Successful Trial Program Convinces Montana Rancher
John Sampsell
Standord, MT
April, 2003
Using the CRYSTALYX® low-moisture block was nearly as effective for distributing cattle as installing another fence and pipeline.
John Sampsell has used CRYSTALYX® on his home ranch south of Stanford, MT, to supplement cows after calving in the spring, and in the late fall and winter to utilize areas that haven't been grazed. But 2002 was the first year he tried to use the low-moisture blocks on his public lands allotment to improve utilization. In his opinion, it worked just as well.
Blocks were placed in one pasture where one source of water is easy to get to and the other is hard. In the past, the cattle have congregated in a 50-acre meadow around the easy source of water. Riders would try to push the cattle out of the area, but the cattle always came back. "It was getting hit pretty hard," he admits.
Putting CRYSTALYX® blocks out kept the cattle in the areas they'd never utilized before. Sampsell says they hardly touched the areas that are usually grazed hard. "It made the cows graze the end of the pasture that we could never get utilized very well before," he adds.
In fact, U.S. Forest Service personnel said utilization in the hard hit area was in line with what the allotment's grazing plan calls for.
Sampsell has run cattle on the Burnt Ridge allotment with his cousins since 1977. He usually runs about 100 cow-calf pairs on the 9,400-acre allotment in central Montana. One pasture has plenty of water with meadows, willows and willow bottoms; the other pasture is steep with only two sources of water. The second pasture has an elevation of about 8,000 feet at the highest point.
Not only did the CRYSTALYX® improve utilization on the allotment, it made gathering cattle in the fall easier. Most years, it takes them two or three days to gather all the cattle out of the pasture, and in 2002 they gathered all but a half dozen pairs in the first pass through the pasture. And when they made the second pass, Sampsell said the cows and calves were right by the blocks. "They knew that's where they had to go and that's where we found them." Given the success of the 2002 grazing season, Sampsell is more than willing to put CRYSTALYX® low-moisture blocks out again on his allotment but he'll probably make some adjustments. He'd use more low-moisture blocks and late-day trail the cattle to the barrels so grazing pressure is focused away from the riparian areas, from day one in the new pasture.
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