The truth about stocking 20% more cattle on the same land

I'm convinced that we could stock up to 15 to 20% more of these stocker cattle on the same ground. Lazy TM livestock, we're here in Roscoe, Montana. Preston, my grandson, this is my son Dustin and myself, Terrell. My protein supplementation and my mineral supplementation was a steady by jerks approach. Seasonally, I would put out mineral or put out protein supplement and it seemed like I was always behind the eight ball. In a dry season like we're going through right now, it seemed like I was late to the table to get the product out there. And same with mineral. There are certain times of the year when cattle in this area will quit the mineral. Then when you put it back out, they would more or less gorge the mineral. Pure fact of overconsumption on some of the other protein supplements eventually to to get the consumption right, we'd have to take the approach. Well, we'll put out a ten day supply. And if they ate it in four, they then just went six days without it. With the Rhyzogreen product, we monitor the consumption. So far, so good. And so it's taken a lot of the it's more of a steady approach and taken a lot of the peaks and valleys out of mineral and protein supplementation. I've always been, even prior to Riomax, I've always been one to really watch that cow patty and and watch how that patty stacks up. I think the first and most notable thing was even in dry conditions like we have here today that we're seeing that that forage is being utilized because we're not stacking that patty. I think the second thing, especially on the cow calf side was those cows are shedding out. Those cows seem very satisfied. Not a lot of discontent in the cattle, but the satisfaction itself. We've seen as we wean simultaneously with our backgrounder. We each wean about a thousand calves at a time. Our backgrounder is impressed as to how our calves have weaned compared to his own. 's really quizzed me and asked me what do you think that difference is? I think the true difference is having those cattle on the Riomax, having that gut healthy and ready to start taking on that rash. It made our backgrounder enough of a believer that they started on Rio last spring with their own cow herd. They committed to just doing their young cows first. We think that, just weaning those calves simultaneously was a pretty good test, but our calves considerably easier, less treats. We just attribute a lot of that to how Rio had those cattle set up and ready to go. If you do get in a situation for whatever reason that there is over consumption, Rio has been very good in coming in and giving that customer product to bring them back to status quo with their consumption. So I don't think there's a lot of risk in that when you've got that cost guard protection. Once you get past the sticker shock and and you really do run your pencil and and you analyze, you know, the hay savings. And when you feed hay, they eat about six pounds less hay a day, and that was on a big group of pairs that we did. So $300 a ton hay, that's gonna be huge. The forage savings in a situation like this, but quote unquote normal year, which we're not having this year, I'm convinced that we could stock up to 15 to 20% more of these stocker cattle on the same ground. My advice is to try those young that young stock first and track consumption and see where it can benefit you there. And then if that works out and that is a benefit to you, then consider putting the the whole herd on. It's a big upfront cost and it's hard to calculate monetarily all those benefits in the in on the backside. But for us, I'm confident that it's there. You know, we we've sure seen it in our operation that it will pay for itself. And and at these levels and at these prices, it doesn't take much advantage to pay for it. It's it's it's an easier bite now than it's ever been.