This is an example of the progress trained heifers made on reducing leafy spurge in pasture at Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site in Deer Lodge Montana. Pictures were taken in early August of 2005. After the fence was taken down and cattle had access to a mown hayfield, they returned to this pasture on their own and finished off the leafy spurge. Click on the picture to read more about cattle learning to eat leafy spurge.
Back in the Spring of 2010, the Agriculture Research Service (ARS) in Miles City, Montana put out a press release announcing an online calculator that could tell producers how many more cattle they could raise if they were able to eliminate one or two widespread invasive plants. Matt Rinella, the rangeland ecologist who developed the tool, used it to estimate that ranchers in a 17-state region could raise 200,000 more cows a year and save tens of millions of dollars if leafy spurge were eliminated. Of course how to eliminate leafy spurge, or any other weed, is a problem we’ve yet to solve.
Can’t Beat ‘Em? Eat ‘Em!
As many of you already know, I developed a method to teach cows (or whatever livestock you raise) to eat weeds. So when I saw the ARS announcement I looked at Matt Rinella’s results from a completely different perspective. If cattle can eat leafy spurge (and I have actually trained cattle to eat this plant), that means that there is enough forage available right now for 200,000 more cattle. If we went straight to grazing leafy spurge instead of trying to eliminate it, we’d save even more than the tens of millions estimated by Rinella.
