Facing drought is not a new challenge for ranchers. Uncertainty amid less predictable rainfall, forage, and water availability, however, raises the stakes of everyday management decisions.
We know these challenges firsthand. Our family has ranched for five generations at Collins Ranch in eastern Colorado, where we run a commercial cow-calf operation and annual rainfall averages just 13 inches. Preparing for drought has long been part of how we manage the land and protect the operation for generations to come.
Since the early 2000s, we have experienced repeated droughts and have had to move cattle off-ranch three times when forage became too scarce. Those experiences have shaped how we prepare for drought today. It’s easy to over-graze in the arid environment we ranch in, so one of our key principles is rest. This grants us the ability to recover, which is essential in drought.
Our predetermined drought plan is particularly useful because most of the cattle calve in May. When drought takes hold in late spring or early summer, calves can still be too young to wean, making it difficult to reduce the herd quickly. Rather than waiting until forage runs short, we focus on what we can control: planning ahead for drought and making the most of the pastures we have.
Over the years, we’ve continued to evolve how we manage our land and cattle. Rotational grazing and, most recently, virtual fencing have given us more tools to put our drought plan into action and adequately rest our pastures enough to succeed in drought years. For us, drought survival isn’t about eliminating the impact of dry conditions; it’s about building an operation that is better prepared to manage them.
Make Existing Forage Go the Distance
In the past, the way our ranch was divided meant cattle sometimes returned to the same pasture before it had reached our target rest period. This year, with Halter, we were able to subdivide existing fenced pastures multiple times with virtual fence lines, allowing our cattle to more effectively graze each subdivided pasture. This increase in utilization of each pasture bought us more time in the grazing season, which resulted in a longer rest period, giving the grass more time to recover.
Using Halter’s virtual fencing system, we’ve been able to adjust how and where our cattle graze and make better use of the forage we have available. So far, with 43% of our grazing season still ahead of us, 53% of the pastures have not been touched. In a normal year, we would have already grazed every pasture at least once by this point.
That stockpiled forage in the pastures we haven’t gotten to yet will allow us to make it through the remainder of the grazing season without having to destock or move cattle off-ranch, something we have been forced to do in previous droughts. It also gives us more flexibility to reach weaning and the fall before selling cattle, rather than being forced to sell during the summer when drought limits our options. Making forage go further isn’t only about protecting the pasture; it also gives us more control over when and how we make difficult business decisions.
Plan for Drought
For us, drought planning begins well before grazing season and takes many forms. In January, we assess our pastures on a one-to-five scale and use photo points to track changes in conditions. Those observations help shape our grazing plan, which continues to evolve as rainfall and forage availability shift throughout the year.
We also have a written drought plan with “drop-dead dates” that trigger decisions if expected rain doesn’t happen. Around April 1, if the moisture isn’t there, we start implementing our plan. Rather than waiting until forage runs short, we have predetermined points at which to consider changes to stocking rates and which cattle may need to be sold.
Our drought preparation extends beyond a written plan. Winter grazing on corn stalks helps us conserve grass, while decades of investments in water infrastructure — including tripling the number of water points and adding miles of pipeline — help provide a reliable water supply during dry periods.
Each of these steps helps us protect the resources we depend on when conditions turn dry. We can’t control when it rains, but we can control how we manage the forage we have.
Flexibility for Unpredictable Conditions
The fundamentals of good grazing management aren’t new. We’ve long followed a simple principle: “fast growth, fast moves; slow growth, slow moves,” adjusting how quickly we move cattle based on grass growth. Technology now allows us to put that principle into practice with greater precision and speed, while giving our pastures the most rest possible.
We’ve spent decades investing in rotational grazing and cross-fencing our ranch to create more physical pastures and give our grass more time to recover. In the area where we now use Halter, we can effectively and instantly turn 23 physical pastures into 46 grazing areas through virtual fencing, with the ability to subdivide even further. This helps us follow our “take half, leave half” approach: moving cattle once roughly half of the available forage has been grazed and leaving the rest to recover. The additional subdivisions also support longer rest periods for the grass.
Previously, the way this part of our ranch was set up meant some pastures had to be grazed twice before reaching our 100-day rest target. Now, with Halter, we may be able to rest a majority of pastures one year or longer. That rest, in our arid environment, is priceless to the long-term sustainability of our ranch.
Drought doesn’t change the fundamentals of good grazing management, but increasingly unpredictable seasons make those fundamentals more important. For us, virtual fencing has become another tool for applying those grazing decisions quickly and precisely as conditions change.
Preparing for What We Can’t Control
Technology can’t change weather patterns or make the ranch immune to drought. We think about preparing for drought a little like child-proofing a house: you can never remove every risk, but you do everything you can to prepare for what might happen.
Virtual fencing is the latest addition to our drought-management toolbox we’ve built over decades, giving us greater flexibility to act on our grazing plans as conditions change.
Ultimately, preparation is about protecting the land that sustains our operation. We are grass farmers first, and cattle ranchers second. That’s what makes us successful five generations later.
— Amy and Toby Johnson are ranchers at Collins Ranch, their family’s fifth-generation commercial cow-calf operation in eastern Colorado. Collins Ranch received the 2020 Colorado Leopold Conservation Award in recognition of the family’s conservation and land stewardship efforts.
