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The economic sustainability of rangeland livestock operations requires that the land resource be properly managed while also optimizing the supply of forage produced and grazed. Keeping this balance of range health and adequate grazing supply, and therefor e animal production, is dependent on a producer's ability to adapt to stochastic shocks, such as drought or delayed growing seasons; one such adaptive mechanism is to use alternative forages, such as cover crops, as a supplementary grazing source. Using a simulation modelling approach on 20-years of rangeland production data from the Sandhills ecoregion of Nebraska, USA, a mixed-grass prairie in the central plains of North America, we analysed the variation in annual production risk to a grazing operation associated with having a set, non-flexible grazing plan. We then analysed how that production risk changes when a spring-grazed cover crop of cereal rye is added as an early-season grazing alternative. Within the model, forage resources of rangeland, cover crop, and hay were available to be used, with hay only being utilized once the other forages were no longer available. The model determined when to graze the cover crop and rangeland in order to maximize the total grazing days, based on the forage s' within-season growth rates. Our results indicate that there are compounding benefits to rangeland forage production by delaying grazing even by a short time, with a one day of grazing delay resulting in multiple days of additional forage later in the season. However, we also find that a spring-grazed cover crop is not an appropriate alternative forage to consistently reduce production risk in the Sandhills. This highlights the importance of having a diverse portfolio of forage types available to reduce different drivers of risk. Production risk to Sandhills graziers should be re-evaluated using a late season cover crop.