The Transformation of Blue Ranch On the rolling sun-scorched prairies of northwestern Texas, rain is more likely a distant memory than a current event. For a crop of any kind to grow, everything has to come together just right. Only then does the ground yield, and then only reluctantly. As a lifelong Texas cattleman, Rex McCloy knew what he and his wife, Susan, were getting into when they purchased Blue Ranch, a 19,000-acre operation near Dumas, in 2013. “It was a good ranch,” he says. “The fences had been cleaned out by the previous owner, but there were upgrades that were needed. We needed to do extensive work on the water system. It was obvious we had to make some renovations if we were going to handle large numbers of cattle.” At the urging of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the McCloys started the transformation of Blue Ranch with an overhaul of the existing water infrastructure. They added 120,000 gallons of water storage capacity, along with more than 40 miles of water lines and pumps serving individual 3,000-gallon troughs. But their plans involved more than just updating infrastructure and tidying up fences. They wanted the ranch to be a sustainable, regenerative cattle operation incorporating best practices for pasture management, habitat enhancement,
rangeland restoration and water usage. Hitting Challenges Head-On
Ranch manager Mike Turner knows the northwest Texas ground like other people know the streets of the neighborhoods in which they were raised, and he recognized the challenges the McCloys would face in their pursuit of operational and environmental excellence. To start, years of heavy use and inattention had created bogs in low-lying areas, blocking perennial creeks and springs.
“We had a large canopy of black willow, so much so that the deer had a hard time walking through,” says Turner. “We did mechanical controls, then came back with individual plant treatments using a 2,4-D spot spray. We’re a cotton county, so I can’t apply 2,4-D after May 1, so I’ve also used Surmount® herbicide. I’ll definitely use Surmount again; it gives us good cholla and prickly pear control, again with no 2,4-D.” \\ Next on Turner’s to-do list was freeing the water to return to its natural path. // “We rechanneled the original stream bank and put the water back on its original path,” Turner says. “Once we did that, we opened up more corridor area for wildlife, and we had more water flowing than we’d ever had before.” More water meant the potential for a larger herd. Historically, the ranch had sustained 300 to 350 cows, with lower numbers during drought years.
The McCloys wanted to increase those numbers and have enough forage available during wetter years to handle several hundred head of stocker cattle. Foundational Change To create the additional capacity while still operating according to their original intent, the McCloys switched from the three-pasture format used by the previous operator to a high-density, low-frequency grazing system utilizing 62 grazing cells of approximately 300 acres each. Instead of reseeding to renovate the tired ground, Turner relied on the natural seed-spreading ability of the herd.
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