We started the day at the Fossati's newest rented ranch the La Maria. This ranch is located 40 km from Don Poncho (the first Fossati ranch we stopped at). This ranch doesn't have any equipment on it so they have to bring equipment there from the other ranch. La Maria has 1000 hectares dedicated to crops and cattle. This trip was focused more on the cattle side.
First they showed us their silage pile. They "strip graze" their silage by moving an electric fence closer to the silage pile as they eat it. The silage and pasture are sources of feed in the winter.
In the summer they graze planted fescue/wheatgrass pastures. These they also strip graze by moving them between smaller paddocks every two to three days. They just started renting the land we were looking at, so they still had some corn stalks in the fields from when it was used as a cropped acreage. They mow whatever hasn't been grazed at the end of the season to help the forage come back.
They artificially inseminate the cows and use clean up bulls for 60 days. Most of their semen comes from the United States. They choose genetics for medium framed cows and are looking at marbling as well (even though they don't have quality grades). Their clean up bulls are self-produced and they also sell some to other producers. Cows that don't get bred get culled.
They also showed us their heifers that were grazing on alfalfa. They strip graze the alfalfa too. They use Rumensin and bloat guard pellets.
Then we had lunch in Catrilo. They served us beef, salads, fries and ice cream. Everything was tasty.
Our second stop was the La Alicia near Tres Lomas. The two brothers showed us their feedlot system. They own two other ranches in other parts of the area and employ 14 people. One of the operations they own is for cow-calf pairs and the other is a dairy. The calves come to the Tres Lomas location to be fattened in the feedlot or on "grass". They usually fatten them on alfalfa. Their La Alicia ranch also has crops.
The La Alicia feeds out about 3000 head per year. Some of the calves they feed out are Corriente influenced that they raise on their Northern Argentina ranch location. These calves are usually early weaned and weigh about 80 kg (about 180 lbs). They also have a mix of Angus and Herefords. These are fed on alfalfa. They graze their alfalfa in a rotation and try to have about 35,000 kg of cows/acre. They rotate every day and they have enough paddocks for a 30-day rotation.
Then we went to the brother's cousin's dairy--Tambo Don Mauricio. This is a very progressive dairy in the area. The first sight we saw was their nursery. All of the calves have chips in their ears that act as an ID. These IDs keep track of how much the calves have eaten and stops them from eating too much. It also alerts the farmers when calves have not eaten enough. They are fed 7 liters per day. The farmers watch them carefully for disease.
They showed us their milking herds and how they are split between dry cows, milking cows, almost dry cows, and sick cows. They explained their ration systems and showed us their milking parlor. As well as we could figure, it was an swing parlor with 18 cows on each side. Their milk gets picked up two times a day by different companies. Some of the milk goes to cheese and the rest for consumption.
We traveled to Tranque Lauquen and ate dinner at Nora's house. She served us empanadas, and rice with either chicken or beef, and for dessert--cookies with dulce de leche and cream, flan, and a type of jelly roll with dulce de leche. Yum!
-Sarah Sample and Emily Helms
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