AtTheMurph
Well-known member
They eat the corn and seeds in the turds and spread the manure around, fertilizing the field for the cows grass to grow better..
Cattle
- Thread starter Goosemaster
- Start date
I sell hay for part of my income. It has always peeved me that when hay supply becomes short (^$) they open up CRP, then hay prices collapse. I don't hay my CRP when they open it, I don’t want my name associated with that quality of forage.
It used be you couldn’t sell it but folks got around that so they removed the pretense.
Goosemaster
Well-known member
I used to hunt this ranch that had a lot of pheasants, then the cattle moved in, and now there are no pheasants there.
airmedic1
Well-known member
A few years ago we had a drought around here. My buddy, who raises cattle, only got about 25% of his annual hay crop. He had two choices, sell his herd or feed baled CRP grass. It kept his herd alive barely but he had to pour molasses over the bales to get them to eat it. Did I want the CRP mowed and baled, no, but I didn't want my friend to lose his herd either and it took him a few years to recover from that year!
Yes, I agree there are instances where the release of the CRP is called for, but like any program it gets abused by some. The “R” does stand for reserve.
Goosemaster
Well-known member
Cattle Munch everything down, and screw up the water, they are not good for pheasant hunting, I hunted a place the other day that was great last year, this year they let the cattle in there and all of the cover was gone.
Be sure to mention that to any producers you might ask permission from.
Goosemaster
Well-known member
I don't ask permission on cattle ranches, because they usually don't have very many pheasants. Cattle are not good for pheasant.
Goose, the piece of ground that you want to hunt may not look good during the season but may provide nesting during that season. That is the case here. There is a fair number of acres here that don't have cattle on them until August, that is a fair amount of undisturbed nesting, but we never hunt those acres.
Bob Peters
Well-known member
We had a really good hunt last year on a cattle ranch, but here's what the owner does. He's fenced off the cattail slough and the tree rows so as to keep the cattle from munching all the cover down.
Goosemaster
Well-known member
I'm not thrilled about these ranchers grazing their cattle on state land, and BLM land. No I'm not in favor of that. 
I’m not familiar with the whole AI deal, don’t care to be, but I think if you asked it what would be the worst thing you could do to rangeland I think not grazing it would be close to the top, along with over grazing it.I'm not thrilled about these ranchers grazing their cattle on state land, and BLM land. No I'm not in favor of that.
Two true stories.
A slough 2 miles from me was privately owned by an old fella who ran his cows on it and would take hay when it was dry enough. Someone from the DNR evidently walked it and found three orchid plants that are native and extremely rare. I mean rare enough they wouldn’t disclose the location.A huge effort was made to buy the land by all sorts of conservation groups, they were successful. They were over the moon happy. Good deal.
Of course no more haying or cows for that piece.
Two years pass and no orchids could be found, none, anywhere. Lots of grass however, most native.
So the DNR fenced the piece off and asked me if I wanted to graze some cows there, I had plenty of grass and recommended a young guy not far away.
Cows back, orchids back. Although they still won’t disclose the location. Good duck hunting spot.
The first was about ten years prior. My pasture bordered a piece the DNR bought years earlier. The canary grass was taking over the old pasture, crowding out what little native grass was there. It was too wet for them to seed and burning wasn’t possible. I suggested running some temporary fence out three and mob grazing the wettest area early on when the cows would still eat canary grass. “Oh no, we would never allow cows on public land.” Yeah well a few years after I got a call “Would you want to run your cows on that wet piece for a week in May to knock that grass back?”
There are two other pieces of public ground they graze near here. Proper stocking rates are good for wildlife. But each year pheasant hunters complain about it. Well guess what, the DNR manages for species other than pheasants. The ground nesting birds love it, the patchiness that results is best for meadow larks, bobolinks and such.
Thanks for reading this far.
Back in mid-October my son and I hunted around the Lewistown MT. area. The pheasant hunting was quite a bit different out there than what we were used to in SD, Iowa and Illinois. The very good friend who hosted us does not hunt birds, but he has a lot of pasture and hay ground. We hunted some of the pasture he leases ($1/nose/day he says he gets). and it was a revelation....of course the "flat" pasture was grazed but the deep coulees and ravines were brushy , with a creek in the bottom and several stands of cattails, and it was down there where we found the very wild roosters. We literally had to watch our step (Careful you don't step in the bullshit!) and the footing on the sides of the ravines was tricky-but we did get birds.
As an aside, our friend took us through Lewistown and up into the Little Snowy Mountains in his Polaris Northstar side by side. He owns several hundred acres up there, and in a 4 hour period, in the midst of a brief snow squall, we saw mule deer, whitetails, some seriously large bull elk, an eagle, a coyote and a bobcat that ran right across the trail in front of us. It was truly a wild place and I have to say it was the most unique pheasant hunting trip we ever took!
As an aside, our friend took us through Lewistown and up into the Little Snowy Mountains in his Polaris Northstar side by side. He owns several hundred acres up there, and in a 4 hour period, in the midst of a brief snow squall, we saw mule deer, whitetails, some seriously large bull elk, an eagle, a coyote and a bobcat that ran right across the trail in front of us. It was truly a wild place and I have to say it was the most unique pheasant hunting trip we ever took!