Boosting Profits in Ranching: Implementing Bale Grazing with Arron Nerbas
Arron Nerbas and his family raise beef cattle on the Manitoba/Saskatchewan border. Working alongside his parents and brother, Arron and his family have used holistic management strategies to improve their grazing lands and focus on the profitability of their operation. Arron shares how implementing bale grazing and focusing on genetic selections has allowed them to maximize their time and land resources year in and year out.
About Nerbas Brothers Angus
Arron, his brother and father run over 550 cows on land that is 100% perennial forage. Their land base is mostly owned and used predominantly for grazing but also haying. The majority of their cow herd consists of commercial cows, but they also have approximately 75 pedigreed cows. They are a closed herd that hasn’t brought an outside animal onto the place for 20 years. They rely on artificial insemination to bring in new genetics and raise their own bulls to use as well. They sell bulls, replacement heifers and meat directly to consumers. Together, the family has two main goals as an operation. One is to produce as much forage biomass on an annual basis as possible through land management. The second is to have cattle grazing as long as possible throughout the year.
Getting Started with Holistic Management
In 2005 Arron and his brother took a holistic management course. The following year his parents also took the course so that all farming partners were on the same page. This course taught them how to understand their operation, set goals and view the operation as an entire system. Nerbases were already low-input producers, so the course opened their eyes to little changes they could make to begin improving what they already had. Grazing was the main system they chose to focus on improving. “I know a lot of cattle producers are cow-first people, but the land is your most important resource and cattle are simply harvesting tools for that resource to turn it into pounds of beef. So, land management is what we wanted to focus on right away,” said Nerbas. They started small by simply splitting paddocks and working in more rest and recovery periods. Now, they have around 120 different paddocks for their various management groups.
Focusing on genetics is a critical component of achieving their goals. Nerbases focus on low input genetics by selecting for moderate cattle with a 4 to 4.5 frame score. Likewise, they prefer their mature weight to be around 1200 to 1250 pounds on their cows. “We also look for moderate growth when selecting cattle because they still must fit the commodity market to a degree. There is a line between being low input and having low growth. High-growth cattle are fine if you have the resources for them, but they don’t thrive in a low-input model like ours,” said Nerbas.
Implementing Bale Grazing
Another change that came into play early on during their shift to more holistic management strategies was bale grazing. “We try to remove as much mechanical harvesting of forage as we can from our management practices. The cow can do that for us, and it positively impacts your bottom line when you aren’t starting tractors to hay or feed,” said Nerbas. Nerbases calve in May and wean around December 5. Once calves are pulled from the cows, the cows will bale graze through March and then graze stockpiled grass beginning in April. Their bale grazing strategy in combination with stockpile grazing on the shoulder seasons creates an 8-month grazing period even though they only have about a 120-day growing season. “If we have a blizzard or late spring, we will supplement with extra bales. However, if you have the right genetics, right grasses and right management strategies in place I don’t think you should need to supplement,” said Nerbas.
Nerbases started with a more traditional bale grazing strategy that involved moving wires and cattle every 3-5 days. They have since transitioned to a different strategy where they place 21 days’ worth of feed in a pod at a time. When the cows are done cleaning up, they move the cows to the next pod. This eliminates the need to move wires and fence in the winter and because they set up these pods early on, they don’t have to start a tractor to feed their cows every day. They simply check groups, mineral and water with their snowmobile as required.
To increase efficiency with bale grazing, Nerbas recommend taking hay directly from the field to where it will be grazed, using bales wrapped with twine and setting the bales with the two faces visible. This also helps eliminate waste from cows and wind. “I would say the amount of hay waste we have is comparable to rolling it out or placing it in bail rings. It’s no more than any other system. The caveat to that is there is a lot of factors that go into getting it to that level. The cows must be trained to the system, and you have to be ruthless with making them clean up before moving them,” said Nerbas. Nerbas also noted the importance of balancing your feed quality. “If you are going to try and use poor-quality feed, you probably don’t want to set your pods up for a 21-day period. We try to have at least two-thirds of our pod as decent quality hay to meet the needs of the cows and maximize clean up,” said Nerbas.
Nerbas says if he could do anything different it would be to start sooner and put priority on the land and the health of the soil. “It’s been very beneficial to our profitability. We all know things are tight right now in the beef industry. The price of land, fuel and other inputs are high and I think a lot more cattle producers are going to be forced to change how they manage,” said Nerbas. Nerbas encourages other producers to take control of their destiny and success by taking courses, finding mentors and doing what is right for their operation.
