1998 Winner

Manage Land and Bottom Line
Stewardship pays.

Ray Marxer is one cost-conscious cowman. So while he loves the land, investing in environmental stewardship at Matador Cattle Company, Dillon, Montana, also has to make economic sense to this ranch manager.

And it does.

In February, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) named Matador Cattle Company the national winner in its 8th annual Environmental Stewardship Award Program. Dow AgroSciences is the new sponsor of the award.

Matador Cattle Company was honored for:

  • Implementing rest-rotation grazing systems that have reduced erosion, increased vegetative cover and improved wildlife habitat.
  • Documenting – through photo monitoring and cooperative studies with Montana State University and others – the effects of livestock, wildlife and natural geologic function on riparian areas. The information helped Marxer successfully defend the ranch’s grazing practices on leased federal land.
  • Hosting tours, workshops and school programs to teach “on-the-ground” lessons in conservation.

Matador Cattle Company operates 250,000 acres and a herd of 7,000 cows on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. The Koch family of Koch Industries has owned the ranch since 1951.

Marxer started at Matador Cattle Company as a cowboy in 1974, and managed cows in its first rest-rotation grazing system set up the following year. He was named ranch manager in 1990. From cowboy to manager, he’s paid attention to the numbers.

Environmental acclaim is just half the story.

Since 1988, Matador Cattle Company has increased its herd from 6,000 to 7,000 cows, reduce supplemental feed costs by a third, and increased average weaning weights by 140 pounds. Steers average 540 pounds weaned at six months of age.

“And weaning weight isn’t one of our big goals,” Marxer says. “It doesn’t drive profit near as much as reproductive performance. We branded a 94.1 percent calf crop on 6,800 cows last year. We’ll have 80 percent of our calves born in 21 days.

Certainly part of the Matador success is its 10 employees doing the right things well. The rest is being willing to try new things and trying to make them work.

Grazing systems – fencing, water development, and rotation to control stock density and grazing duration – improve grazing distribution and the efficiency of harvest to feed more cows. “We use different systems on different parts of the ranch,” Marxer says. “But virtually all of our pasture lands have a rotation strategy.”

The original system, installed in 1975, is still in use on 80,000 acres of summer range. The plan calls for a three-pasture rest rotation where one-third of the range is rested each year and seasonal use is alternated.

In the first year of the rotation, a pasture is grazed intensively through the growing season until grass seed ripens. The second year, that pasture is grazed only after native grass seed has ripened. Grazing at this time scatters seeds; the hoof action of cattle helps to plant those seeds. The third year, the pasture gets total rest to allow new grass seedlings to become established.

“It’s shocking to see how well the land and the creeks have responded,” Marxer says.

Marxer also rotates 3,700 cows through stockpiled winter pasture. “They never get hay, just one to two pounds of protein supplement per day,” he says. “We have two people feed and calve 3,700 cows.”

Haying is an expensive practice and best used sparingly, Marxer says. In 1995, he sold the ranch’s hay equipment and now contracts for all its hay harvest. That saved $22,000 the first year in operational costs.

To save on hay that is used, the last cutting is taken about first frost and never baled. Two windrows are raked into one and left in the field to weather like loose-stacked hay. A cowboy divides fields with electric fence and turns the cattle in. With normally dry winters, the hay “stores better than we ever dreamed it would,” Marxer says. The method saves 414 to $17 per ton in harvest, plus the $7 per ton it once cost to feed hay.

Changes in cow herd genetics have helped efficiency. Marxer wants a moderate-sized cow – he says 1,100 pounds ideal – and uses Angus-Hereford crosses to get it. Bigger cows are less efficient on Matador’s range, he says.

Matador Cattle company seemingly has improved everything but the weather.

“Most of the improvement we’ve made has been through drought. We’ve only had three or four good years out of the last 12 or 14,” Marxer says. “You get adversity and learn how to manage better.”

“We have to look at things both economically and environmentally to be able to harvest natural resources, turn it into something humans can use and continue to do it year after year. We have to be profitable and take care of the land to keep doing that.”

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