasites. I think that's just another added benefit that we're getting. Can I quantify it? No, because I don't have split troughs or we haven't done a bunch of fecals, but in general, I don't have a chronic problem with wormy cattle. So as long as I'm not having a chronic problem with wormy cattle, I'm happy.

0:49:53 - Cal
Oh yeah, I think I've never used apple cider vinegar. I say that I have bought it some and taken it myself some. That stuff's pretty awful. I'm drinking my dose, right now.

0:50:05 - Matthew
I drink an ounce or two of apple cider vinegar every day and I just put it in enough water where it's so thin and I actually like it. I prefer it.

0:50:14 - Cal
Oh yeah, I didn't when I was doing it. I haven't done it in a little while. Probably talking about it will cause me to go get started back on it. I didn't dilute mine very much. I handled it. I diluted it just a little bit and basically took it like a shot. Your method is probably much better.

0:50:33 - Matthew
Like I said, I just sit it down and make it. I drink it all, either afternoon or I have it during the day. I'll drink it with my evening meal and I like water. I drink a lot of water we're talking about. If I put two tablespoons in a quart of water, or maybe even more it's thin, it takes the bite out of it.

0:50:54 - Cal
Oh yeah, because it does have a bite and I drink tons of water and I don't know why. I don't recall myself ever drinking it like that, and I don't know why. Because it makes perfect sense. I just drink a quart of water while we're here talking. Yeah, yeah, matthew, very interesting about apple cider vinegar. I do think it's something I haven't used, but it's been on my radar and I've thought about it in different methods, because you talk to goat people or small ruminants and it comes into play a lot with parasites and people wanting to use it in that fashion. But it is time we transition to our famous four questions sponsored by Ken Cove Farm Fence.

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0:52:55 - Matthew
I'm going to mention a book. There's many of them, but this is one that I've gone back to multiple times and it can be a bit of a tough read, but I found that the second time I went through it I got so much more out of it, and that's man, Cattle and Felt.

0:53:14 - Cal
Oh.

0:53:14 - Matthew
Johan Zietman, and particularly because he's describing a lot of conditions that I deal with, when he in that book, when he's talking about Thauer, felt that that's the range that I deal with, that is, large quantities of low quality forage. Oh yeah, and I would encourage anybody, regardless of which context is, to read or listen to man, Cattle and Salt and do it more than once. In some areas it's a little bit tough to digest, but maybe the second time it will go ahead and absorb.

0:53:50 - Cal
Oh yeah, yeah, so many books. I have a certain set of books that I reread. I'm a book rereader and it's amazing to me what I take out of a book each time I read it. It's always something different. It's like we were talking before the podcast, that this podcast. We were talking before the podcast, that this podcast. Maybe it'll speak to someone, help them take that next step. But wherever you are, you're going to get something that applies to you in that case, and when I think about books, I pull from it what applies to me at that point, and then, when I read it again, I'm at a new place and I may pull something else from it. So I'm always amazed by what I get from rereading a book. Yes, you bet, matthew. Our second question what is your favorite tool for the farm?

0:54:50 - Matthew
It depends on how you ask that. If you say what's my favorite tool or what tool I could live without, there might be different ones. A tool that I could live there's a lot of them but I don't know how I would live without pasture planning program that helps me lay out my paddocks. So this is not a commercial for Pasture Map, that just happens to be the program that I use. But trying to calculate stock densities, trying to calculate your forage inventory, and be able to stand there and say I have this much grass ahead of me or this many AUDs or grazing days ahead of me for my mob, I couldn't do it without PastureMap or some type of pasture measuring application.

0:55:45 - Cal
How long have you used PastureMap?

0:55:48 - Matthew
I know it's been close to two years, maybe a bit more. We resisted, we tried a lot. We were doing just google earth and the drawing. And then we got up. We found another deal that it was a free version and we were measuring and moving and we were putting up fence and it would. It was working.

But when we finally took the plunge and just got the subscription, it changed the way we're doing things and it also helped us keep records so we can go back and not just rest days for the current grazing season. But you can go back and say, okay, last year we grazed like this, let's alternate, or let's make sure that we're not becoming repetitive in the grazing plan. And that's one of my biggest theories in grazing is I call it shuffling the dominoes. You know where you just get at the table. I don't necessarily intentionally try to do things different or go out of order or I don't get caught up in oh, we can't graze that paddock like that, because I just mix it up. I just shuffle the dominoes and I figure that the chaos and the disruption and that's going to take care of itself.

0:57:05 - Cal
Oh, yes, yeah, Very good. I have not used pasture map. I tried it one time, and it's been a number of years ago. I tried it one time, and it's been a number of years ago. I'm not speaking to the current version and I found that it was tougher to get started on it than I wanted. I just put it by lay side. I have thought. I've used a couple other apps, I've used Google Sheets, but maybe it's time I revisit Pasture Map.

0:57:35 - Matthew
I would encourage you to do so. They do have a starter free version and we did that for a while.

We worked with the free version and I would say that for certainly especially a person that is a single operator or maybe a dual operator, it may be perfectly fine. One of the main reasons we went to the subscription was because we could have multiple users, and it's so easy. For example, when my sister's on duty for her weekend, she can see exactly where the cows are and she knows where they're going to go. You know where they're going to go and it's simply most of the time it's simply about a two or three sentence text is all we have to send to her for her to know what to do, and she's been completely disconnected for two weeks and she can just step right in, move the cows for her weekend. That's worth a lot.

0:58:31 - Cal
Oh, very good.

0:58:32 - Matthew
Oh yeah, yeah, I can see how it would be, yeah so the ability to communicate with others is a lot of value.

0:58:42 - Cal
Oh yeah, our third question, matthew. What would you tell someone just getting started? I?

0:58:50 - Matthew
would recommend finding someone who is already successful at what you want to do and, if you have the ability to work for them for a while, work under someone who has got experience and knows what they're doing and just spend as much time as you can learning before you start out on your own. And if that's not the case, if you're already in it and you are trying to make a transition, especially if it's with larger numbers, hire you some consultants to come help you, because it is very rewarding and it's been an enjoyable experience getting on the other side. But it can be very painful going through the growing pains, especially if you don't have any leadership or some guidance. You can make a lot of mistakes really fast.

0:59:55 - Cal
Yes, excellent advice there. And lastly, matthew, where can others find out more about you?

1:00:01 - Matthew
You can find out about. We do have a website. It has nothing to do very little to do with the grazing subject that we've been talking about, but you certainly can see a little bit about our other enterprise and there's a contact us form there. It's minkyhaycom, and anyone's welcome to email me. Matthewkminky at gmailcom. If anybody has any questions, they're welcome to send me an email and I'll do my best to respond in a timely manner.

1:00:40 - Cal
Wonderful, Matthew, really appreciate you coming on and sharing with us today. Thank you, Cal. I really hope you enjoyed today's conversation. I know I did. Thank you for listening and if you found something useful, please share it. Share it on your social media. Tell your friends, Get the word out about the podcast. Helps us grow.

If you happen to be a grass farmer and you'd like to share about your journey, go to grazinggrasscom and click on Be Our Guest. Fill out the form and I'll be in touch. We appreciate your support by sharing our episodes and telling your friends about it. You can also support our show by buying our merch. We get a little bit back from that. Another way to support the show is by becoming a Grazing Grass Insider. Grazing Grass Insiders enjoy bonus content, monthly Zooms and discounts. You can visit the website grazinggrasscom, click on support and they'll have the links there. Also, if you haven't left us a review, please do. It really helps us, as people are searching for podcasts and I was just checking them and we do not have very many reviews for 2024. So if you haven't left us a review, please do, and until next time, keep on grazing grass.

Transcribed by https://podium.page