June 02nd, 2015

Light showers both in the morning and the evening. I moved the bulls to next split. Now there are two bulls that are lame and one bull that we can’t keep in. I spent most of the day with Rick Caquelin, NRCS Range Specialist for central Montana. Rick applies similar grazing practices with his cows on leased land, and our visit was a useful opportunity to compare notes. Rick, understanding our breeding period is in the normally hot and dry months of July and August, suggested we identify the greenest available feed on the ranch to help flush the cows for improved conception. No surprise that the likely candidate areas are our riparian areas. It got me thinking, that by mid-July most of the birds in these productive areas have fledged their young, and grazing pressure might be less harmful to the birds. To do this would require much creative temporary fencing. Stay tuned to see what we might try come mid-July. Rick and I agreed that two words that best describe the benefit of a short duration-long recovery grazing practice-NO TRAILS. That is trails that fill back with grass after we leave indicate that recovery periods are probably adequate to protect the health of the entire paddock.