Last month I attended Dawn Hnatow’s stockmanship school in Virginia with my wife and father-in-law. It was an incredibly long road trip from Wyoming with our horses, but we were excited for the opportunity to learn the principles and techniques Dawn teaches.
My wife, Jori and I help her dad take care of around 1,500-2,000 head of yearlings in the summer grazing months. So we can put what we learned in the stockmanship school right to use. Prior to attending the school we already had a good foundation in stockmanship, but there is always room to improve. The word stockmanship can have a broad meaning to different people, so I am going to apply it to the four areas of the Ranching for Profit School.
People
Mindset and understanding our paradigms are critical to implement good stockmanship. It is on us to control our emotions, because keeping the animals in a normal frame of mind is first and foremost. When things go right there is no greater feeling at the end of a long day. As we set our day up for success with positive thinking, the better the day will be. We can all think of someone who gets so nervous and worked up that they can’t catch their horses or dogs on certain days, because animals can sense that energy coming from us. It is amazing how animals can read and feel the natural energy in their surroundings that humans don’t recognize. I never got to meet Bud Williams, but he always signed off his articles with “Smile and mean it.” Even on the days that things could have gone better, we can learn from that and improve next time. We are blessed in agriculture to work outdoors with animals so that’s a great way to live.
Production
Livestock production is probably the most obvious one to address with improved stockmanship. Stress on livestock can be detrimental to animal health, which will show up in weight gain or loss, as well as sickness or death. For stocker or feedlot operations, getting animals started on feed and water instantly can make or break each pen of cattle. If cattle are dehydrated, medicine is less effective so it can be a waste of time and money to doctor them. I am not saying don’t doctor them, but understand how health is tied to establishing healthy eating and drinking habits. For cow-calf operations, how much weight are you losing at weaning time? Current calf prices are $3-4 per pound, so start walking around your corral and counting dollar bills laying around! The 2% shrink factor is standard for pay weights, but it’s possible some calves actually lose 5-10% before they actually make it to the scale. Cattle health will be a leading indicator of weight gain and reproduction rates, all which end up in your checkbook.
Land
Implementing good grazing will improve soil health which in turn grows more forages for us to graze with animals. On big range pastures, you can move them and place them in different areas to utilize far corners or over tough terrain, where fences aren’t logical. For smaller parcels, we have all seen the cows that have turned into Pavlov’s dogs that don’t even graze! They just wait at the gate the same time every day to get moved. Stockmanship can fix that to get more consistent grazing, and so the cows don’t train you to open the gate when they want out.
Money
I have mentioned money a couple times already in the other sections, but this is where the rubber meets the road. By improving your stockmanship, you will most likely experience more revenue because they gain more weight and stay alive. Compounded with less cost in vet bills, less feed fed by improving grazing, or less day labor because you can do it all on your own now. That in turn makes ranching even more fun, making that positive attitude easier to attain and maintain.
My Biggest Takeaway
Stockmanship is low-hanging fruit for many operations that run cattle. I have no doubt that ranches can be profitable with low stockmanship skills, but improving those skills would only increase profit. Every extra pound gained or medicine saved on the animals you already have is pure profit. Much less the compounding impact that knowledge will have in future years. Professional development is cheap when we consider the number of animals and years we have to manage in front of us. In fact, I encourage you to attend Dawn Hnatow’s upcoming stockmanship school in Wells, NV on July 10-13, 2025. The first day is a Ranching for Profit workshop taught by Dave Voth and the next three are split classroom and in the field stockmanship. Click here for more info on the event.
If you have attended a stockmanship school, and implemented it, let us know in the comments below how those skills have directly affected your business.
