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this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2023
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These numbers are highly inflated
A 1,200 lb lactating beef animal needs around 3% of it's body mass every day. So around 35lbs of dry matter forage per day. Works out to around 6.4 tons DM/year.
Under irrigation, In areas without freezing temps, 25tons DM/acre is possible (not easy) or 4 cows. In areas with freezing temps 12-15 tons DM/acre can be accomplished or 2 cows (1 cow if the growing season is short)
10-15" rainfall zone produces around 600lbs DM/acre of which around 50% is available (timing issue) this is around 0.15 tons DM/acre. 6.4 tons DM for one cow is around 43 acres.
In a 5-10" rainfall zone it reduces to under 200lbs DM/acre total. Or 0.05 tons DM/acre or around 128 acres per cow. With that much walking their energy needs increase by as much as 50%. Or around 200 acres/cow.
Guess who grew up on a ranch with BLM grazing ground :-) My grandfather decided going bankrupt was a better than listening to a younger more hotheaded me.
Cool cool cool, guess who grew up in Texas around 100 ranches? You aren't accounting for how many times / much hay can be harvested from an acre of land, especially when you are talking about bahaia. While it may cost you a little more, to transport it to northern states its not 100 acres per cow. If your grandfather was a rancher, he definitely isn't taking his cues from one granddaughter, especially if that's how he raised your parent. We are a omnivores. We can get everything we need from both plant and animals, but as far as full chain amino acids- proteins, it is far more efficient from animals. The sad thing is we import a lot of meat, oddly enough from countries that don't have near the land mass, and more people per acre than we have here and less regulation on how said how the meat was raised, so tell me if it take 100 acres of land to raise 1 head of cattle is possible?
Well that settles it. You too ignorant on the subject to make a coherent reply.
Hey mathematician, there are nearly 40 million cows in the US between beef and dairy, times that by 100 hundred, and that means we would need 4 billion acres to sustain them. There is only 2.4 in all of America. You dolt.
Lol. A swing and a miss. Not even close to what I said. Try again. Since your from, Texas perhaps your should see a Dr about concussive brain trauma.
Here's a hint. Divide 40million by 2 cows per acre and you get 20 million. That's about how many acres we need to use to feed every cow in the U.S under irrigated annual crops production. Instead we use around 800 million acres (grassland plus forest).
So 97.5% of the land are we are using to graze cows, we don't need to use. We do it because the government subsidizes archaic agricultural practices and makes it affordable.
Read your first comment goober. You said it takes 40 to 200 acres per cow depending on the climate. SMH.