Creating Abundance in Arid Climates
Shaye Koester 00:05
Hey hey, it's Shaye Koester and I'm your host and the founder of Casual Cattle Conversations, a global rancher education company that strives to bring honest thoughts and conversations from ranchers and leaders to other ranchers. Be sure to follow @cattleconvos on social media to have more in depth conversations around the ranching, business and lifestyle brought to you. If you're ready to take your operation to the next level and improve your lifestyle too, send me a message about my ranchermind group. rancherminds, are monthly roundtable discussions for ranchers to learn from peers and experts and leave a call with actionable advice to make changes on their own operations. With that, let's see who our guest is today, and what experience and advice they have to offer you to improve your own preparation. Well, thank you for joining me today. I'm excited to have you on the show. I know this is our first time talking, but I have visited with your brother a little bit. So to start off, would you really share what your background in the ranching space is and how you got started?
James Jeffers 01:14
Thank you for having me, Shaye. Basically, I'm a fifth generation cattle rancher and in the northern part of Chihuahua, Mexico. Our family moved here in the in the late 1800s, early 1900s. We've been ranching in this area ever since going on almost 100 years now. But my personal background is I was born at the ranch and raised at the ranch, basically this is this is all I know. When I first started actually managing the ranch, I was fresh out of high school. I mean, it hasn't been that long. I didn't go to college. I didn't really want to go to college. So well, the ranch was the second best thing to do. So I started managing the ranch in 2016. I'm only 24 years old. And well, since then we've started with more intensive grazing practices, or regenerative grazing practices here at the ranch and we've been able to maximize our profits. By doing so
Shaye Koester 02:33
How have the conditions of your pastures changed with these holistic approaches?
James Jeffers 02:42
Well, we've been able to increase our carrying capacity by three times as much. So I mean, that gives you an idea of the quality of forage we have now. We don't give him any protein. I mean, it's strictly grass, grass-fed beef. I mean, we don't give any other type of forage just the grass that we grow. We graze out year round and our area is, semi arid to arid. We get anywhere from 15 to 18 inches of rain a year. But we do have some some drought years, like in 2020, we got four inches of rain, and we could still double our carrying capacity without having that much rain. So as our pastures, I mean, you can see the difference in a heartbeat. And, well, the numbers are there to show to show that this type of management actually works. And I mean, it's for ranch in this area to run as much cattle as as we do. It's I mean, it's one in 100. So I mean, that's our we've seen the benefits.
Shaye Koester 04:14
So what is your like stocking right now? Or what does your carrying capacity look like, now that you you said you've increased the amount of cattle you can run by three times? So what does that look like for you?
James Jeffers 04:29
In this area, people usually run from 12 hectares to 15 hectares per cow per year. We use the metric system and Mexico acres would be about roughly 20 acres per cow per year. And we're running three hectares per cow per year, which is roughly about seven acres per cow per year.
Shaye Koester 04:52
Wow. So what what are your forage types there? What are some of those native forages,
James Jeffers 05:05
We mostly we have perennial grasses blue grama black grama, red grandma. We've counted up to 20 different types of species here at the ranch. I mean, they're all mostly perennials. We have very, very little annuals high-quality forages that keep their protein year round and with the right rest period, it really helps the cattle eat a better diet. When you have I mean, stockpiled forage is it helps their nutrition like you can imagine.
Shaye Koester 05:48
So there are multiple different ways to implement regenerative practices. When you look at grazing, what models are you looking at? I'm sure you've kind of adapted it to your own ranch and what works as many people do. But really, when you say you are implementing regenerative practices, what does that look like for you on a daily basis.
James Jeffers 06:11
Here at the ranch, we have over 500 paddocks give or take. All those 500 paddocks, we make them year round with poly wire, everything we use is portable. Our infrastructure is portable, we can pick up wherever we want and at a very low cost. So we build over 500 paddocks a year we move daily, sometimes we even four or five times a day. So it's highly intensive. So we can get the best out of the out of our forage, use it properly and rested properly also. So out of those 500 paddocks, we have a rotation of about 425 days of rest per paddock. So I mean, our per paddock, we have a time period, we use it maybe six hours for every 420 days. So our rest period is what's making this work.
Shaye Koester 07:23
Wow. So you talked about how you're constantly on the move moving cattle, how many employees how many people do you have working on your operation to manage this workload then?
James Jeffers 07:38
It's only me and I have a one hired hand. But other than that we're running. I mean, in between me and my hired help, we're running over 500 cows. And we have about 200 stockers here at the ranch. So there's quite a bit of work. I mean, when you're organized and since you move them every single day, it cuts down on your on basically checking the cattle health wise, since you see him every day. I mean it. It simplifies everything. Most people think because moving once a day, it's going to be a lot more difficult. But honestly, it's a lot simpler than moving moving every 15 days or every 20 days and your paddocks are a lot smaller so it's easy to get around your paddocks with poly wire in a day and just keep it portable, keep it simple. Well I don't have that much help but we have a well organized ranch.
Shaye Koester 08:49
So what are some processes you've implemented to make putting up that poly wire faster, easier, just make the whole process more efficient.
James Jeffers 09:02
What what we usually do is, is make instead of having like your typical wagon wheel, or having something permanent, basically we go with what our land gives us. So all our fences go off of the terrain. Most of our our ranch is flat. So basically we just build a small squares and then we have water in every single paddock. So the water it's all piped, we have a pipeline a two inch pipeline that goes throughout the ranch. And from there, we're grazing the animals we can connect our portable water trough to wherever we need the pipe. So the water for cattle
Shaye Koester 09:56
Do you do any like you know lease out any recreation activities on the ranch or do anything on that front in addition to this, or do you just I mean, is it just are you a commercial operation? What does that look like for you guys?
James Jeffers 10:13
Basically, it's it's a commercial operation, what we do will basically it's cow calf. Once we wean our calves, we export them to the US. So we export live cattle to the US. Other recreational activities we do, there's a little bit of hunting whitetail hunting and turkeys. But other than that, it's purely just cow calf. So we might run a little stockers here and there but basically just cow calf.
Shaye Koester 10:49
Okay, so have these grazing practices benefited? Have you seen a large benefit in the amount of wildlife present? The availability of hunting on your ranch?
James Jeffers 11:02
Yeah, for sure. I mean, what's happening is we're basically building a microclimate here at the ranch that is helping us with all types of wildlife biodiversity. We also work with a lot of conservation services. Basically any migratory birds that come to our ranch, it's a conservation, so we can take care of those animals that need their habitat. And we've been working with the Rocky Mountain bird Conservancy for the past four years, I think. And basically what they do is take care of evolved migratory bird species that come from the Rockies down to Mexico. And that's a big part of our, our goal here at the ranch to at least leave what we have better than when we got him.
Shaye Koester 12:05
I think that's an awesome point to leave things better than when you found them and something a lot of ranchers try to do. So with that kind of looking back at, you know, the types of practices you're using, you know, what resources do you go to, to continue your learning, you know, what did that process look like as you got started? Who did you turn to for advice?
James Jeffers 12:29
First, I turned to my dad. When the holistic management movement came to Mexico, he was one of the first pioneers. So I turned to my dad a lot and also the Savory Institute helps a lot and Ranching for Profit. I am an alumni from Ranching for Profit, which it helps a lot when you're trying to run a business. You're running a business off of what nature gives you and you're trying to manage resources that can be better improved. Knowing how to do that is key. And I mean, fortunately, here in Mexico and Chihuahua, there's quite a few people that are practicing regenerative agriculture or regenerative ranching, whatever you want to call it, there's a lot of people here in Chihuahua in my state that are actually doing it and basically we all have a group chat. We just bounce ideas off of each other, but any type of thing you want to learn. I highly recommend to take courses and learn about it.
Shaye Koester 14:02
Well, that's exciting. So what mindset do ranchers need to have when they are starting to get into regenerative grazing and really embrace that style of ranch management?
James Jeffers 14:18
I think they need to change that paradigm first. And there's a lot of misconceptions of ranching, especially here and other people think it's too dry and can't be done here. They're just all paradigms you need to change. Once you start actually moving daily and get the hang of it, well, there's no better way to actually do it, than doing it. And, I mean, your failures are gonna be like your school. I mean, it's gonna teach you what not to do. But, just changing the paradigms that we think has a lot to do with running a ranch this this way.
Shaye Koester 15:11
Well, awesome. Do you have any last advice for those who are interested in improving their grazing methods are any last comments you'd like to share? Before we finish up today?
James Jeffers 15:22
Yeah, I mean, a lot of people get stuck on, yeah, want to do the change, and they don't know how to start the change. I would recommend getting a consultant and having someone consult for you, so you don't make the same mistakes I did, or anyone else did. And yeah, some people might say the consultants are expensive, or they charge too much, but they'll give you a helping hand, once you start. And once you have a consultant, then I highly recommend keeping everything portable. I mean, there's no sense in dumping a bunch of money when you can actually do it with portable polywire and portable posts. So, you're gonna basically be changing one thing for another you're gonna be changing sweat for an improvement or changing money for infrastructure. So I highly recommend just making everything portable. The more portable you have, the more flexibility you have to graze wherever you can or earn points of opportunity throughout your ranch. Other than that, I mean, just it's time to change the way we think. And it's time to change the way we ranch.
Shaye Koester 16:53
Well, awesome. Thank you very much for joining me today. I'm excited to share this with my audience and appreciate all that you had to share.
James Jeffers 17:02
Thank you for having me.
Shaye Koester 17:04
And that's a wrap on that one. Be sure to let me know your thoughts on the episode and if you have any further questions around the topic, take care and have a great day.
