The Building Blocks of the Cattle Business: Soils and Forages

By Andrew Davis

This ebook is the first in a series that explains how to establish and maintain quality grazing for beef cattle. It further explains how forage types effect cattle breed choices.
TOC
Soils
Soil Fertility
Soil Types
Soil Composition
Soil Profiles
Soil Nutrients
Nitrogen
Phosphorus
Potassium
pH
Advice on Soils
More on Breed Choice
Forages
Perennial Warm Season Grasses (PWSG)
Perennial Cool Season Grasses (PCSG)
Annual Warm Season Grasses (AWSG)
Annual Cool Season Grasses (ACSG)
Perennial Warm Season Legumes (PWSL)
Perennial Cool Season Legumes (PCSL)
Grazing Systems
MIG
Multi-species Grazing
Limit Grazing
Continuous Grazing
Strip Grazing
Creep Grazing

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrew Davis
• Release date: Jul 16, 2011
• ISBN: 9780983842002

Andrew Davis

Andrew Davis is a best-selling author & keynote speaker. He's built and sold a digital marketing agency, produced for NBC and worked for The Muppets. Today, Andrew Davis teaches business leaders how to grow their businesses, transform their cities, and leave their legacy.

Book preview

Introduction

First of all, I want to thank you for purchasing this e-book, as the reason for this publication is to share 30 years of experience in livestock production and management, thus providing no nonsense articles and e-books that limit the technical jargon and bring forth a greater understanding for all. This way each generation that is interested in this business doesn't have to re-invent the wheel.

Before getting to the topic of soils and forages, I wanted to introduce beef cattle production with the different breed types. I won’t go through all the breed types in the USA, but will hit on the most popular ones. A few important questions:

Why is understanding about breed types important?

Rule #1

Since every part of the country has a differing forage base, we must raise the ‘type" of cattle best suited for our unique environments. This is the number 1 limiting factor. Your choice of cattle breed must coincide with your forage availability.

Rule #2

Understanding the cattle market from the stocker phase beyond the finishing phase to the packing house will bring forth a better understanding of the entire process and why breed choice is so important.

* * * * *

With this foundation of understanding; we can now think about cattle breed types. Some breed types are larger than others, some give more milk, some mature later, some eat more, some have better meat grades and some finish at different rates. I could go on and on, but I think you get my meaning.

Some will say, I just want to raise calves and sell them at weaning and I don’t care about the livestock production chain as it doesn’t concern me. You couldn’t be more wrong. By understanding the whole process, it can help you make better choices on what you are doing at the production level.

* * * * *

The performance levels, of the various breed types, along the production chain are not a mystery. Case in point:

Characterization of breeds based on their biological type*** (Cundif, et al. 1988)

Very high lean, low marbling, low milk, late puberty

Charolais - very high growth

Chianina - very high growth

Limousin - moderate growth

High lean, moderate marbling, high milk, moderate puberty

Simmental - very high growth

Maine Anjou - very high growth