How many acres of ranchland does it take to sustain a head of cattle in the Southwest?

Question

How many acres of ranchland does it take to sustain a head of cattle in the Southwest?

Answer 1

There are so many factors that affect the answer - whether the acreage is in the desert Southwest or not, whether it is irrigated, whether it is seeded with crop grasses, whether the cattle are going to receive bales of supplemental food, whether there are paddocks to control overgrazing, and whether the land is sloped and which direction those slopes face.

In the desert, the land cannot possibly sustain as many head per acre as the moister regions. If the cattle are not being given supplemental bales of alfalfa or other food, and the acreage has not been seeded with grass, then it is probably less than 1 head per acre. On better pastureland, you may be able to sustain 1 head per acre in the fall and 2 head per acre in the summer. In places like Kentucky where there is fabulous grasses, they can stock 2-4 head on a well-managed pasture. In Iowa, they are around 1-2 per acre. So I would bet in the drier Southwest its less than 1 per acre.

Answer 2

It totally depends on the management practices ,Weather,The bureau of land management have guidelines for lands owned by the govt and leased to ranchers however some of their recommendations have been tainted by the environmental lobbies pushing bad ideas because of faulty information Sustainable agriculture is the best protector of our resources in my opinion.

Answer 3

Well do you know what " a head " of cattle means?  " a head " means one. It all depends on how much cattle you have. Technically depending on how much grass you have for grazing and accessable water. Usually you can have 3-5 head of cattle per acer. It all depends on the bred too. Some good places to look up information is the BBU, Beefmasters Universal, The Western Horseman sometimes has articals, or go to your local feed store and chit chat with some of the ol' ranchers. They have so much advice to give. Trust me, I did and I have been cattle and horse ranching for 15 years now.