The Stockman Grassfarmer Podcast

In this episode, Jim Gerrish challenges one of the most common assumptions in the cattle business—that feed is always your largest expense. While winter feed has traditionally topped the budget for most cow-calf operations, Jim explains why that may soon change. As the cattle cycle shifts, depreciation—not feed—could become the biggest financial threat facing producers over the next several years.

Drawing from decades of research, industry data, and real-world ranch consulting, Jim reveals the financial metrics that actually separate profitable operations from struggling ones. He explains why producers often focus on improving weaning weights while overlooking the costs that have a far greater impact on the bottom line.

If you're serious about protecting profitability through changing markets, this episode will challenge the way you evaluate your operation.

🔑 Key Points Covered

Why cow depreciation could become the largest cost in your operation over the next 1–3 years.

How the cattle cycle impacts profitability beyond cattle prices.

The surprising research showing feed costs account for over half of the variation in ranch profitability.

Why equipment and facility depreciation often hurts profits more than producers realize.

What the Standardized Performance Analysis (SPA) data reveals about successful cow-calf operations.

Why chasing heavier weaning weights rarely delivers the financial returns producers expect.

The hidden costs of producing and feeding hay that many ranchers never calculate.

Why herd size alone has very little influence on profitability.

How changing your business model often matters more than increasing production.

Why understanding costs—not just production—is the key to long-term success.

Whether you manage 50 cows or 5,000, this episode offers practical financial insights that can help you make better management decisions and prepare for the next phase of the cattle cycle.

Jim's newest book,

Grassroots of Grazing: Grazing Management, Land Improvement and Profitability

brings together 85 of his most valuable Stockman Grass Farmer columns, carefully selected from nearly three decades of writing for today's grass farmers.

Inside you'll learn about:

Growing the next generation of graziers

Improving soil health and land productivity

Assessing profitability using Animal Unit Days

Enterprise and pasture diversity

Birthing livestock in sync with nature

Drought planning

Estimating pasture inventory

Practical grazing strategies that improve both profitability and quality of life

Whether you raise cattle, sheep, goats, or poultry, this collection provides practical, field-tested advice that can be applied to nearly every grazing operation.

📖 Order your copy here

🌱 About Grassroots of Grazing

For nearly three decades, Jim Gerrish has authored the Grassroots of Grazing column in Stockman Grass Farmer, sharing practical, research-backed insights that continue to help producers improve their land, livestock, and profitability.

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In this episode, Glenn Elzinga of Alderspring Ranch shares the remarkable journey from starting with just seven cows and 60 acres in rural Idaho to building one of the nation's most recognized direct-marketed grass-fed beef businesses. Along the way, Glenn discusses how a defining moment involving a Kansas feedlot changed the direction of his operation and led him toward regenerative grazing, direct marketing, and a relationship-centered business model.

The conversation explores adaptive grazing in some of the most rugged and predator-rich country in the American West, including how wolves unexpectedly became teachers that transformed both grazing management and ecosystem health. Glenn also shares lessons on family succession, customer loyalty, stockmanship, and building resilience beyond commodity markets.

🔑 Key Points Covered:

A Defining Feedlot Moment: A conversation with his young daughter after seeing cattle standing in feedlot conditions sparked a complete reevaluation of how livestock should be raised and marketed.

Building a Direct-to-Consumer Business: Glenn explains how a conversation with Joel Salatin encouraged him to pursue direct marketing, eventually growing a customer base of more than 14,000 loyal buyers despite living in one of the most remote regions of Idaho.

The Power of Relationship Marketing: Eliminating middlemen and focusing on direct customer relationships created resilience and profitability that commodity markets often cannot provide.

From Caretakers to Caregivers: Glenn discusses a shift in mindset from simply managing livestock to truly caring for animals and designing systems that respect their natural behaviors.

Wolves as Unlikely Teachers: Predator pressure forced the ranch to rethink grazing management, leading to tighter herd movement, improved stockmanship, healthier ecosystems, and dramatically reduced losses.

Adaptive Grazing in Brittle Environments: Glenn shares how cattle may graze a paddock for only a few minutes before receiving multi-year rest periods, allowing plant communities and soil health to recover and thrive.

Rest Periods Matter More Than Density: In extremely brittle environments, long recovery periods become the key to restoring grasslands, improving biodiversity, and building resilient ecosystems.

Restoring Riparian Areas Through Herd Management: By changing grazing behavior and reducing cattle pressure on sensitive areas, streams, water quality, fish habitat, and riparian ecosystems have improved dramatically.

Family Succession and Creating Opportunity: Glenn explains how involving his seven daughters in meaningful ranch work helped create a future where multiple generations remain actively connected to the ranch.

Stacking Enterprises Through Diversity: The ranch combines livestock enterprises, ecosystem services, wildlife, and direct marketing to create multiple complementary income streams while improving ecological function.

🌱 Actionable Insights:

Focus on building relationships—not only with customers, but also with livestock, soil biology, forage, and local communities.

In brittle environments, prioritize longer recovery periods rather than simply increasing grazing density.

View challenges and disruptions as opportunities to rethink outdated paradigms and discover better management systems.

Create opportunities for the next generation by building diverse enterprises that allow multiple family members to participate in the business.

Develop direct marketing channels that make you a price maker rather than a price taker.

📌 Memorable Quote:

"The whole thing, in one word, is relationship."

📌 For more insights and resources, be sure to visit us here for our latest specials and exclusive offers:
https://www.stockmangrassfarmer.com

👉 Tune in with your favorite podcast app to The Stockman Grassfarmer Podcast and discover how relationships—with customers, livestock, ecosystems, and family—can transform both profitability and resilience on the ranch.

In this episode, Russ Wilson shares why legumes have become one of the most valuable tools in his adaptive grazing system. Drawing from more than 40 years of grazing experience, Russ explains how species like clover, alfalfa, and birdsfoot trefoil improve profitability, reduce input costs, strengthen livestock performance, and build healthier soils.

The discussion explores how legumes function as nature’s fertilizer factory through nitrogen fixation, how they enhance forage quality and animal performance, and why they are critical for building resilient grazing systems in an era of rising input costs and unpredictable weather.

Russ also addresses common misconceptions about bloat, explains how proper grazing management minimizes risk, and shares practical strategies for establishing and maintaining productive legume stands. Throughout the episode, he emphasizes a simple principle: let biology do the heavy lifting.

🔑 Key Points Covered:

Nature’s Nitrogen Factory: Legumes work with rhizobia bacteria to fix atmospheric nitrogen, supplying the equivalent of 100–250+ pounds of nitrogen per acre annually while reducing fertilizer dependence.

Improved Livestock Performance: Legumes provide higher protein, energy, calcium, and magnesium levels than grasses alone, supporting greater weight gains, improved fertility, better milk production, and reduced supplementation costs.

Managing Bloat Through Grazing Management: Bloat risks can be minimized through proper grazing practices, mineral availability, controlled intake, and the use of lower-risk species such as birdsfoot trefoil and sainfoin.

Drought Resilience and Extended Grazing: Deep-rooted legumes like alfalfa and sainfoin maintain productivity during dry periods, helping extend grazing seasons and reduce reliance on expensive stored feeds.

Building Soil Health Through Biology: Legumes contribute organic matter, improve soil aggregation, increase water infiltration, support microbial activity, and strengthen overall ecosystem resilience.

Matching Legume Species to the Job: White clover, red clover, alfalfa, and birdsfoot trefoil each offer unique strengths, allowing producers to build diverse and resilient pasture systems.

Low-Cost Establishment Strategies: Legumes can often be established through strategic grazing management and improved seed-to-soil contact without major pasture renovations.

🔑 Russ Wilson’s Top 5 Management Tips for Legumes:

Manage Recovery, Not Height

Focus on adequate rest periods that allow legumes to rebuild root reserves and maintain nitrogen-fixing nodules.

Don’t Let Grasses Bully Them

Use grazing or clipping to open the canopy and allow sunlight to reach emerging legumes.

Keep the Rumen Happy

Prevent bloat by avoiding turnout of hungry animals onto lush legume stands and ensuring consistent mineral access.

Prioritize Inoculation and Seed-to-Soil Contact

Proper inoculation and good seed placement are critical for successful nodulation and nitrogen fixation.

Use Diversity to Spread Risk

Different legume species excel under different conditions, creating a more resilient pasture system year-round.

🌱 Actionable Insights:

Evaluate current pasture legume percentages and target 30–40% legume content where appropriate.

Implement grazing strategies that allow adequate recovery periods for legumes to persist.

Consider adding diverse legume species to improve forage quality, drought resilience, and nitrogen cycling.

Review mineral programs and grazing practices to minimize bloat risk.

Focus on building soil biology and reducing purchased inputs through strategic forage diversity.

📌 For more insights and resources, be sure to visit us here for our latest specials and exclusive offers.

👉 Tune in with your favorite podcast app to The Stockman Grassfarmer Podcast and discover how legumes can reduce input costs, improve livestock performance, and help build a more profitable grazing system from the soil up.

In this episode, Allan Nation breaks down custom grazing from the client’s perspective and explains why the future of profitable ranching may depend more on management and service than land ownership or cattle ownership.

Drawing from decades of economic analysis and real-world ranch examples, Allan challenges many long-held assumptions in the cattle business. He explores why separating land and livestock into two distinct businesses can dramatically improve returns, why leasing often outperforms owning, and how graziers can position themselves as high-value service providers rather than commodity producers.

The episode also dives deep into pricing cattle gain, building investor-ready operations, improving forage systems, and creating the kind of professionalism and trust that keeps custom grazing clients coming back year after year.

🔑 Key Points Covered:

Why Service-Based Ranching Can Be More Profitable: Allan explains how selling grazing and management services can outperform traditional cattle ownership models and create higher ROI with lower capital risk.

The Economics of Leasing vs. Owning Land: Learn why leased land often creates stronger financial flexibility, lower tax burdens, and better long-term returns than heavily financed deeded land.

Value of Gain Pricing Explained: Allan breaks down how successful custom graziers price based on pounds of gain rather than cattle value alone, including performance bonuses tied to ADG and death loss.

What Custom Grazing Clients Actually Want: From strong perimeter fencing and clean facilities to professional communication and regular weigh reports, Allan shares what builds long-term client confidence.

Grass Finishing and Seasonal Gain Challenges: The episode explores seasonal forage quality, finishing targets, forage chains, and why certain annuals can dramatically improve summer and fall gains.

Reducing Capital and Machinery Costs: Allan highlights why many of the most profitable operations focus on lowering hay dependence, reducing machinery investment, and improving stocking flexibility.

How to Build an Investor-Ready Grazing Business: Learn how disciplined economics, clear contracts, and operational consistency can attract outside capital and create scalable opportunities.

🌱 Actionable Insights:

Evaluate whether leasing land could improve your flexibility and return on investment compared to owning additional acreage.

Build custom grazing agreements around value of gain, performance metrics, and transparent reporting systems.

Focus on lowering machinery, hay, and labor costs rather than chasing maximum production numbers.

Improve professionalism with better fencing, organized infrastructure, clean branding, and documented performance history.

Develop forage chains and grazing systems that maintain strong gains throughout more of the year.

📌 Want more practical grazing and ranch profitability insights?
Be sure to visit us here for our latest specials, courses, magazine subscriptions, and exclusive offers: The Stockman Grassfarmer

👉 Tune in with your favorite podcast app to The Stockman Grassfarmer Podcast and discover why understanding the client’s perspective may be one of the most profitable shifts a grazier can make.

In this episode, Greg Judy shares practical, field-tested lessons on building profitable and resilient multi-species grazing systems.

This remastered session dives into the infrastructure, grazing strategies, drought planning, and diversified income streams that help producers improve pasture performance while reducing dependence on costly inputs.

From fencing and portable paddocks to hunting leases and soil health, Greg explains how intentional management can dramatically improve both profitability and land resilience.

🔑 Key Points Covered:

Fence is the Highest ROI Investment:
Permanent perimeter fencing built with high-tensile steel creates control, improves grazing management, and prevents costly overgrazing.

Portable Paddocks Increase Flexibility:
Starting with portable polywire instead of permanent interior divisions allows producers to adapt quickly and improve rotations efficiently.

Water Systems Matter—but Don’t Overbuild:
Strategic water placement is important, but cattle can walk farther than many producers assume.

Sunlight Harvesting Drives Profitability:
Maintaining adequate leaf area and plant residuals maximizes solar energy capture and pasture productivity.

High-Density Grazing Done Correctly Works:
Frequent moves and controlled grazing can improve pasture recovery and animal performance when properly managed.

Multi-Species Grazing Creates Synergy:
Sheep, poultry, pigs, and cattle all bring unique advantages—from weed control and fertility cycling to diversified income streams.

Hunting and Fishing as Revenue Streams:
Recreational access such as hunting leases and fishing days can create additional income from existing land resources.

Drought Requires Early Action:
Greg emphasizes monitoring regrowth closely and reducing stocking rates early before overgrazing creates long-term damage.

Soil Cover is Critical:
Maintaining a “litter bank” protects soil moisture, reduces temperatures, improves infiltration, and keeps rainfall where it belongs.

Infrastructure Should Simplify Labor:
Lightweight reels, effective fencing systems, and thoughtful layouts dramatically reduce daily workload and stress.

🌱 Actionable Insights:

Prioritize permanent perimeter fence before investing heavily in other infrastructure.

Start with portable polywire systems to improve grazing flexibility and reduce upfront costs.

Protect ponds and water sources from direct livestock access.

Monitor forage regrowth regularly—especially during drought conditions.

Maintain adequate plant residuals and soil cover to improve water retention and pasture recovery.

Diversify enterprises to create multiple income streams from the same acreage.

Consider recreational opportunities like hunting or fishing access where appropriate.

Use species strategically—sheep for smaller acreages, poultry for fertility, pigs for diversification.

Simplify systems to reduce labor and improve operational sustainability.

📌 Special Offer for Podcast Listeners:
This episode comes directly from Greg Judy’s in-depth grazing course.

👉 Get a discounted link to the full video recording here

The full course goes even deeper into:
• Multi-species grazing systems
• Fencing and infrastructure
• Drought resilience
• Soil health
• Profitability strategies
• Livestock management

Tune in with your favorite podcast app to The Stockman Grassfarmer Podcast and discover how intentional grazing management can transform your land, livestock, and bottom line.