Admittedly, I often encourage readers to replace “fed feed” with “grazed feed” to any extent possible. I’ve also suggested that what is possible is more than many of us have thought. We should not do the work the cows can do for themselves.

I also think most of us want to be profitable. At the very least, we don’t want to subsidize our ranches or cattle with the salaries from our day jobs or from bank loans that keep pushing us further into debt.

One of the biggest drivers of ranch profitability is replacing fed feed with grazed feed in almost all cases. The only situation where you can afford to put a machine between the mouth of the cow and her feed source is when the feed is a by-product of something else and is very low cost.

Even then you have to wonder, if that by-product is straw or baled cornstalks, would it have been more valuable left on the land to build soil and reduce erosion, or even be grazed by the animal thus leaving the manure on the land? Something, somewhere, becomes less efficient when we have machines do the work that a cow can do for herself. By allowing a cow to do for herself, we eliminate labor, fuel and machine cost.

I always have stressed that cows must be maintained in adequate body condition. I think cows that are expected to calve in late April or May can get by with a little less body condition in winter than cows that will be calving in February or March.

The recommendations we often hear that cows should be in a body condition score (BCS) 5 at calving, and heifers in BCS 6, are good. However, it’s much easier to get cows that calve in late-spring and early-summer to successfully graze through winter than winter-calving cows.