Scott Sigle is part owner in the Cheyenne Trail Ranch near Osborne, Kansas. He has been no-till farming on his 1,800 acres for 25 years and experimenting with how to improve soil health there as well as on his 2,200 acres of pastureland. He was first introduced to the concept of Holistic Management when he attended a three-day workshop facilitated by Joshua Dukart as part of the No-Till on the Plains Conference. As part of his learning journey he learned about HMI's Grazing Planning Software and has been able to use it to help him improve his grazing planning and increase his forage production.
"Reviewing Scott’s 2015 annual production in the Grazing Planning software shows he produced 14,300 Animal Days compared to 22,000 Animal Days in 2024 for a 50% increase in forage production despite 2024 being a drought year."
“I went to college in Range Management,” says Scott. “In one course they told us to put your mineral feeder in one corner, your salt in another corner, and your water in another to spread out the animal impact and then you just turned your cows out. I did that for 30 years and it didn’t work. The pastures were just deteriorating. When I started using the holistic grazing planning process in 2015, I would guess we had about two thirds of the production we have now with our better grazing management.
“When we went to that workshop with Josh and he started talking about the value of recovery, that spoke to me, so I knew I needed to learn more. There was so much he threw at us in those three days, there really wasn’t any way to comprehend it all. It introduced us to the concepts and we got the book so we could read and learn more on our own.
“Then my son and I went to a Holistic Management Course taught by Ralph Tate and Paul Swanson in Nebraska and did the financial and grazing parts for 4 days. Hearing it all again helped bring it out. We also did the whole course again a third time. Hearing these ideas just once can be confusing. If you don’t get it, it’s very hard to start using it; it just becomes a blur, so it’s worth repeating and creating your own plan. After learning how to do the plan on paper we worked with Ralph to learn how to use HMI’s Grazing Planning Software.
“What I really like about the financial planning software is the ability to play around with different scenarios. I could do that all day long. I customized the enterprise spreadsheets to quickly change the sale weight, dollar value of calves, number of head (turnover), as well as a feeding chart and how many days the animals will be on grass. I can look at scenarios to do “what if’s” like do I buy opportunity cows or stockers.”
Scott now has a base cow herd of 160 head, although he is down to 140 with the recent drought. When he has extra grass then he runs stockers and opportunity cows depending on the gross margins. With planned grazing he’s been able to add either 250 stockers or 100 extra cows to his base herd for additional income. The grazing planning as well as the financial planning software really helps to explore those different opportunities.
“With the grazing planning software, it took me about 30 minutes to go in and do a grazing plan this year,” says Scott. “I have some of the figures of forage availability already which helps. That’s the beauty of the software; you can transfer figures over quickly or dump in new figures. If you need to make a change you don’t have to redo all the figuring.
“We print it out, which can be hard to do with our printers, but we make a wall chart and share that with the hired guys or my wife so they can do the moves and know the days the cattle are supposed to be in a pasture.
“I have 7 paddocks on my 2 bigger parcels which we break down with polywire 4 more times for a total of 28 paddocks. We’ve got water situated so we can water anywhere in pasture with portable tank and hose above ground as well as large tire tanks. The permanent pastures are 65-75 acres and we can split them down by 4 so they are around 15-20 acres.”
Scott gets about 22-24 inches rain average with rains mostly in April through June and then again in August and September with a little snow expected in the winter. Currently, he is producing 35-70 ADA, with an average of 45 ADA.
Recovery is a minimum of 45 days in fast growth and 90 days for the summer slump. He plans to fast graze the bigger pastures at least twice and the smaller paddocks are grazed just once.
With planned grazing he’s been able to extend his grazing season and rarely feeds more than 30 days now in the winter. He puts in a 15% drought reserve in his plan and that has helped with better use of his resources. “The planning has made a night and day difference compared to the neighbor’s place with the drought,” says Scott.
Scott says he uses his crop fields as a reserve, using milo residue. He notes in his plan when he wants the cows closer to home in case of inclement weather and he plans his and his son’s vacations in. “I went elk hunting and my son is going to Alaska and that all gets put into the plan,” says Scott. “It’s basically our calendar. We put in the county fair for my grandkids, and any breeding and calving dates.
“The thing I like about the software, if you make a plan and the market changes or you don’t end up with the number of cattle you thought you were going to have, it’s really simple to change on the computer. It’s so much quicker. You wouldn’t necessarily have done the changes in the past if that had happened. Now it’s really simple to just change the numbers so it’s more likely that you will take the time to do it. We are thriving because of the financial and grazing plans and being able to run more numbers."
"I've been using the Holistic Management planning process for nearly 30 years and most recently using the grazing planning software available from Holistic Management International. The planning software has made annual planning of our grazing of nearly 23,000 acres and 90 paddocks much simpler than the old paper and pencil planning. It is much easier to make changes and does all the calculations for me. Great tool that I highly recommend."--Dan Probert, Lightning Bolt Cattle Company
If you'd like to increase your forage or improve your grazing planning check out HMI's Grazing Planning courses.
If you are ready to take your grazing planning to the next level with HMI's Grazing Planning Software, buy it now for $25 off using coupon code: 25OFF (for a limited time only).
