Grazing Grass Podcast sharing Regenerative Ag Stories

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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 - Cal
Brian, we want to welcome you to the Grazing Grass podcast. We're excited you're here today.

0:00:05 - Bryan
Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be on it.

0:00:09 - Cal
Brian, to get started, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your operation?

0:00:15 - Bryan
Okay, so I'm on the family ranch that I grew up on.

0:00:19 - Cal
Oh yes.

0:00:20 - Bryan
Bruisette, Montana, which is rural post office on a dirt road west of Jordan Montana, and so grew up on the ranch, went to college, came home to help my dad. He actually passed away from cancer when I was 22 years old oh, I'm sorry Over the operation. At that point I still had a younger sister in high school and then my mother was still on the ranch. So I took over and started running it and then got married to my wife, Chelsea, in 2005. And then, shortly after that, we started buying the ranch and then we have two children Gracie is 16. Tiggen is 12. And so, yeah, been here basically my whole life, except for a couple years of college.

0:01:08 - Cal
Oh, very nice. So, brian, did you always think growing up on the ranch you were just going to continue doing that?

0:01:17 - Bryan
I always knew I'd be involved in agriculture in some shape or form. Oh yeah, and I always enjoyed cattle and ranching some shape or form. Oh yeah, and I always enjoyed cattle and ranching, and so I always wanted to be involved in it?

0:01:28 - Cal
And what did your dad run on the ranch?

0:01:31 - Bryan
He ran. He was a cow-calf operation with farming and haying.

0:01:35 - Cal
Oh yeah, and how has that evolved to what you're doing?

0:01:41 - Bryan
Okay. So when we started out we were doing the cow-calf and then farming haying, and so we were custom haying and custom combining to help forward the equipment, literally going seven days a week.

0:01:55 - Cal
Oh yes.

0:01:55 - Bryan
And it got to the point where my kids were in bed when I left and they were in bed when I got home at night. So we decided we needed to change things up, and so we headed into the regenerative direction from there.

0:02:09 - Cal
About when was that, when you made that little paradigm shift?

0:02:13 - Bryan
In 2015, we went to a holistic management course.

0:02:17 - Cal
Oh yes.

0:02:18 - Bryan
And then started changing things up and looking at our operation differently and started doing effing structure water fence. And then in 2019, we went to Ranchi for profit and got more on the financial side to help us out. And so we no longer hay, we farm a little bit, we plant annual cover crops for grazing.

0:02:47 - Cal
Oh yes. One quick question on those courses. We just had an episode out the other day discussing holistic management and ranching for profit. Do you think the order you went to holistic management, followed by, a few years later, ranching for profit do you think that was a great order to go in? Do you think that was a great order to go in? Do you think that was a good timeline to go in?

0:03:10 - Bryan
go to those conferences or not conferences, but schools yeah, so I think any order is fine, but I would do them closer together yeah holistic management is great on the grazing side when figuring your forages and and helping you in that direction towards the regenerative. And then I would recommend the ratchet for profit right away on the financial side just to figure out how to run those numbers and make your make everything profitable, run gross margins and all that. So they're both great courses. I would do them closer together.

0:03:45 - Cal
Oh, yeah, yeah that. So they're both great courses. I would do them closer together. Oh, yes, yeah. And with the holistic management, you already mentioned a while ago that you were leaving when your kids were asleep and you got home they were asleep and that really prompted you for some other changes. What caused? Was there anything else that really caused you to look into holistic management and go towards that?

0:04:04 - Bryan
yeah, the other thing was so I was working all the time and my wife helped a lot. We had kids in car seats and tractors and swathers.

0:04:11 - Cal
Oh yes.

0:04:12 - Bryan
But the other part of that was I was gone all the time, I was spending the money. My wife was trying to track finances and so there was obviously some heartache there because I didn't have time to deal with it. She was trying to figure it all out and we just weren't going in a good direction. So that was a lot of it, just so we could have a better quality of life and enjoy more time with our kids.

0:04:40 - Cal
I think that balance of farm and life, whatever you're farming or ranching, is so important and sometimes we forget it. I grew up on a dairy, so we had very long hours. We spent a lot of time with the cows, yeah, so you go to the holistic management. What was your biggest takeaway from it? Or maybe a better word, brian, to work, better way of word that what'd you do when you got home?

0:05:05 - Bryan
oh well, the first thing we did when we got home. So so then we decided to go to this class. It was in Lewistown, montana, and it was in January and it was cold, and we literally just brought our cows and fed hay all winter and supplemented them. We grass left, but that's just what we had always done. The first thing we got home was we kicked the cows back out on grass, started bale grazing and grazing grass and we started feeding a lot less hay.

0:05:36 - Cal
Oh yeah, initially did you find your cows worked great in that situation, or was there some heartache, or some heartache, but more hurdles to go through?

0:05:47 - Bryan
it was okay, we've kicked him out, and we were still supplemented with hay and oh yeah, we just made him eat a little more grass now, before we continue along that just a little bit.

0:05:58 - Cal
You're in montana. What kind of rainfall are we talking about? What kind of growing season do you have?

0:06:05 - Bryan
So we are in a 12 inch rainfall.

0:06:08 - Cal
Oh, okay.

0:06:09 - Bryan
And so we're May 1, we start grazing to what starts 1st of August. The grass starts curing out, but we can graze into September it's kind of part of the growing season, especially with annual cover crops and stuff and then by October we're into stockpile forages that are cured out. So a lot of times maybe supplemental protein.

0:06:39 - Cal
And is that when you think about your wintering program now, is it bell grazing and grazing stockpile now?

0:06:45 - Bryan
Yeah, so we've actually went away from cow-calf.

0:06:48 - Cal
Oh, okay.

0:06:49 - Bryan
We're all stockers and sheep, and the stockers are only here during the growing season, and the sheep we only winter sheep and so we winter the sheep on stockpile forage and a little bit of protein.

0:07:04 - Cal
And those winter requirements for wintering sheep is a lot less than wintering cattle.

0:07:08 - Bryan
Right, yeah, the water requirements too.

0:07:11 - Cal
Oh yeah, right, and I would assume you have more difficulty with frozen water than I do in Oklahoma.

0:07:18 - Bryan
Probably yeah.

0:07:21 - Cal
When did you make the change to stockers and move away from cow-calf?

0:07:25 - Bryan
When did you make the change to stockers and move away from cow-calf? So, starting in 2019, we had grasshoppers move in and hit severe drought, and that drought continued until 2023. Oh wow, so fall of 2021, we that summer we'd only had three inches of rain, there was no hay in the area and hay prices went through the roof. So we sold a de-stocker cow herd and then we kept all of our calves and littered them and grazed them and sold them as stockers. And then the next year we bought some calves, brought in some custom grazed stockers and then this year we're 100% custom grazed stockers.

0:08:10 - Cal
How has that transition been for you, going from cow-calf to stocker?

0:08:15 - Bryan
It's been great. So in our system we move the stockers twice a day. It's much easier to move a stocker than it is to move a cow and a calf twice a day.

0:08:27 - Cal
Oh yes.

0:08:28 - Bryan
Yeah, easier on water. Sometimes it was tough with calves to get them a drink on an intensive grazing system and we've really enjoyed the stalkers.

0:08:39 - Cal
So jumping back to your cow-calf. When did you start managing their grazing? More Was that after your holistic course?

0:08:46 - Bryan
Yes, in 2015.

0:08:48 - Cal
Yeah, and were you moving those? How often were you moving them?

0:08:53 - Bryan
So our cow-calf, we were moving every four or five days.

0:08:56 - Cal
Oh, yeah, oh that was intense. Yeah, and when you decided to go from cow-calf to stockers, were you still using that four to five-day rotation? But when you made that change, change, or had you increased it?

0:09:13 - Bryan
we were still there and part of that was severe drought and we were.

0:09:18 - Cal
We give them bigger areas oh yeah, and and you mentioned this, so how much rain have you gotten this year? Because you're not in a drought this year?

0:09:29 - Bryan
so so far, this far this year, starting from May 1 until now, we have probably had around 10 inches. Oh nice, a big change yeah.

0:09:39 - Cal
Now I was talking to Carson the other day and he was saying in Utah they had just gotten a fair amount of rain over a couple weeks and they were dealing with some flooding. Did you all receive some of that rain as well?

0:09:50 - Bryan
Yeah, we actually have. Lately we've been getting some rain, and last night we just had an inch of rain.

0:09:57 - Cal
Oh yes.

0:09:58 - Bryan
For us to get Nice. We've probably had probably three inches of rain in August, and for us to get anything in August is pretty amazing.

0:10:07 - Cal
Oh yes, that's never something you're liking, no more.

0:10:10 - Bryan
Well, yeah, that's never something you're like no more.

0:10:11 - Cal
Well, yeah, Okay. So one thing you made the decision I think you said in 2021, you sold your cow herd. Yeah, you all had been in a drought a long time, but making that change from cow-calf to stockers is difficult for a lot of people if they're going that way. Was that decision difficult for you?

0:10:38 - Bryan
Yeah, it was very difficult. It's very emotional. You know this cow herd that's been here my whole life.

0:10:45 - Cal
Oh yeah.

0:10:45 - Bryan
And you're really proud of your cows and it was really hard to load those trucks but it was a really good financial decision for us and in our path towards the regenerative and really getting that high impact grazing. The stockers work well for that and so, for instance, when we were cow calf, we were running about 350 cow calf pairs and about 100 breeding heifers oh yes and now this summer, on the same acres, we have 1700 stockers and a thousand sheep oh, wow so yeah, that's we've wrapped up.

0:11:23 - Cal
Yeah yeah, that's a big change there, doing that transition. I know in the middle of it, selling your cows, I get it because even I try and find follow the lassiter philosophy of cattle raising. If a cow doesn't raise a calf, someone's got to pay her feed bill this year, and if it's not a calf, it's her now sometimes you end up selling some cows you like because you've raised them and stuff. So I totally get that once you had made that switch to stockers and been doing stockers, do you miss the cow-calf part?

0:11:57 - Bryan
What we miss most would be the calving, the baby calf, and we miss branding. So we still have the brandings of the community where the neighbors all get together. We still rope and drag the calves. Oh yes, it's hard to be on that, I still go help some of the neighbors brand oh yeah but it was nice to trade that help and have that camaraderie with your neighbors oh, that would be nice.

0:12:19 - Cal
Yeah, we have a photo of my grandpa doing it like in I don't know, I guess it would be the late 30s, early 40s Horses, they've got a calf roped, he's throwing it. We've tried to enhance that picture. It's really aged well, 80 years ago, 60 years ago now, so it's not aged real well, but I love that photo. But that's not something we ever do here in my area. We're much more smaller land pieces here, smaller farms, so not never been exposed to that very much, but I could see how it'd be a lot of fun now just the community aspect of it with the stockers.

You also are running sheep. When did you add sheep to the operation?

0:13:11 - Bryan
We added sheep in 2018.

0:13:15 - Cal
Oh, okay.

0:13:17 - Bryan
We had sheep with our cow-calf and we had about 400 sheep at that time and now we're up 2,000.

0:13:23 - Cal
Oh, yes. So what surprised you when you added sheep to your operation? Actually, before we answer that, Brian, let's jump back. Why did you add sheep?

0:13:36 - Bryan
We added sheep, so we were in ranching for profit, and so actually it would have been 2019 when we added sheep.

0:13:42 - Cal
Oh, okay.

0:13:44 - Bryan
Anyway, we were in ranching for profit and just looking at enterprises and gross margins, the sheep had an absolute gross margin and we added the sheep and they grazed them with Italy.

0:13:56 - Cal
Oh yes.

0:13:57 - Bryan
Impact was so much different that we could add them without you know really taking anything away from the cow, just with different timing on grazing.

0:14:08 - Cal
Oh yes, Are there very many of your neighbors grazing sheep as well? Or were you the new person grazing sheep? There's still quite a few sheep in our area. Oh yeah, Are there very many of your neighbors grazing sheep as well? Or were you the new person grazing sheep?

0:14:14 - Bryan
There's still quite a few sheep in our area, oh okay. Always been big. There are lots of sheep and there's still quite a few in the area.

0:14:21 - Cal
Oh, okay, what kind of sheep did you go with?

0:14:24 - Bryan
We went with the fine wool, like the Targhee Rambouillet, merino.

0:14:28 - Cal
Oh, okay. So are there shearers there? You have them come in. Is that once a year? They come in and shear your sheep?

0:14:38 - Bryan
No, there's now portable shearing plants, four or five shearers and their crew and they just back in and shear the sheep and load up.

0:14:47 - Cal
Oh, when you're doing that. And so for wool sheep in my area we don't have any wool sheep unless you're showing sheep. We have all hair sheep here and I really see the populations growing. We've got about 150, but I would say there's at least two or three flocks in just a few miles of me. That's much bigger. Right, they really came on of late, it seems, and I say late last five years or so, because when we first got them we were like no one else had very many that we could find, but the wool sheep's interesting to me. So there's a few advantages to wool sheep versus hair sheep. One, or what I perceive as advantages one is the size your hair sheep's. On the smaller size you get better flocking or herding together Wool sheep, I think, or at least on some breeds. But the disadvantage is the wool, or that's in my mind. Is that a big disadvantage? Does that end up becoming a cost item, or is it a net zero with the wool, or how does that play out?

0:15:54 - Bryan
So our wool in our grazing system stays very clean and we've bred for really fine wool and it's high yielding so we get top market price.

0:16:07 - Cal
Oh, okay.

0:16:07 - Bryan
We get around $2 to $2.50 a pound and it's not a runaway, but it pays the shears and there's a little extra money.

0:16:17 - Cal
Well, that sounds like a win situation. It pays for them to get sheared and there's a little extra you can go out to dinner. Yeah, yeah, now I don't even know. You said per pound how many pounds do you get from you?

0:16:30 - Bryan
so, and you'll get eight to ten pounds oh okay, interesting, yeah does.

0:16:38 - Cal
Where does the wool go?

0:16:42 - Bryan
so there is a large well wool warehouse in billings montana, center of the nation oh okay, so you take it up there and they have storage and they core sample it. They send the core samples off and then they grade the wool to see the value. Oh, okay.

0:17:03 - Cal
I believe, the only wool manufacturing facility in the US is in North Carolina.

Oh, okay, yeah, interesting. I know I've said this on the podcast before, but when I was going through Oklahoma State, I needed one more elective to graduate, so I took sheep production. Yeah, sheep can pay for and go with. Of course, at that time you still had the wool incentive and stuff, but that's completely changed. It's always fascinated me. It took a number of years or decades before we got into sheep, though after that, but I think it's interesting Now when you got your sheep I hate to admit this, but I've admitted it before and I'll probably admit it in the future Sheep were a steep learning curve for me. When we first got them, I wanted to treat them like little cattle.

0:17:57 - Bryan
Right.

0:17:58 - Cal
And that's not the way they function, and our working pens, which are so great for cattle, was rendered inefficient for sheep. What were some growing pains or what were some things that surprised you about sheep?

0:18:12 - Bryan
So luckily I had grown up with sheep, oh were some growing pains or what were some things that surprised you about sheep. So, luckily, I had grown up with sheep. Oh, okay and understanding. And then we had built a new pipe krill for cattle and we still had our old krill. It was a cattle working facility that was made from wood. So we just revamped that with woven wire and wire panels and made it work for sheep.

0:18:33 - Cal
Yeah, oh, yes, yeah, a huge advantage there, having grown up with sheep, because we did too much sheep wrestling here.

0:18:44 - Bryan
Right.

0:18:44 - Cal
Finally, we got an alleyway for sheep. That makes it so much easier.

0:18:47 - Bryan
But I'd come in and we didn't have all that many sheep at the time and I knew I had lost nope, now, the first year we had sheep, we didn't have the alleyway, so we wrestled a lot of sheep and then we bought.

0:19:00 - Cal
Oh, yes, yeah, yeah. So with your sheep, when do you lamb them and when are you shooting to market the lambs?

0:19:09 - Bryan
So we lamb around the 1st of May.

0:19:12 - Cal
Oh, okay.

0:19:14 - Bryan
And so we've been backgrounding our lambs. We built some backgrounding lots and we background our lambs. We sell them around the 1st of January. Seems to be a really good market.

0:19:28 - Cal
Oh yeah.

0:19:29 - Bryan
And then last year we actually grass finished 100 head but ended up going. We finished them and they ended up going to missouri oh yes to be butchered and sold.

0:19:42 - Cal
So did that work out pretty good for you doing that path it was good.

0:19:47 - Bryan
Yeah, yeah, there was for quality grass fed lamb. It was really good. Something hard to come by in large volumes in the South, and so the guy from oh yeah. So to be able to get these lambs coming off high protein grass in the North, they were pretty happy to have them.

0:20:03 - Cal
Oh, yeah, I suspect. So you talked about backgrounding your lambs and marketing them in January. About what size are they lambs, and marketing them in January About what?

0:20:14 - Bryan
size are they when you're marketing them? So our finished lambs were. They were about 140 pounds.

0:20:19 - Cal
Oh, wow.

0:20:20 - Bryan
And then the lighter end, I think was around 100 pounds.

0:20:23 - Cal
Oh, okay, so my hair ewes they're going to only run 110, maybe 120 for big ones. We try to hold ours on grass and grow them slow and market about that same time and even at that we're marketing I don't know 75-pound lambs. We're not getting near the way you are.

0:20:45 - Bryan
Right yeah, these bull lambs. We have 140, 150-pound ewes oh yeah, makes a difference.

0:20:49 - Cal
We have 140, 150 pound ewes. Oh, yeah, makes a difference. With your sheep and grazing them, with your cow calf and now with the stalkers. Are you doing that in a flirt, as some people talk about, or are they each in their own area as they rotate through?

0:21:04 - Bryan
We have them in separate areas as we rotate through and then in the wintertime we'll graze those sheep across most of the ranch at a really fast pace. So it's a low impact grazing with the oh yeah, we just let them go through all the paddocks all winter and then we've had a little bit of protein. So we never let them graze anything down in the winter. We just keep it moving oh, yes.

0:21:29 - Cal
And what kind of fencing are you using for your stockers and for your sheep?

0:21:34 - Bryan
So we put in permanent paddocks with three-wire high tinsel.

0:21:39 - Cal
Oh, okay.

0:21:40 - Bryan
And once we trained our sheep, we put in training lots and trained our sheep. It works well. And then we just graze on a single polywire on our daily moves, once everything's trained and those animals are never hungry because we're moving them off enough that they don't really bother the fence, never really a big problem.

0:21:58 - Cal
Yeah, so how big are your enclosed area with the three wires that then you reduce down to the single wire?

0:22:05 - Bryan
So where our paddock size is? Oh, from 200 to 500 acres pounds.

0:22:11 - Cal
Oh, okay, okay, oh, from 200 to 500 acres pounds. Oh, okay, okay. I knew it'd probably be a little bit bigger than what we work with here, but I just didn't know how much bigger right, yeah, we're operating on 12 000 acres oh, yeah, yeah, I can't even think. 12 000,000 acres. What is that About? 17 sections? Did I figure that right?

0:22:34 - Bryan
Yeah, 640 in a section.

0:22:36 - Cal
Yeah, I may went a little higher on that section, maybe about 15 or 16. I don't know. Yeah, with your sheep, are you running livestock guardian dogs?

0:22:48 - Bryan
Yes, and we've had great success with the guard dogs. We run four guard dogs and sometimes three of the neighbors.

0:22:58 - Cal
Yeah, that was my next question. How many are you running with them? Do you have a particular breed you like?

0:23:05 - Bryan
really well, so we have Pyrenees and then some Akbosh, spanish Mastiff cross, and we really like that. The Spanish Mastiff Akbosh, and great luck with the Pyrenees. The Spanish Mastiff Akbosh, they do not leave the sheep.

0:23:25 - Cal
Oh yeah.

0:23:26 - Bryan
They stay with the herd really well. Sometimes the Pyrenees want to travel a little bit, especially the males, but the others don't. They stay with the sheep really well. The pyrenees want to travel a little bit, especially the males, with the others don't they stay with the sheep really well.

0:23:35 - Cal
I found that as well. My pyrenees wanted to roam the whole countryside here. Um, when I had them, I'd get a call. Hey, dogs are down here by the lake, five miles away. I'm like well, not where they're supposed to be. Yeah, I've got anatolian shepherd and an akb now and they're pretty good about staying. The Anatolian Shepherd's really good, except he's got hip dysplasia, so he won't go too far anyway. Right, and the Ackbosh, he's not quite as good, but he's pretty good. Let's go ahead and transition to the overgrazing section, because in the overgrazing section we're going to talk about deeper into your intensive grazing of native pasture in your dry environment. So first off, we talked a little bit about your environment earlier. 12 inches of rain. You're in Montana, so how much snow do you usually get during the year?

0:24:26 - Bryan
It varies. I would say most winters we'll get six inches to a foot and it might melt down Probably over 10 years. We get a winter where you get three or four feet of snow.

0:24:37 - Cal
Oh yeah.

0:24:38 - Bryan
But extremely cold. We have extremely cold temperatures through the winter, not a high snowfall usually.

0:24:45 - Cal
Oh yes.

0:24:46 - Bryan
We'll get blizzards, and then the wind blows and piles of snow up.

0:24:50 - Cal
Oh, okay.

0:24:50 - Bryan
Yeah.

0:24:52 - Cal
Does the snow typically do? You typically have snow on the ground throughout winter.

0:24:56 - Bryan
Not typically.

0:24:58 - Cal
Oh, okay.

0:24:58 - Bryan
We'll get snow and then it'll melt off. The worst part is some years. If we get early snow, it'll melt into ice. I overwintered our ice for a long time.

0:25:10 - Cal
Oh, yes, yeah, we don't get very much snow, and when we do get snow, usually the next day, it turns to mud and it becomes a mess.

0:25:17 - Bryan
Right.

0:25:17 - Cal
Occasionally we will get ice storms here, and ice storms are never good.

0:25:21 - Bryan
Right.

0:25:22 - Cal
And sometimes you will hold that cold weather too long before it comes down. Then it's really cold for us, but I'm sure it's still nothing compared to what you all have.

Too for us, but I'm sure it's still nothing compared to what you all have. Two negative, like negative 40, oh yeah, I'm not happy if it's just negative one. So so do you. So you're dealing in an environment that's on the dryer slide. You have some extremes with weather there. How do you manage your intensive grazing in this environment? And I say that before I even want you to answer that let's talk about your pastures and what you're grazing.

0:26:00 - Bryan
Okay, so we're set up because we used to farm and we planted quite a few acres back to grass, so we have tame pasture.

0:26:09 - Cal
Oh yes.

0:26:10 - Bryan
But any percent of our place would be native pasture. The tradition, you know, had traditionally been continuously grazed in large pasture.

0:26:19 - Cal
Oh yeah.

0:26:20 - Bryan
So it was starting to be bare ground and less species, oh yeah. So when we went into it we really wanted to repair or heal our native range, so we utilized the tame in the spring to graze. Oh okay, it's green and growing earlier and that gives our native a chance to come up, get some seed heads, get started, and then when we go through our native pastures, we're going through on two-day moves and we back, fence everything, no re-grazing, and then we're shooting for an 18-month rest period on all of our native, oh yes, so we're trying to give that a good rest, recovery.

So then we're changing the season of use on that native the next time we use it. So if we graze in the spring, the next time we graze it late summer, fall.

0:27:10 - Cal
Yes.

0:27:11 - Bryan
Just so we're building that rest period and graze it a different time of year, so we're primarily cool season grass and some warm, and we found that change in things that we use really helps our warm season grasses establish.

0:27:27 - Cal
Oh yeah, Now, when you say native pasture, I immediately think of the tall grass prairie. Are you part of the tall grass prairie or are you a little bit to the west of it?

0:27:40 - Bryan
We're west of. We're what they call the short grass prairie.

0:27:43 - Cal
Oh, okay, actually, yeah, that would make sense. So what are some species there for your native grasses?

0:27:50 - Bryan
So we have Western Blue, grandma.

0:27:53 - Cal
Oh, okay.

0:27:55 - Bryan
Kentucky Blue. We have Green Needle, needle and Thread. We have green needles, needle and thread. We have, let's see, yeah, there's. And then we have quite a little sage. And then we have some different forbs and stuff. We have one forb called winter fat.

0:28:14 - Cal
Oh, okay.

0:28:15 - Bryan
It's a really high protein quality plant, very fortunate to have that one. Oh, okay, it's a really high protein quality plant, very fortunate to have that one, and so we probably have 15 to 20 species of grass.

0:28:26 - Cal
that's predominant and just those few. I'm not familiar with those grasses and that makes sense. You'd be in the short grass side of the prairie. Yeah, for your tame pastures. What kind of species mix do you have on those?

0:28:39 - Bryan
So we have a lot of like intermediate pubescent type grasses, like tall wheat grasses.

0:28:46 - Cal
Yes.

0:28:47 - Bryan
We usually put some alfalfa with it, and then of course, there's a lot of straight crested because of highly erodible farmland, like in the 30s and later with crested wheatgrass to hold the soils and it's a monoculture. Nothing will really grow with it. So we really utilize that early spray when it's green and growing, and once that grass starts to cure, it would be better feeding straw.

0:29:13 - Cal
Oh yes.

0:29:14 - Bryan
Green. It's pretty palatable, pretty good protein.

0:29:17 - Cal
So are you you mentioned with your native pasture? You're going for an 18-month rest period With your tame pasture. What kind of rest period are you working with there?

0:29:27 - Bryan
About a 12-month 12 to 15 months. We're grazing that every spring. Maybe we'd start in a different spot each time as we go through it, so it'd be a 12-month.

0:29:38 - Cal
Oh yeah, and with the long rest period, are you doing some of the ultra-high density where you're moving twice a day with your stockers, or are you leaving more on the ground than that?

0:29:52 - Bryan
So on our native. When we're moving them twice a day, we're not as high of density as the team, so we're always leaving some grass behind. We're trapling some, trying to get litter in contact with the ground and get some organic matter, but we're not going as intense and tight of paddocks as when we do tame.

0:30:15 - Cal
Oh yeah.

0:30:16 - Bryan
The tame seems to respond really well to that high. It's real quick and you're in and you're out.

0:30:21 - Cal
Oh yes.

0:30:21 - Bryan
It's green and growing anyway and with the native we're moving and we're fairly tight, but we're giving them lots more room to let those plants establish and regrow quickly.

0:30:35 - Cal
Oh yeah, Do you get the same type of grains or same amount of gain on the tame versus the native?

0:30:44 - Bryan
We get better gains on our native pasture.

0:30:47 - Cal
Oh, yes, yeah.

0:30:48 - Bryan
And so higher protein.

0:30:50 - Cal
Does the native handle the drought better than your tame?

0:30:53 - Bryan
It does, and we also found I think that's probably a softball question there. We also found our native pastures now.

0:31:04 - Cal
Grasshopper impact was a lot lower on the natives than it was the team. Oh, interesting, yeah, we have had a ton of grasshoppers here this year. In fact, I was walking through one of my pastures the other day and I saw this tree with little fruit on it and I'm like what kind of tree is that? And it took me a second Is that a plum? We have wild plums, okay, not too many. Have to look, but the leaves were almost completely gone on the tree and I was like what? Then I looked at the bark no, it's a persimmon tree, which is fine, but the grasshoppers had almost consumed all the leaves off that tree and is, I don't know, 10 foot, 12 foot tall tree. So not a big tree, but interesting, yeah, now you mentioned earlier, I think with your stockers, and you're bringing them into graze around may 1st yeah and then holding.

Do you do any kind of conditioning and when I say conditioning that probably is the wrong word but to get them set up and ready to go out, because I would assume they're not used to electric fence and stuff.

0:32:11 - Bryan
Yeah, so we built two high tensile lots, high tensile electric lots. So they'll scuff the truck and we unload them and we check for health, make suretense electric lots. So they'll get off the truck and we'll load them and we check for health, make sure everything's good there, and then we put them in those lots overnight, let them settle down, give them some hay, and then those lots are hot and then the next morning we trail them out and then we'll put them in a bigger area it's mostly the three wire, start introducing them to the poly wire, the single poly, and then after about three or four days they get used to that fence and then we start tightening them up, smaller and smaller.

0:32:50 - Cal
Oh yes.

0:32:51 - Bryan
Once they're trained.

0:32:53 - Cal
Do your stockers? Where do they typically come from?

0:32:57 - Bryan
So all of ours came from one guy and they were all out of feedlots in this area. Oh, okay. They were all purchased from ranchers in this area. Oh okay, so they're acclimated to our area, which works really well.

0:33:12 - Cal
So for cattle in your area you see a lot of Angus base, larger size, larger frame animals.

0:33:18 - Bryan
Yeah, yeah, a lot of these are Angus, red, angus, base and then, with some cross breeding in them, maybe some charlie or different scimitar cross.

0:33:28 - Cal
Oh, yes, yeah, okay, very interesting one thing with your moves. The first thing with your moves and doing that is water, and I think you talked about when you all came back from holistic management. You really looked at that water infrastructure. How can you tell us about your watering infrastructure too, so that you're able to move cows or stockers twice a day?

0:33:54 - Bryan
So after, in 2015, when we came back and started doing some fencing and put all of our herds in one, we found out right away water would be the biggest limiting factor. So we started infrastructure projects. So at this point we've put in about 12 miles of pipeline, 24 permanent 2,000-gallon water tanks, we've put in storage tanks, we've tied wells together. So we did a lot with water. So we're able to water. So we split the stockers. We have one, but one herd was 800, one was 900. And this summer we have not had any water issues with those.

So, we're able to water that many and probably could water more, so we'll see where our limit is. So, I think our system would handle about a thousand per herd. So, yeah, it took a long time to get there, and this is the first year we've really wrapped up and had everything ready. And so what we did is we put water tanks in central locations.

we'll have about four paddocks coming to one tank oh, okay so then we can graze around that water tank and use the single poly wire in each of those paddocks so we can graze a long time off of one water tank.

0:35:17 - Cal
Oh yes, rotating with that paddock coming off the water tank and you're moving a single wire, are you not putting a back wire so they can go back to water, or are you putting a lane back to?

0:35:28 - Bryan
water. We put water alleys so they don't back. Graze.

0:35:32 - Cal
Oh, okay, Okay, yeah. And the other thing with your grazing. I see back there on your wall you have a giant grazing chart.

0:35:41 - Bryan
Yep, Yep, that's our grazing chart. And then and underneath that maybe you can't see it, but there's some maps underneath too.

0:35:52 - Cal
Oh, I see All our yeah. Oh okay. So tell us a little bit about your grazing chart and I'm gonna be real honest right here. Brian, I have played with a little bit of a grazing chart on a spreadsheet, not very much. Talking to tom kravitz other day, he really he's, like you, got to use a grazing chart. So I'm trying to force myself to and I see some benefits to doing it. I just haven't, that's just, we just haven't. So when did you start using the grazing chart and how's it work for you?

0:36:28 - Bryan
So we started in 2015 with the grazing chart, and then we we do on the computer also, but I really like that visual grazing chart, and so the thing to think about a grazing chart is it's not a set in stone plan, it's just planning. So you're looking at your paddocks and where we want to start, where we want to end up. Well, as you're in it, the days change longer, shorter Like this year was raining, so we're getting more time the whole way through.

0:37:00 - Cal
Oh yeah.

0:37:01 - Bryan
And then so you just go with a different colored marker with the actual days.

0:37:07 - Cal
Oh yes.

0:37:07 - Bryan
Change it as you go, and the nice part about the grazing charts for us is that then you have a record of where you're looking at those rest periods. Well, we were in here this time last year. We need to move it to here. Oh yeah, type of stuff. So, yeah, it's been a great. I started out by hand and then we went into the online one, which is great, but I like having that visual hanging in the office, see where we're at.

0:37:34 - Cal
Oh yeah, yeah, gray, but I I like having that visual hanging in the office. See where we're at. Oh yeah, yeah. Now with that, and I look back, there are you. So each year you have a new grazing chart, so you have the old one that you can go back to right, I have a smaller paper version oh, okay so we can put it in a file oh yeah.

0:37:53 - Bryan
My big one's just a visual. So we walk in the office and we have a hired man and so, like on Monday mornings, we have a ranch meeting. But it's a visual for him. Everybody's on the same page.

0:38:06 - Cal
Oh, yes, yeah, Very good. So you bring up something right there. So every Monday morning you have a meeting or a planning period.

0:38:17 - Bryan
Yep.

0:38:18 - Cal
Would you consider that the I'm trying to think of the right word working on the farm.

0:38:25 - Bryan
So yeah, we have a meeting, so there's working in the business and working on the business.

0:38:31 - Cal
Right, right, there you go.

0:38:32 - Bryan
So we have a meeting with the hired man working in the business. Right, right, there you go. So we have a meeting with the hired man working in the business, so we discuss the week, what needs done. So then my wife prints out what comes out at a meeting, so it's like a list for everybody and everybody knows where everybody's at and when they're doing it. Oh yeah, and so then our hired man leaves and he's got his to-do list Well then we do a working on the business.

So that's where we can dive into the, whether it be the grazing plan, the financial side, the profit loss, all that stuff.

0:39:05 - Cal
Yes. Cash flow whatever phone calls that need to be made, stuff like that. How long does that typically take on that day? Is it? Do you have it scheduled for just a certain amount of time or do you just go until what needs done gets done for that portion?

0:39:22 - Bryan
So the portion with the higher mat is probably 15, 20 minutes. Because of the planning we'd have everything in order, so that's pretty quick. And then, uh, you know, the financial side is more of a like maybe my wife's going to work on the cash flow and I'm going to call this guy. So we're just planning that out, we're not. So it's pretty quick, just oh, okay nothing to doubt. And then after that, on your own time, you're looking at, uh, making those decisions or doing that planning.

0:39:54 - Cal
Oh yeah, do you look at financials every week, or is that like once a month?

0:40:00 - Bryan
It's probably more of a once a month. We bring it up and make sure everything's up to date.

0:40:06 - Cal
Oh yeah.

0:40:06 - Bryan
What's done we're?

0:40:12 - Cal
definitely, it's on the plan every week. Just a reminder to keep track of everything. Was that a pretty easy transition to start doing those meetings or, for one thing, you're working with your wife there? Is there any extended family involved?

0:40:27 - Bryan
no, it's just my wife and I and our parents, oh yeah, which I would.

0:40:32 - Cal
I'm gonna make an assumption here.

0:40:34 - Bryan
That's a little bit easier to get those going than if you've got extended family in there I'm sure it is because being in ratcheting for profit so like, and being on the l board, there were some younger family members that were on the l board yes when they would try to take a plan home to convince the parents or uncles, and that's tough.

0:40:55 - Cal
Oh yeah.

0:40:55 - Bryan
Especially if you haven't been through Ranchi for Profit, and we're very fortunate. So my wife and I both went to Holistic Manager together and Ranchi for Profit oh, very nice. It was great because it put us on the same page. I think it would be really hard for just one Try to come up with an explanation of everything.

0:41:11 - Cal
Oh yeah, yeah, try to come up and explain everything. Oh yeah, yeah. And is she highly involved in the ranch as well?

0:41:17 - Bryan
she is, yes, very involved in the ranch and she also works during the school year. She's a speech language pathologist and she oh yes she's volleyball but very involved in the planning oh yeah, we do and yeah, my wife's a teacher.

0:41:34 - Cal
She teaches first grade. She's been teaching kindergarten. She finally was able to progress and go beyond kindergarten. Now she's in first grade, but she's not as involved on the farm as that. Now I'm going to go on a tangent for just a second and so listeners don't want to hear about non-ag tangent. Just skip forward 30 seconds. When I went back to college, I got my animal science degree at Oklahoma State and then came home and we dairied for a number of years and then we sold out the dairy and I went back to college for education. Part of getting into teacher school, I had to go get my. I had to go through a speech assessment had to go through a speech assessment and going through that speech assessment I was 30 years old.

I found out I did not pronounce THs. I did F sounds or D sounds in places of them all. So as a college student going back to college, just 30 years old, I went to speech lessons twice a week to learn how to produce the TH sound, which is.

I'm glad that was pointed out to me, but that's an interesting thing to me. How'd I get to that age and not realize I wasn't doing it Right? Well, brian, before we wrap up with the famous four questions, anything else about your journey you would like to share?

0:43:02 - Bryan
I guess for us it's been a great journey and the biggest part that would change is our quality of life yes, going into the system and so everything we do as a family. They go out and move fish. We have more time to go. We're not far from the Fort Peck Reservoir. We have a boat.

0:43:21 - Cal
Oh yes.

0:43:21 - Bryan
Your fish who play on the boat, those things that weren't possible during the summer when you were so busy. And we plan our grazing. Well, we'll go out early this morning and we'll move the fence and we'll go to Lake and we'll come back this evening and we'll begin. Oh yes, so really, when we're doing our planning, we're always looking at quality of life. It's a pretty high score. Obviously, your enterprises need a good gross margin, but we weigh the life pretty heavy. That's something we learned is just to enjoy what we're doing. Yeah, it's been a great journey.

0:43:59 - Cal
Excellent. I think that actually feeds into our third question, a little bit about advice. I think that quality of life is so important and sometimes we forget it. On the farm Right, my quality of life improved so much when we sold our haying equipment. Haying just took too much time, too much mechanic work. I was pretty happy to sell that.

0:44:23 - Bryan
So I was just in Redmond and Carson asked me, because he was asking about it. He said well, how do you stop haying? I said, carson, just sell your haying equipment.

0:44:34 - Cal
That's the answer.

0:44:36 - Bryan
Like oh well, I'll have to go tell my dad then.

0:44:39 - Cal
Oh yeah, yeah, it's a tough change. In fact, we were looking at some pasture a while back and Dad's like, oh, I wish I had haying equipment. I just run in after you move cows and I'll just go in and chop it down. Wrap up, what little's there Like. We do not want any haying equipment.

0:44:58 - Bryan
Right, yeah, yeah.

0:45:00 - Cal
Of course. I guess if you enjoy it and Dad's like it'd just be a little bit Well that's not the way it used to be.

0:45:07 - Bryan
Okay.

0:45:07 - Cal
I could see a little bit.

0:45:09 - Bryan
I'm just enjoying it.

0:45:11 - Cal
Well, brian, it's time for our Famous Four Questions, sponsored by Ken Cove Farm Fans. They're the same questions we ask of all of our guests. And our first question what's your favorite grazing grass-related book or resource?

0:45:26 - Bryan
So I really like the Stockman Grass Farmer. Oh yes, the paper. There's a lot of good articles and then it comes. You know, every time you get it there's something new. So there's a lot of good information and then that gives you that might give you information, or you go on and look at another article or look for a book. Yeah, that's one we've really enjoyed.

0:45:49 - Cal
I think that's an excellent resource, getting the digital copy as well, but I find and this is me, even for as much as I love technology and my e-reader, because I can upload that PDF to my e-reader and read it on that I don't read it as much as the paper copy, which has been interesting because I thought, oh, the digital would be great because I can read it anywhere I am. I'll just have it on my tablet, it'll be great. But I find that I don't use it as much as the paper version, which I always have sitting next to where my chair is.

0:46:20 - Bryan
Yeah, that's the nice part, yeah.

0:46:22 - Cal
Yeah, Our second question what is your favorite tool for the farm?

0:46:27 - Bryan
Probably our favorite tool probably is these wider rollers that we got to go on at atv. And yes, they use an electric drill to wind the wire, because we put a lot of poly wire around every day and reel it back up. So those wire rules, compared to do it by hand, have saved us a lot of time because so and you wear your arm out, so those have been really awesome.

0:46:58 - Cal
Do you string the wire out with the roller as well?

0:47:01 - Bryan
Yep, yep, it's on the same roller. And then we set them up so it's sideways on the four-wheeler.

0:47:10 - Cal
Oh yeah.

0:47:10 - Bryan
And, as it reels, you can just grab a post, step it in and drive forward.

0:47:15 - Cal
Oh, yeah, very good.

0:47:17 - Bryan
Or if my kids go, I make them do it, I'll put the post in on foot.

0:47:22 - Cal
They need to do it on foot so that they can appreciate the four-wheeler at some point in their life, but not yet.

0:47:28 - Bryan
Yeah, yeah.

0:47:31 - Cal
Our third question what would you tell someone just getting started?

0:47:35 - Bryan
I would tell them to one educate yourself, find like-minded people, join a group. Like we have emirates. You want to regenerative ag group, so we get together. We have meetings, we have speakers, like this summer we had alejandro carillo oh yeah unique al, find those, get together, talk to people.

And then the other thing is start with your very best ground and start grazing that, because you'll see results quicker than if you're trying to fix something that's poor. Oh yes, you'll make it give up. But if you start with a rest period, even if you split one paddock to start with and just let it raise it, let it rest and see what happens, oh yeah, just don't get discouraged. Find someone that's been doing it. There's so much information on fence and all that stuff water you don't have to reinvent the wheel and just find like-minded people. That any of those seminars or any of those deals. It's very encouraging and it's a safe place to ask questions.

0:48:40 - Cal
Oh yeah.

0:48:41 - Bryan
So that would be my. That's what.

0:48:44 - Cal
I would recommend. Very good, excellent advice there, and Brian. Lastly, where can others find out more about you?

0:48:52 - Bryan
I don't know, I hide out pretty good.

0:48:54 - Cal
That's a good thing.

0:48:56 - Bryan
We do have a Facebook page we don't do enough on, we need to do more. And then also through that, through that EMRA, eastern Montana Regenerative Ag it's on Facebook there is. They do like a producer profile of people involved in that. Oh yes, and there's, of course, there's some videos and pictures. Um, I would like to get better social media.

My wife tells me I need to and take more oh yeah, I just haven't done that yet, but yes, you go forward, we're trying. We'll also, uh, be speaking at the oh, what is it? The Symposium in Billings in January, symposium they've been having put on by the RCS. I won the breakout sessions with my wife and I for that.

0:49:43 - Cal
Oh yes, excellent, Royal.

0:49:45 - Bryan
Health Symposium.

0:49:47 - Cal
Oh, okay.

0:49:49 - Bryan
That's a really good one. Yeah, it's a really good conference.

0:49:53 - Cal
Very good.

0:49:56 - Bryan
There's lots of other good speakers if you don't want to listen to me, but oh, I I think they should go and listen to you, brian.

0:50:03 - Cal
Brian, we really appreciate you coming on and, just for our listeners, brian came on here at a very short notice so we could have an episode coming out this week because we were running a little bit behind, and a hat tip to Carson for putting us in touch. So, thank you, brian, I appreciate you coming on and sharing with us.

0:50:23 - Bryan
Thank you for having me and definitely shout out to Carson and the Redmond Natural Mineral Soil.

0:50:31 - Cal
Very good.

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