Ag in the Blackfoot pivots to fall priorities

Convoys of cattle trucks will soon be trundling loads of cattle along Highway 141 and Highway 200, moving cattle from mountain pastures to home ranches and hauling weaned calves to feedlots across the Midwest.

Selling calves marks the fall rotation of cattle ranching in the Blackfoot Valley and throughout ranching country in the United States. It's payday for ranchers as they ship off their main commodity - beef calves - to feedlots.

Cattle receipts of $1.8 billion dollars in 2021 rank cattle as the highest ranking Montana commodity since 2013, according to 2021 United States Department of Agriculture ag statistics, which is $45.3 million more than the next leading industry, travel.

Corn is the preferred ration for fattening beef for the meat market. It's more cost effective for Montana cattle buyers to ship weaned calves to the feed in the Midwest, rather than ship the feed to the calves. In addition, the three big meat processing plants are in the Midwest, an incentive to have cattle nearby.

To demonstrate how beefy the local area is, consider the population of cattle. Between Powell, Granite, Deer Lodge and Missoula Counties, there is a combined total of 67,639 cows, according to 2022 USDA Montana statistics. Powell County leads the local cattle population with 39,039 cows.

Using covid-19 funding, Montana developed the Montana Meat Processing Infrastructure Grant to help develop small and medium sized meat processing businesses in 2020. Grants were given to 109 producers across the state including Cooper Creek Ranch in Helmville and the McNally Ranch in Ovando.

When cattle ranching first came to Montana to feed gold rush pioneers, ranchers were coming from open-range, grass-fed cattle ranching. Soon it was found not to be workable on a large scale in Montana, with its long winters and blizzard conditions. With the advent of mechanized haying, shelterbelts and calving barns, raising cattle is now feasible.

Some ranchers are going back to grass-fed cattle, eliminating the need for outside feed like corn, to create the fat marbled beef cuts that are popular. One example of grass-fed cattle finishing is the Mannix Ranch in Helmville.

"Our ranch is well-suited to growing grass, and we're not farmers that grow alfalfa," David Mannix said. "By breeding for smaller mother cows, and calving later in the spring, we can utilize a grass diet to finish the calves for the meat business."

This year was marked by drought in the Blackfoot Valley.

Clancy Jandreau, water steward with the Blackfoot Challenge, said peak snowpack was only 66% of normal and total precipitation, including snow and rain, from October 2023 through September of this year was only 73% of normal. Above average temperatures caused crops to use higher than normal amounts of water, further drying out the soil.

"Some of our fields never did green up," Katie Applegate, a Helmville rancher, said. "Our hay crop was down 100 round bales."

Some ranches with long ditch access for water were not able to irrigate due to drought. Nevada Creek reservoir only delivered 80% of the normal water contract available to users.

"We never got our full complement of water," Justin Iverson, a Potomac rancher, said. "We ran low-flow nozzles on our pivot all summer and were unable to irrigate a field of newly seeded hay. It will have to be replanted next year. "

The summer's harvest of hay is piled throughout the ranching valleys. Ranchers put up round bales of about 1,200 to 1,500 pounds or big square bales four feet by eight feet. The hay fields become fall pasture with the regrowth after harvesting one crop of hay.

"There's no right or wrong way to raise cattle," Mannix said. "It's about what fits a person's skill set or conditions of their ranch."