Chico is blessed with variations of the seasons. We are just entering one of the most beautiful, when the winter rains turn the foothills to emerald green as the grass emerges from dormancy. This is the season the livestock and wildlife have been waiting for to receive their most abundant source of high quality feed.

With little rain from spring to late fall or early winter, the grazing cycle in our area typically ends during late May or early June in the foothills visible from Chico. Livestock producers move their animals from the foothills to higher ranges or other areas with cooler temperatures and more moisture (or irrigation) to keep them supplied with high quality feed.

Cattle and sheep, both ruminants, are able to convert green grass into nearly all the nutrients they need except for supplemental salt and minerals. When the rains return to the foothills and valley, the animals can again use this most abundant renewable resource, pasture forage. The preferences of vegetarians not withstanding, grazing animals is one of the most natural and economically important biologic systems for conversions of low quality protein to the high quality protein needed by simple stomached animals, like we humans.

Most cattle ranchers in the area manage their herds to make the most of the green and growing grass by timing calving just ahead of the grass season, so most calves in this area are born in the fall. The cows convert the green grass to milk and the calves begin feeding on the forage as their digestive systems develop. The result is a crop of calves ready to be and weaned and become self-sufficient in late spring at about 6 to 8 months of age.

If the rancher specializes in cows and calves, they will select their replacement heifer from among the female calves and sell the balance as well as the male calves to other ranchers who specialize in growing yearlings and or feeder cattle. While some cattle producers retain ownership of their calves all the way to market weights of 1,100 to 1,200 pounds (some breeds may finish heavier), most find that a particular segment of the business fits their resources better. Some will buy weaning age calves and graze them to weights of about 900 pounds, then sell them to feeders.

Feeders tend to be the most specialized, buying cattle large enough to be fed intensively for enough time to reach optimum condition and market weights, most at about 15 to 20 months of age. If ranchers have irrigated pasture, they often schedule calving in the early spring and wean in the fall, in order to use their pastures which grow primarily during the spring and summer. This schedule would be more typical across the rest of the country, where most of the rain and natural pasture growth occurs during the spring and summer.

Sheep and most wildlife species breed seasonally, so their young will develop when they have the best food supply. Sheep ranchers are therefore more limited in managing their grazing and tend to follow the natural cycle as opposed to using irrigated pastures. They, like some cattle producers, tend to move their animals longer distances to follow the seasonal growth of pastures. While California is a leader in concentrated dairy production, there is relatively little beef-cattle or lamb feeding done in the state.

These industry characteristics often results in trucking animals from the valley and foothills to mountain pastures, or to Washington and Oregon for summer pastures. Weanling calves and yearling cattle, as well as lambs, often go to seasonal grazing in the High Plains, crop residue (corn stocks, winter hay fields, etc.) grazing during the fall in the Midwest, and eventually to the concentration of processing facilities in panhandle of Texas, western Oklahoma and Kansas.

There is a growing market for grass-fed beef and lamb, which may alter, even enhance, the value of our local grazing resources. Regardless of which grazing system is employed, that journey and the important natural food cycle it represents often begin and increasingly end right here in the productive green hills of winter in California.