Maine Farmcast Episode 11: Low Stress Handling and Stockmanship with Dr. Dean Fish (Part 1)
In this episode of the Maine Farmcast, Dr. Colt Knight is joined by Dr. Dean Fish to discuss his background in beef ranching in Arizona, how cattle can serve as a therapeutic tool, and his journey into stockmanship and stewardship.
R. Dean Fish, Ph.D. is the ranch manager for the Santa Fe Ranch and a member of the NCBA Stockmanship and Stewardship Team. As the ranch manager for the Santa Fe Ranch Foundation, he works to develop problem solving research for his fellow beef producers. The foundation also works to get kids out of doors through agricultural literacy, hiking, camping and learning about the environment. Fish also raises commercial Angus cattle and club calves. Prior to managing the ranch, he was an extension livestock specialist for the University of Arizona. He has served on the Arizona Beef Council and is the past president of the Southern Arizona Cattlemen’s Protective Association. Fish has served in a leadership role for many livestock and service organizations. In addition, he has worked with Todd McCartney, Dr. Ron Gill and Curt Pate planning and delivering Stockmanship and Stewardship at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Cattle Industry Conference and Trade Show. Fish is passionate about spreading the stockmanship and stewardship message, as he has seen the benefits in his own and other operations where the principles are implemented.
Episode Resources
While Dr. Fish was in Maine, we recorded a 4K video highlighting the principals of Low Stress Handling and Stockmanship:
Transcript
Colt Knight: 00:22
Welcome to the Maine Farmcast. I am your host, Dr. Colt Knight, associate extension professor and state livestock specialist for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. And today, I am joined with Dr. Dean Fish of Arizona. Doctor Fish, it’s great to have you with us.
Dean Fish: 00:38
Yeah. Thanks. It’s wonderful to be here in lovely Maine.
Colt Knight: 00:41
Yeah. I got to know Dr. Fish when I was a graduate student at the University of Arizona. He was actually a livestock specialist there. He has since left the wilds of academia, or escaped, I should say. And he is now, a full time cattle rancher. And he also works with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association doing some low stress and stockmanship, and I’m sure quite a bit of other things around beef cattle education. And we are happy to have him with us here in Maine this week. Doctor Fish and I will be doing some low stress handling and stockmanship demonstrations in Southern Maine and Central Maine. And I thought we would we would get to know doctor Fish a little bit and talk more about the beef cattle industry in the Western United States maybe or the Southwestern United States and, talk a little bit more about stockmanship and and low stress handling. So, doctor Fish, would you you like to give us some of your background?
Dean Fish: 01:42
Yeah. Sure. Thanks for that that kind introduction. Yeah. This is my second time in Maine. Thanks to you, Colt, being here. Really excited to to hopefully meet some beef producers and, see some country and and do some different stuff. But, I guess, kinda going back to my background. So I did attend the University of Arizona. I’m actually triple inbred As they say it, I got all three of my degrees there, at the University of Arizona. So, and I was a a reproductive physiology. You know, I tell my mom, getting cows knocked up is kinda what my degree is, and she really gets embarrassed and and and doesn’t like that. But, anyway, I, was kind of my passion. I grew up on a small cow calf ranch in Southern Arizona. My dad and our family raised registered Herefords at that time.
Dean Fish: 02:32
That would have been way back in 1980s. And, we had a pretty good market for bulls. We, you know, kind of our late bulls would be herd bulls that would go in Arizona and surrounding states, and then, commercial bulls to Mexico to a lot of producers, you know, kinda around there. But the peso devalued in the eighties and, that mark kinda went away. And where those bulls were worth, you know, $2,000, they were all of a sudden, you know, worth $250.
Dean Fish: 03:01
So it didn’t work. So my dad kinda switched over to commercial Angus. And so, anyway, my dad was kind of an innovator and early adopter of technology. He was one of the first guys using a lot of AI, did some transfer work. And so that kind of peaked my interest in all of the reproduction and and all that stuff.
Dean Fish: 03:17
And so that’s kind of what I tried to focus on when I went to the University, of Arizona there and, squeezed, seven years of education in about eight and a half. But, anyway, when I finished my master’s, I went to worked in extension. And, as as doctor Knight said, I was a state livestock specialist when I when I ended up there. But I started out as kind of a as a county director and county agent doing 4-H, horticulture, ag production, livestock, all of those kind of different things. And, I thought, you know, when I first got an extension, I thought, man, I’m a it’s gonna be really exciting because I’m gonna be able to help these producers with the livestock questions.
Dean Fish: 03:56
We’re gonna be breeding cows and doing genetic matchups and all that stuff. Well, turns out in Arizona, what producers really needed was help with range management, with public policy, and dealing with that aspect of it. If someone was a brangus breeder, they were gonna stay a brangus breeder. They like the brangus cattle. If they, you know, were, you know, Hereford breeders, they’re gonna stay Hereford breeders.
Dean Fish: 04:17
You know? So there wasn’t much change that I was gonna impact there. So I pretty soon learned that, you know, to as we do an extension, you know, we’ve gotta adapt to what our client needs. And so so I got to do a lot of lot of different programs, with range livestock and with monitoring programs and things like that starting out. And then, eventually, we got the chance to to do some, more livestock kind of stuff.
Dean Fish: 04:40
We did a ranch program and and that stuff. So then as as you mentioned just interrupt anytime. I keep glabbing on here. But, as Colt mentioned, I, I made bail about 11 years ago and, had a chance to go back. And, my family didn’t have a ranch, but the ranch that my dad managed for about 35 years had an opportunity for me to go back there and manage it and buy a cow herd.
Dean Fish: 05:04
And so I currently, manage the Santa Fe Ranch Foundation, and we work to get young people out of doors. We work with, developmentally, disadvantaged people in the county. We do animal therapy. We have hummingbird and butterfly gardens and nature trails and much of different stuff to help that community in our local area. And I bring a lot of young people out to the ranch and talk about ag literacy and where food comes from.
Dean Fish: 05:32
And, in addition to that, I still get to do some kind of problem solving research and share that with fellow producers in the arid southwest. And so that’s kind of what I’m doing there now.
Colt Knight: 05:41
That’s really interesting because that’s kind of the evolution of what we used to call the boys’ ranches. Right? You know? That that started out as orphan children would would go to work for for ranchers out west, and then then we started sending, you know, troubled teenagers and and young kids that were in trouble all the time out because I I talk about this in my introduction to animal science class quite a bit. You know, a lot of times, humans don’t have any respect for fellow humans.
Colt Knight: 06:13
But when you get them around a 2,000 pound bull or 1,500 pound horse, they have a natural respect for that animal. And and they kinda can learn respect by working with animals, and it kinda eases their transition into to work in, you know, with respect in people and and and kind of becoming more productive members of society. And then, like you said, you’ve even evolved this even further. And now you’re you’re helping folks with disabilities, mental illness. Yeah. And and just flat out education.
Dean Fish: 06:47
No. You’re you’re exactly right. You know? And even taking that kind of a step further, you know, we talk about the therapeutic benefit of just being around animals. Right?
Dean Fish: 06:55
You know, how many of us have pets at home? You know, you got this great dog, Layla, and, you know, a bunch of other companions here, and they bring you a lot of comfort. And it’s it’s not only that respect that I think that young people can learn with animals, but I think it’s that that bond is truly therapeutic. I’ll give you just an example. My mom started that program there at the ranch, and she started it because she would rescue a goat from the county fair auction that was gonna go get its head cut off.
Dean Fish: 07:19
And my dad being pretty pragmatic and pretty practical wasn’t gonna have an animal that didn’t have a job there at the ranch. And so she started inviting her friends that would be caregivers for people with developmental disabilities. That’s how that whole program started. But, you know, kind of fast forwarding, I saw a young lady that was non communicative, within about six months of interacting and bonding with those animals, was able to say that animal’s name, say her own name, say your caregiver’s name, you know, so we know the power that that bond has, not only just in helping to teach respect and to teach those bonds, but it but it’s truly therapeutic, and we’re certainly blessed to be able to to to be a little part of that. So that that’s kind of a cool aspect of what we get to do.
Colt Knight: 08:04
You know, and and just to kinda echo your story, when I was in high school, and trained horses. My dad would go buy inexpensive horses from the the sale barn, and I would ride them until they were good enough to sell us riding horses. But one time, someone came to us and asked us about giving riding lessons to their mentally and physically handicapped child. And, this young lady couldn’t walk on her own. She she couldn’t verbally communicate other than, like, grunts and moans and things, and she could be quite violent lashing out.
Colt Knight: 08:48
And you had to have at least 2 people with her at all times just to to porter her around and stop her from hurting herself and and whatnot. And so it was, you know, really taxing on the on the parents. Right? Mhmm. You know, the the male and and female caretaker because it’s like they never had any time to themselves because they had to devote everything to the care of this person.
Colt Knight: 09:12
And they came out to our stable. And so started off, I would lead we would 2 or 3 of us would get her up on our and she wasn’t little. You know? She was 16, 17, 18 years old, somewhere around in there. So we would get her up on a horse, and then I would just lead her around.
Colt Knight: 09:30
And then I taught her stepdad how to saddle the horse, how to lead her around, and he would come out and he would get the horse ready with her, and he would put her up there and lead her around. And, you know, after a while, she got to where she could walk, you know, and didn’t have to be carried. You know, someone would still have to be there with her, but, you know, and it turned into instead of two people having to be around her at all times, it’s just one.
Dean Fish: 09:56
Yeah. Truly therapeutic. Yep.
Colt Knight: 09:57
You know, not only did we change her life, I think we changed that whole family’s life through that therapy. And so I’ve always been a big proponent of that ever since. It’s it’s making me teary eyed now just thinking about the changes that happened within that family just from a little bit of livestock therapy.
Dean Fish: 10:16
Yeah. And absolutely. And those of us that are involved with livestock, like like, you’ve got a great swine operation here, and you have a good poultry operation and stuff. And those of us and, you know, and I work with cows most of my days when I’m home. And, you know, we take for granted that we’re able to do that, you know, and sometimes it’s important for us as livestock producers to kind of step back and say, you know, how truly blessed we are to be around those animals because, you know, it’s good for our mental health too.
Dean Fish: 10:41
Right? You know? And, you know, and it builds responsibility. You know? Like, you know, if you talk to even my high school teachers, they’d never think I’d been responsible.
Dean Fish: 10:48
But, you know, that but, you know, that that, you know, it builds that responsibility. You know? That’s why 4-H and FFA programs and junior livestock programs, I think, are so important because they give a taste of that responsibility to that young person. So, in addition to teaching, you know, respect for the animals and teaching, how to care for animals, I mean, and, you know, and how to be empathetic and, you know, putting someone’s, you know, that animal’s needs in front of your own. I mean, those are all just important things and traits that, you know, I I urge, you know, your listeners to support those things, you know, whether it’s going down just clapping for them at the county fair or, you know, if you’re able to purchase an animal on the sale or help a young person get started or give them an opportunity, I think those are things that are important, you know, to help develop that next generation of
Colt Knight: 11:35
livestock lovers. Yeah. Taking taking care of the kids and and promoting the lifestyle. I mean, it’s not only is it just part of our food chain, but there’s a lot of benefit to just being outside and working with animals. And so that’s really great to hear hear your your story kinda echo what I experienced too. So…
Dean Fish: 11:55
Yeah. No. It’s great. Great stuff.
Colt Knight: 11:56
Universal truths. Right?
Dean Fish: 11:58
Absolutely.
Colt Knight: 12:00
Well, that that kind of brings us to your new gig. Aside from running the ranch, you you work for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. And then, maybe you could explain what NCBA is and what it does and and and what you’re doing there.
Dean Fish: 12:15
Right. So so it turns out that, as much as I love cows, and I really love cows, raising a couple hundred of those isn’t gonna make you a living, you know, or, you know, a 150, 200, whatever you got. It’s really hard to make a living and, you know, 150, 200, whatever you got. It’s really hard to make a living in, you know, with tight margins and, you know, our our costs and so forth. And so, you know, and so in addition to running a Santa Fe Ranch and having my own local business, I do a little bit of side work.
Dean Fish: 12:41
And one of the side things that I got to do was, and this was even dating back to when I was with Extension, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association or NCBA, created an education opportunity for young people at their annual, cattle industry conference. And so they did a judging contest. They did a debate. You know, they did, you know, a bunch of different stuff. And so I started helping out with that.
Dean Fish: 13:09
And part of that is they also had a stockmanship and stewardship program, and that’s where they put on a demonstration or several demonstrations cattle industry convention and trade show there talking about low stress cattle handling and stockmanship and stewardship and how all of those things take in proper care today and will kind of all, you know, tied into the beef quality assurance program and so forth. And so I started helping with that program, and, eventually, I think one of the clinicians didn’t show up, and I sat and listened to it enough and been there already enough for a long time that they gave me a microphone, and I and I jumped up there and and and, filled in for a guy. And, you know, because of my education background, I really, really enjoyed that part of it. And, I still don’t know very much, but I’m but, you know, I think it you know, we’re we’re progressing and we’re learning and, you know, the the more we try to get better at it, the the better we are. So kinda backing up a little bit.
Dean Fish: 14:04
So so NCBA, I I’m a contract. So when they have, like, you know, like, when people like you, doctor Knight, invite me out to state to help help with, doing some training, I go and get to do that. So it’s not a regular gig, but it’s you know, I do it at the cattle industry conference. And, you know, several times throughout the year, I get to go to kinda cool places and and and talk about stockmanship and stewardship. And so so backing up a little bit, beef quality assurance is kind of the basis of a lot of this stuff.
Dean Fish: 14:33
And beef quality assurance, I think you’ve done a really good job of getting a lot of your producers trained and knowledgeable about beef quality assurance, but that’s a national program that looks at producing safe and wholesome beef, you know, for the for the end, you know, end consumer, you know, that and that’s, you know, us that enjoy Beef. And part of the beef quality assurance program, a part of how that came about was through the beef quality audit that NCBA did. They started those, I believe, the first one was 91, 90 or 91. And those first beef quality audits showed that, and they surveyed everything from retailers to processors to consumers, you know, to try to find out what are the big problems in the beef industry. And at that time, you know, it was stuff like injection site lesions and abscesses and tenderness and toughness of meat or marbling or I would
Colt Knight: 15:28
I would say the first hurdle we had was meat quality Yeah. And and educating consumers on how to properly prepare
Dean Fish: 15:35
Absolutely. Beef. Absolutely. And so they’ve done a lot of things to really work on those things, you know, like moving where we give injections because, I mean, you’re too young to remember. But, you know, back, you know, back before beef quality assurance, you give a lot of injections right there in that hip.
Dean Fish: 15:51
You know? I mean, because it’s just easier. It’s just real handy right there with those cattle on the shoot.
Colt Knight: 15:54
I think when we did that 1991 beef audit, we found and I I
Dean Fish: 16:00
Did that. Born in 91, Cole? Well,
Colt Knight: 16:03
I was born in the eighties. So I’m teasing you. Part of the audit, but as part of the quality
Dean Fish: 16:10
…assurance team, I’m saying…
Dean Fish: 16:12
I’m just teasing you.
Colt Knight: 16:14
The, there was about 35,000,000 pounds of beef that we threw away at 1991 due to injection site lesions.
Dean Fish: 16:25
Yeah.
Colt Knight: 16:26
And then through the beef quality assurance training program, after 10 years, we had a tenfold reduction in that. Yep. But it’s still too high.
Dean Fish: 16:34
Yeah.
Colt Knight: 16:34
It’s still 3 and a half million punds of meat that were wasted into injection site lesions. That’s completely preventable.
Dean Fish: 16:41
Yep. So they do this beef quality beef quality audit on a regular basis. Mhmm. And what that has evolved to is they’ve stopped focusing on a lot of the meat quality issues because they’ve addressed a lot of those causative factors there. And now it’s it’s to a point where, they’re finding that consumers are more concerned with where food comes from and how it was raised and what the life of that animal is.
Dean Fish: 17:05
And so we’re dealing with with those type of issues. And that’s where stockmanship and stewardship comes comes in and and the training that we do. And so the training that we do is we we try to talk about, you know, I guess, popular, most common term would be low stress animal handling. And so just figuring out how to work with an animal. How do we design our facilities so that they’re safe not only for the producers, but don’t cause stress for those animals?
Dean Fish: 17:29
The reason why we don’t wanna cause stress for those animals, especially, you know, you think about pre harvest, a stressed animal is probably gonna be a dart cutter. You know, they use up all their lactic acid stores and and so that changes the quality and consistency of that meat and makes it less desirable and less valuable. You know, but, you know, we also think about a sick animal. If we stress them and try to administer, you know, a treatment, that treatment is not gonna be effective if we give it to them while they’re under stress. Mhmm.
Dean Fish: 18:02
You know, same thing with the vaccine. Even a vaccine, will be let the action of that vaccine or antibiotic will be blocked, by cortisol and other other hormones. And so so the least stress that we can put upon those animals while we’re treating them, while we’re working them, the better those animals health is. And usually, a lot of times, the safer our handlers are. And so kind keeping those things kind of in mind.
Dean Fish: 18:28
You know, you go to any feedlot or, harvesting facility or whatever, there’s not one single animal that’s worth getting somebody hurt or losing a finger or an arm or or crippling somebody. You know, and so we just need to kind of keep safety at the forefront. We need to kind of keep, you know, the the well-being of that animal at the forefront. You know? And these animals are making the ultimate sacrifice, so I think we need to do as good a job as we can and make sure that we take care of them.
Colt Knight: 18:55
Yeah. And and, you know, there’s not only is it the most responsible way to raise livestock, but it also increases production when you don’t have stress in your animals. So, you know, when we talk about livestock production, a lot of folks, you know, hear the hear the term factory farm, and they think that that large scale producers are mistreating animals for a profit. And the truth is if we mistreat animals, it stresses the animals, and it lowers their production efficiency. And it actually the margin of profit on large scale production are so small.
Colt Knight: 19:31
You can’t afford to have any loss of production. You go out of business real quick. So not only is it the right thing to do for the the well-being of the animal and the people, but it’s also the economically correct thing to do. And so there is actually a driver and an incentive to put these practices in place.
Dean Fish: 19:51
Yeah. For sure. You know, when we talk about sustainability, and that’s kind of a common buzzword that I don’t think anybody can really define or it means something different to everybody.
Colt Knight: 19:59
Everyone’s got their own definition of sustainability.
Dean Fish: 20:01
You know, I think I kind of go back to the old west, you know, the the sustainable ag research and education kind of definition where you think about that 3 legged stool of economic sustainability, and that’s exactly what you’re talking about. You know, when we do these practices or or or whatever, they’ve got to make economic sense or we can’t continue to keep doing it. Right? You know, we also have to have make it environmentally safe or make it be you know, have that environmental pillar in mind. You know, like in when my arid, rangelands of the West, you know, if we overgraze, we’re gonna see that effect for a long time, you know, and so we’ve got to be conscious about how we take care of the environment, how we rotate pastures, how we distribute grazing, those kind of things.
Dean Fish: 20:46
And then, you know, the third one I think that’s becoming more and more important where beef quality assurance really plays a part is a social part, you know. When people come out to the Santa Fe Ranch or to visit Anchor Ave Cattle Company, they may or may not agree, with my lifestyle and what we’re doing, but I don’t want to be in a position where I have to hide anything.
Colt Knight: 21:07
Mhmm.
Dean Fish: 21:07
You know, that they have they they understand that these are acceptable and the best humane practices that I can, have with these animals. Because, you know, let’s be honest. There’s some parts of livestock raising that aren’t pretty. Mhmm. You know?
Dean Fish: 21:19
And that animal is making that ultimate sacrifice at the end. You know? So, yeah, I think about things like, you know, castration or dehorning or there’s stuff that, you know, is painful for those animals at times. And so we have to figure out how to mitigate those pain and those that pain, you know, and make sure that those animals have that best life possible. Because it makes economic sense to do that, but it’s not but it’s beyond that.
Dean Fish: 21:42
And also, we care about our animals if we’re into this business, you know, and so we need to make sure that they they have the best life that we can possibly give them.
Colt Knight: 21:50
Yeah. And that that’s opened the doors to even new industries within agriculture, like agritourism. Mhmm. You know, inviting people to come on to your farm and actually see what’s happening there. That that farms are closed off because they’re hiding something, when in reality, it’s just a biosecurity measure to prevent the transmission of of diseases that could that could harm our livestock, you know, especially with, like, chickens and and pig operations.
Colt Knight: 22:18
Those are behind closed doors. Population of the animals.
Dean Fish: 22:30
Yeah. Well, I’ll agree with you, Colt. You know? And I think that the other you know, the agriculture’s been notoriously bad at doing self promotion. Right?
Dean Fish: 22:40
People that are involved in agriculture and livestock production, you know, we’re not gonna go out there and beat our own chest about what a great job we’re doing and and so forth. You know, for the most part, you know, we’re, you know, fairly humbled. Just kinda, you know, wanna take care of our business and do our own thing. And so so I think that you’re exactly right. I think we need to, as producers, probably get a little more proactive as far as educating people about where food comes from, what are the practices that we use, and and, you know, let’s let’s incorporate some of these young people that are really good at stuff like social media and so forth.
Dean Fish: 23:14
Because I’m no good on any of that stuff, but but, you know, I know my kids are. And, you know, there’s career opportunities. There’s huge career opportunities for these young people to be influencers and to help influence positive messages about agriculture and food production. Because believe it or not, most people like to eat on a regular basis. Yeah.
Dean Fish: 23:35
So agriculture is kind of important, I think.
Colt Knight: 23:38
That’s where that food comes. Yeah. Exactly.
Dean Fish: 23:40
Yeah. So I’m being a little bit it’s more out there, but yeah. But that’s exactly right. I mean, it we’ve got to support agriculture. We need to continue to have agriculture, and that’s and that’s, you know, not and it’s, you know, beyond just wanting to eat and have this great plethora of things that we can choose from to eat, but it’s, you know, a security thing too.
Dean Fish: 23:58
Right? You know, if we start importing all our food, then we really become dependent on on
Colt Knight: 24:03
I think those other pandemic highlighted the vulnerabilities and and depending on importing a lot of our infrastructures.
Dean Fish: 24:11
Absolutely. You know, we want those great Maine blueberries every you know, 365 days out of the year. Right? We wanna be able to go to the store and get those. You know?
Dean Fish: 24:19
And and, that’s just it they’re yeah. It’s just not possible, but we’ll do the best job
Colt Knight: 24:24
we can. Mhmm. Well, we we talked about the NCBA and some of the low stress and stockmanship stuff that you’re doing. On on your ranch, I wanna learn more about about your ranch. It’s kind of unique because you’re right on the Mexican border.
Dean Fish: 24:42
I am.
Colt Knight: 24:44
And, your style of beef production is probably 180 degrees different than than what we have up here in Maine. So I’m sure the listeners would love to hear more about about your operation, especially the stocking rates Right. That you’re experiencing down there.
Dean Fish: 24:59
Right. Yeah. So, we’re recording this in your back yard here, Colton. I think this, you know, 5 acres right here probably has more more feet on it right now than, you know, 500 of my acres right now. But yeah.
Dean Fish: 25:13
So I you know, Santa Fe Ranch and then the other little pieces that I lease, are located right on the US Mexico border in southern Arizona, you know, and so we’re, you know, so we’re when you think about Arizona, you think about the sand dunes and cactus and and so forth, but where I’m at I’m about 36100, 38100 foot elevation. I’m in about a 16 to 18 inch annual precipitation zone. So we’re kind of a desert, what we call a desert grassland, so we’re probably some of the more productive parts of Arizona. And so, if we actually when we do our clipping, we’ll we’ll measure on a good year close to 18 100 to 2,000 pounds of forage production per acre per year. You know, a bad year could be, you know, a lot less than that.
Dean Fish: 25:59
But, you know, on average, we’re probably 900 to 1200 pounds of forage production per acre per year. And so if you calculate that that out based on, you know, you want to leave some for wildlife and you need some for ground cover and so forth, we can, in our more productive environments, run 1 cow at about every 25 acres. That’s 1 animal unit per year. And so we don’t, you know, of course, we don’t we don’t probably get snow that you do, you know. So we don’t feed in the winter too much except a little bit of supplemental protein.
Dean Fish: 26:28
So we’re not having to feed energy. So that’s that’s based on year round grazing. So typical ranch will be 25 to 35 acres per animal unit in our more productive scenarios. We also have some pretty desert ranches that are pretty arid like Northern Arizona. I mean it’s not uncommon for small ranch to be a hundred thousand acres to, you know, to half a million acres and there’s several ranches that over that are over a million acres.
Dean Fish: 26:55
Mhmm. And a lot of times those stocking rates will be a 100 acres per cow. So that’s
Colt Knight: 27:00
I remember the University of Arizona V Varv Ranch. Our stocking rate was 140 acres per cow.
Dean Fish: 27:08
Yeah. Yep.
Colt Knight: 27:09
And that was actually technically animal units, and those cows were way bigger than a £1,000. Right. I guess, technically, it should have been even
Dean Fish: 27:17
even less than that. Yep. For sure. Yeah. No.
Dean Fish: 27:20
So you think about 5 or 6 animals per square mile on a year round stocking rate basis. You know, that that makes it challenging. You know, you think about you know, just think about your bull power that you need. Right? Mhmm.
Dean Fish: 27:31
Because those cows are spread out. So you need one bull to every 10 cows versus, you know, maybe here in a more confined closer deal, you know, one bull could probably take care of 25, 30, 40 cows pretty easy. Yeah. You know? So so there’s, you know, there’s some different challenges.
Dean Fish: 27:45
You know? I think our biggest challenge there is is the timing and amount of precipitation and how do we coordinate that with with our cow production. And so, you know, of course, that’s where range monitoring really, really comes in, handy. And so I was pretty lucky. I talked to a little bit about my dad.
Dean Fish: 28:04
When my dad got to that ranch in 1980, or 78, he started a range monitoring program with NRCS, or or at that time was called Soil Conservation Service. Now it’s Natural Resource Conservation Service, but they started monitoring. They set up, what they call transects, and that’s where they would go and measure the diversity of grasses there in a little plot, the frequency they would show up, and, and then what kind of the annual production out of those was. And so they were able to so the so the cool thing is is they went out and monitored, you know, for, you know, so for the last, you know, so if you monitor that 1 year, you get a snapshot of what’s out there.
Colt Knight: 28:44
Mhmm.
Dean Fish: 28:44
Right? And that’s kind of cool to know. But the cool thing is is when you monitor for several years, now you can establish trends. And you can see where, you know, for example, you know, some of the grama grasses are native grasses back there. And so we can see, you know, what are the cycles.
Dean Fish: 29:00
Well, it turns out most of it’s related to precipitation, you know, and so timing and amount of precipitation is is pretty tough. And so out of there, we’re able to develop different grazing management, systems. We grow most of our forage in the summer. They’re mostly warm season perennial plants as our most important species, so those plants are also most vulnerable when they’re growing when they’re young and growing. And so, we develop rest rotation systems where pasture will only be grazed one out of every 3 years during that growing season.
Dean Fish: 29:31
We use that pasture every year, but in that rotation during growing season, we only use it at maximum once out of 3 years. And so so there’s different strategies that we can employ that be different than than back here where you you get, if I may, maybe a more consistent forage growth pattern and and so forth. And so you can kinda almost kinda bank on a certain amount of forage that you can get. You know, now you’re, you know, and I’m guessing, but but, I think that’s the biggest variable, you know, and then drought is our is our other thing. So we have to have drought management.
Dean Fish: 30:06
Last year in 2023, it hardly rained at all in in my summer growing season. And luckily, I was kinda paying attention to it. And so I knew pretty early, you know, so I have certain triggers. If it’s not raining by 4th July, that’s kind of my first, you know, kind of yellow flag. If it’s not raining by the middle of July, I need to start doing something.
Dean Fish: 30:27
And so I, you know, already in my mind, you know, I’m gonna target my open replacement heifers because those are the farthest ones away from
Colt Knight: 30:35
Mhmm.
Dean Fish: 30:35
From making me any money. Right? And then by the end of July, another couple weeks later, if that’s still not raining, because I’ve got about a 3 month window to make all my feed. And so end of July, 1st part of August, you know, then I start finding older cows. You know, and and so just keep going down there.
Dean Fish: 30:54
So I ended up calling about 40% of my herd last summer just because of, the fact that I just didn’t think I was gonna grow forage. And luckily, I did, so I was able to save the 60% of my herd. The producers that didn’t be proactive and didn’t cut their herd soon enough, you know, now ended up having to cut 60% of their herds because they they didn’t get on it at the front end. So not saying I’m particularly smart, but I just followed some good examples and kinda just And you’re
Colt Knight: 31:24
on a 40, 50, one hundred thousand acre ranch. You can’t take hay to the cows. That’s not that’s not an option. Yeah. If in worst case scenario, you would bring the cows to the hay.
Colt Knight: 31:36
Correct. And that’s just a nontenable thing to do out west.
Dean Fish: 31:41
Well, it it’s not only that, but it’s just, you know, every ag economist will tell you that you’re not gonna feed your way out of a drought.
Colt Knight: 31:48
No.
Dean Fish: 31:48
I mean, it just doesn’t make sense. So you gotta have some pretty special cows that have some pretty high value to make that just economically make sense. And that doesn’t that that’s pretty pretty tough to do. I guess the other thing you asked me and I totally skipped over it, but was because of the function of my geography where I ranch, I ranch next to a foreign country, you know, and so that presents some challenges as well. And so I didn’t want to lose track of that.
Dean Fish: 32:15
If if if you don’t mind, I’ll just gonna go back to that just for a second. So, University of Arizona did kind of study, or the Ag Ag Econ Department did kind of study, and they figured out at that time this is probably now 20 about 15, 20 year old study, but they figured out that it cost a rancher on that US Mexico border an average about 20¢ per pound more to produce beef because of cut fences. That’s smugglers coming through and cutting fences and then messing up our grazing rotation, fixing broken waters, and you know, just you know the extra labor and cost associated with ranching on the border. So, yeah, there’s quite a bit of traffic that comes through there, you know. And and most the time, if if you live in that area, you just kinda live and let live and, you know, kinda, you know but, you know, there’s different strategies.
Dean Fish: 33:06
You know? For example, I have water, you know, water spigots on just about all of my water drops. You know? And that’s that’s that’s twofold. Number 1, I don’t want them breaking waters, you know, because I can drain a storage tank pretty quick, and water is a pretty precious resource in the desert.
Dean Fish: 33:22
And if those cows are out of water for a day, it’s a bad deal. You know? And for me to try to catch up pumping, it doesn’t work. So it’s self serving a little bit. But the other part is there’s a humanitarian aspect that to that too.
Dean Fish: 33:34
You know? I’m not gonna get into the politics of the whole thing, but I don’t want anybody dying of thirst, you know, on, you know, on, you know, on my ranch, and so I provide them water. You know? And there’s a balance there. You know?
Dean Fish: 33:45
It used to be when I was a kid, you know, immigrants would come up through there, and they would, you know, cut a little bit of wood. And you give them a sandwich, and they’d be on their way, and everything was good. But, you know, that you can’t do that now because then all of a sudden, now you’re a bus stop. You know? And so so, anyway, it’s it’s it’s changed politically, different factors that we have to deal with.
Dean Fish: 34:06
But, it’s it it it’s interesting. Just different challenges. You don’t have any Canadians fighting to get in here and trying to do that? No. No.
Dean Fish: 34:15
Yeah. No big issues there. And, you
Colt Knight: 34:17
know, we have to bury our water lines about 6 foot deep.
Dean Fish: 34:20
Yeah. There
Colt Knight: 34:20
you go. In the wintertime. So it’s, you know, that was something that I had to get used to when I moved to the southwest. And and when I was there, it’s like, you know, a lot of those ranch water lines just sit on top of the ground. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 34:34
And so if you’ve got people that are migrating through the desert and they’re about to die from thirst, they’ll they’ll poke holes
Dean Fish: 34:41
Yep. Oh, yeah.
Colt Knight: 34:42
In your water lines. And so, you know, you do that enough times and you lose pressure, and then the animals could actually lose not have any water to drink. And and when you’re in those situations, water is super precious. Right? Yeah.
Colt Knight: 34:55
I mean, you may have a 100,000 acres, but unless you’ve got a water point, you know, about every 2 miles, they’re not gonna use much past that 2 mile diameter of that water trough, so you need the water.
Dean Fish: 35:10
Yeah. For sure. You know? And and we’ve got the additional factor of you know, you’ve got some relative humidity and some forages that, you know, are pretty lush. You know, like June in Arizona, everything is dry.
Dean Fish: 35:20
They’re getting most of their water moisture from drinking. Hay. Yeah. Right? It’s like standing hay.
Dean Fish: 35:24
And so they’re getting moisture moisture from actually drinking. And so Cala drink, you know, 30, 40 gallons of water pretty easy in a desert, especially when the ambient temperature is over a100, you know, on a daily basis. Yeah. So so, yeah, so that creates quite a bit of demand.
Colt Knight: 35:38
But you don’t have to bust any ice. Just 5 or 6 months out
Dean Fish: 35:41
of the lake. That’s true. Yeah. No. Like I said, every every area has its pros and cons for sure.
Colt Knight: 35:47
Yep. Well, Dean, it was great speaking with you. We’ve gotta get down the road and and talk to some producers about low stress handling, but it was great to have you on the Farmcast, and We look forward to seeing you again in the future.
Dean Fish: 36:00
Thanks again for having me.
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