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Ranching 2018 - Managing in Tough Times
Date and time
Location
Ag and Family Research Center
7939 US Highway 83 Wheeler, TX 79096Refund Policy
Description
What's Covered:
- How to maintain and improve animal performance
- Reducing costly inputs and improving profitability
- Grow more grass, grow better grass to capture more energy
- Capture rainfall more effectively and reduce the effects of drought
- Marketing principles that give you an unfair advantage
- Sell-Buy marketing
- Real Life examples of what works and what doesn’t
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Speakers
Ian Mitchell-Innes has been practicing ranching in South Africa for more than 20 years. He has made mistakes and wishes to share with Ranchers and Farmers how to avoid these costly mistakes He teaches farmers and ranchers how to feed the whole – grass, animal, soil surface, subsoil, using animals at high and ultra high stock density (mob grazing).
Deborah Clark and her husband Emry Birdwell run a stocker operation of 5,000–7,000 head on the 14,000-acre Birdwell & Clark Ranch in Clay County, Texas. The enterprise mix consists of 2,000 stocker cattle on leased wheat acres and one herd of approximately 5,000 head at the ranch using a high density grazing management plan. They apply their grazing practices to consistently improve range conditions, soil health, and cattle productivity. As a Certified Educator Deborah works to help others learn to manage their resources in a way that keeps the business, land, family, and community healthy.
Emry Birdwell along with his wife, Deborah Clark, had the opportunity of a lifetime to purchase the heart of the Bryant Edwards Ranch in Clay County in 2004. Emry implemented a managed grazing plan beginning with a detailed overview of the terrain, range conditions, available water, and existing fences. The five year drought forced Emry to implement all that he learned in the 1980’s from Allan Savory and Holistic Management about high density grazing and its benefits. Today the ranch runs a base herd of 5,000 head in a single herd. Emry’s proudest accomplishments are the changes he sees at the ranch in terms of decreasing bare ground, improving diversity of grasses and forbs, soil health, and the ability to add more gain per acre.
Dr. Tim Steffens has a joint appointment with the Agriculture Sciences Department at West Texas A&M and with Texas AgriLife Extension in the field of rangeland resource management. His experience also includes working directly with producers on rangeland issues including grazing management, prescribed fire, livestock nutrition and Threatened &Endangered species as a Rangeland Management Specialist with the USDA-NRCS in southeastern Colorado. Previously, he was a rangeland management specialist with Colorado Cooperative Extension and instructor with the Colorado State University Western Center for Integrated Resource Management. He has also managed a 1300 cow ranch for the Mescalero Apaches in the mountains of southern New Mexico. He also worked as the extension project manager for the nationally recognized Seco Creek Water Quality Demonstration Project. His current research and extension interests include managing ecological succession using targeted grazing management, developing integrated livestock-rangeland-cropping systems to improve soil quality and improve conservation as well as brush and weed management.
Wally Olson is a long time cowboy and rancher, having worked in every part of ranching from mucking stalls and hauling hay to managing and owning ranches. A graduate of Kansas State, he credits most of his learning from working at Kelley Ranch in Vinita, Oklahoma, where he learned the business of ranching. He learned how to increase production of the land and harvest it with the animals at a profit, was introduced to Bud Williams, and learned his stockmanship and marketing methods. For almost a decade, he applied these methods at Kelley Ranch, and now spends all his time teaching others.
Joe VanZandt holds a BS in Animal husbandry and a MS in Education-Ag Education. After being discharged from the service as a 1st Lieutenant in 1961, he started work with the Texas Agricultural Extension Service and worked in Travis, Live Oak, Parmer and Moore counties before leaving for a position as Director of Membership Relations for the Texas Cattle Feeders Association and then as a salesman for Affiliated Veterinary Supply in Tulia. But the appeal of educational work with ranchers and farmers called him back to become Extension Agent in Hansford County and then to move to Gray county in 1976. Throughout his extension career, he used his talents to help folks improve production practices through demonstration projects and educational programming as well as working with livestock projects and leadership development activities with the 4H program. He retired from Extension in Gray county to manage the ranch he grew up on in Wheeler county full-time. Joe says that is where his real education began, when he started to implement adaptive planned grazing management.
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Our mission is to envision and realize healthy, resilient lands and thriving communities by serving people in the practice of Holistic Decision Making & Management.
Our vision is a world where lands and communities flourish through the practice of Holistic Management, an internationally recognized regenerative agricultural practice.
Holistic Management:
- Helps family farmers/ranchers/pastoralists become more prosperous
- Helps strengthen local economies
- Improves local food quality
- Heals the environment
- Improves wildlife habitats
- Fosters community ties and preserves local culture