Price list for Grazing and drought planning services

Grazing Services

This applies to all services listed on this page

Grazing plans, drought plans, monitoring, plant ID

$50/HOUR

I charge $50/hour for all grazing services. For the field visit, the clock starts when I show up at your house and ends when I leave. So if it takes me two hours to get your house, you won't be charged the $50/hour for those two hours. I do, how charge $0.15/mile for fuel. There is also a $50/hour charge for the paperwork, which can take anywhere from 1-3 days, depending upon which service you need. You can contact me using the form on the home page, and figure out which service is best for you.

Grazing Plans, Inventories and Health Assessments

What Makes a Good Grazing Plan?

A good grazing plan doesn't simply tell you when it's time to move your cattle to the next pasture. A good grazing plan can help you bank forage, survive drought, decrease bare ground and improve biodiversity, all while improving wildlife habitat.

The basic building block of a grazing plan is to know how to identify and properly utilize each different species on your rangeland. Where are the growing points on these plants and how low can they be grazed without causing damage to the root system? What is the palatability of each of these plants and what time of year are livestock most likely to eat them? How many pounds of palatable forage per acre do I have on my rangeland? All of these questions can be answered by doing a Rangeland Inventory while using Ecological Site Descriptions.

The next step is to conduct a Rangeland Health Assessment(RHA), again using Ecological Site Descriptions, to determine soil stability, biotic integrity and hydrologic function of your rangeland.

The Inventory and RHA, together, can give you a snapshot in time of how your rangeland is functioning and how you should approach your grazing plan.

Tools of the trade

MONITORING YOUR GRASS

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Once you have a baseline inventory established, it's important to monitor your rangeland once a year to mark changes over time.

One of the easiest ways to monitor rangelands is to set up permanent photo plots. Taking photos along the same transact line at the same time every year gives you a great visual representation of how your forage and topsoil change from year to year.

For those who are more ambitious, a method called Line-point intercept will give you measurable data that can tell you how much bare ground you have and how much of your ground is covered by plants, litter, rocks and soil biological crusts.

Know Your Plants!

It's hard to monitor something when you don't even know what it is. Are you just looking for some help with Plant ID (identification)? Then you've come to the right place! Use the contact form on the home page to inquire about plant ID services.

planning for drought

Have a Plan

Whether good, bad, or indifferent, have a plan in case things go sideways. Most of us have some sort of contingency plan in the back of our minds, but when times get stressful, it's helpful to have a written plan so you don't have to think about it. You just follow the steps on paper.

Change Your Drought Plan

No plan is ever set in stone, and neither should your drought plan be set in stone. The weather and the markets are always changing, so your plan should also change to reflect the changes you see on the ground. Why should your plan stay the same when nature is always changing?

Share Your Plan

Since drought heavily affects the financial side of a business, share your drought plan with your financial institution/accountant. They may have some insight on how your proposed drought management plan will affect your financial status.