Rain...finally

I've been disappointed that we haven't gotten the litter spread by now, but it wouldn't have mattered. We haven't had a (decent) rain since July...there was nothing green in the pastures and nothing actively growing. Well that all changed this past weekend as we got 4 inches in a 2 day period. They were supposed to start spreading today, so even though we didn't get it on early like we hoped, it might have been for the best. I'm hopeful that we can get some great growing weather over the next 30 days.

Public Grazing Fees

Wouldn't it be nice to pay 30% of the going market rate for your pasture lease? The government will get absolutely raped on grazing fees as the value of forage goes significantly higher. If you are renting from the government, congratulations! Lock in those rates for as long as you can. I will continue to preach this, but pasture rents are going to go much, much higher in the future so if you can lock in your current rents long term you need to do so.

Drought

While SW Missouri isn't nearly as bad as parts of Texas, it's still in an extreme drought as labeled by the US drought monitor and as witnessed by simply observing the countryside. Grass is crispy, trees are dying, ponds are dry...it's not pretty. We could not be more fortunate to have made the decision to sell our cows and go to stockers. We have plenty of grass to get our home raised calves to the first week of October when we will merchandise them thru the Joplin Stockyards. At that point we won't have a single animal on the Goat Ranch. Our hope is that by spreading a ton of litter per acre within the next few weeks and removing all animals and giving the ranch a rest, we can stockpile some forage for early spring grazing. The nice thing about running stockers is that if we don't get a rain and we don't grow any grass, we will simply wait to buy stockers until we have the forage to support them.

I think now is a great time to rent more grass. We are trying to rent as much as we possibly can for as long as we possibly can...if there was a better time to be in the grass raising business, I don't know when it would be.