2023 - Mannix Beef Year in Review
Hey all - consider this our ranch “Christmas Card.” We continue to feel blessed to live and work with our family and friends here on the ranch, and to have the opportunity to steward the resources we are entrusted with. Thank you all for following along and supporting our ranch stewardship efforts, either by buying our beef, sharing your knowledge, or just spreading the word! Following is a quick review of the year and what we learned, or what felt significant to us in 2023.
Adding to the Crew in 2023
Taylor and Ashley (Mannix) Ophus came back to the ranch in the fall of 2022, and 2023 was there first full year on the ranch. Its been’ great to have Taylor’s help on the ranch, especially with the addition of our still new to us lease of the Bretz’ UWC ranch and all of the infrastructure and maintenance work needed there. When Ashley’s not taking care of Newman, she’s also been helping on the ranch with cattle work days, and has been a crucial part of answering emails and packing orders for the beef business.
We also were lucky enough to welcome another team member, New Agrarian apprentice Kelsey Nelson. Kelsey came to us with a masters degree in rangeland Management from NMSU, and was immediately thrown into the mix moving cows, haying, packing orders and doing inventory, and more. She had a lot to offer both with her work ethic and knowledge, we are thrilled to report she’s coming back for a second year with us in 2024.
A tough winter, and nutritional challenges
The 2022-2023 winter was a tough one. It came early and stayed cold throughout, and while cold winters are nothing new, combined with our changed calving season it was a nutritional challenge for our herd. A consequence of calving later is that our calves are a little younger on average than they used to be in the fall when we have traditionally weaned. Those young calves in particular didn’t gain well over the winter, which led to lighter weights, more health issues, and a poor breed up on our replacement heifers.
After reaching out to some nutritionists, the problem may have been that our younger calves weren’t mature enough at weaning, and their rumens weren’t developed enough to efficiently use the grass and alfalfa feed that we have typically fed. To have better health and performance, we may need to either wean later, or provide a little more easily digestible, higher energy feed.
The problem with leaving calves on their mothers longer into the winter is that the mother cows are pulled down and lose weight faster, and we aren’t able to continue winter grazing as long. We think that winter grazing longer is an environmental win, allowing us to reduce inputs and rely less on hay harvesting and feeding. So for now, we’ve landed on weaning at about the same time, but supplementing the lighter calves’ hay with an alfalfa pellet that will provide a little more easily digestible energy and protein than the alfalfa bales we were previously feeding with our grass hay.
A Good But Hectic Spring
Spring is always a busy time on the ranch. With the beginning of the growing season comes the start of irrigating, fencing, turning out cattle to grass, calving season and processing calves, and so on. However in addition this year we also hosted several large ranch tours, and of course the inaugural Old Salt Festival. It was a bit of a whirlwind!
Region V ESAP Award
After receiving the Montana Environmental Stewardship award from the Stockgrowers last year, the Ranch was honored to be presented with the Region V Environmental stewardship award from the National Stockgrowers association this year.
Generation four got to travel together to both New Orleans to accept the Region V award, and then to DC for the national convention. It was great to have an excuse for them to all take some time together. I can’t ever remember a time when they were all off the ranch at the same time before!
Ranch Tours
We hosted several tours on the ranch this year, including smaller tours for high school, college, and graduate students, and a few larger tours including a tour related to the ESAP award, and the Partnerscapes tour from partners for conservation.
First annual Old Salt Festival!
And of course the first ever Old Salt festival was an amazing experience. The Old Salt Team put together an impressive lineup of musicians, speakers, authors, chefs and more. And maybe the best part of the festival was the people who showed up for it. It was humbling to see all the people who came out because of their passion for land stewardship. I came away feeling inspired by the people there, and hopeful for the future of Old Salt, the ranch, and agriculture in general.
A Good Production Year
We were blessed with great spring rains this year, leading to a great grass year. I think this helped our burns from 2021 and 2022 recover and come back well, with increased production and diversity in the two year old burn, and an explosion of wildflowers in last years burn. Calving went well with mostly low death loss and good health. We had plenty of grass available through the grazing season, and put on above average gains with our stocker steers.
July is always a blur, but the weather cooperated for haying season as well, and we were able put up an above average hay crop, setting us up well for the dormant season and winter feeding.
A mild start to winter, and a productive fall
Then it has been a beautiful Fall and early winter heading into 2024, with one of the warmest and driest on record. Compared to last year, managing fall and winter grazing has been a dream, with the vast majority of our herd still out grazing. And we’ve had an extra long window to make progress on infrastructure projects. (Especially on our new lease, which needs a lot of work on culverts, water tanks, fences, and other infrastructure to allow for better management) But we ranchers are a hard group to please, and now we are getting a little concerned with our snow pack situation. But, if we are lucky enough to build up our snow pack over the next few months, this truly will be a great fall and winter!
So thanks to all of you for following along in 2023. Merry Christmas and Happy New year from the Mannix Family. Hope you all have a wonderful 2024!
