Managers often deal with the problem of herd replacement of one animal class by another. A preliminary study suggested that steers could be substituted for cow-calf pairs on shortgrass steppe on a weight:weight basis. This ratio was tested on 2 pairs of pastures, one dominated by native shortgrass steppe and the other by a seeded stand of sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula (Michx.)Torr.). The pasture sizes were set so the cow-calf pastures were 1.8 times larger than the steer pastures to allow equal herd sizes for the 2 classes of animals. Adequacy of stocking was determined by equalizing utilization. The actual stocking ratios of 1.79 steers to 1 cow-calf pair on the native pastures and 1.78 steers to 1 cow-calf pair on the seeded pastures resulted in no significant differences in utilization or standing crop of remaining forage after the grazing season ended. Season-long, the 90% confidence bounds of the steer-weight:pair-weight ratio was 0.981-1.035 and 0.968-0.985 for native and seeded pastures, respectively. This ratio provides an acceptable initial stocking rate guide for those wishing to change from cow-calf to steer operations, or vice versa, on the shortgrass steppe. This material was digitized as part of a cooperative project between the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries. The Journal of Range Management archives are made available by the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact lbry-journals@email.arizona.edu for further information. Migrated from OJS platform August 2020
Scholarly peer-reviewed articles published by the Society for Range Management. Access articles on a rolling-window basis from vol. 1, 1948 up to 5 years from the current year. Formerly Journal of Range Management (JRM). More recent content is available by subscription from SRM.