|
Yep, sounds about right. I grew up east of where Kenny lives about 70 miles or so. We had one pasture that was a section and a half (960 acres) and ran somewhere in the 150 head range on it (depending on the precip for the year). Couple years ago, guy running that pasture was down under 100 due to lack of moisture and grass. That's just summer grazing (mid-late May to September), it would take about that much again to raise feed through the winter (one half cropped per year, other half in fallow each year). It's also common to rent corn stalk circles through the winter for grazing, could go most of the winter without supplemental hay on the stalks, only use hay after cows were brought home for calving. There at one point we were running around 15,000 acres summer pasture for 500 cow/calf pairs, plus around 10,000 acres crop ground (mostly wheat), with roughly half the farmground fallow each year, plus renting around 5-6 circles of corn stalks for the winter. And we weren't that big of an operation, just Dad with me helping out (in high school).
|
