Pastured cows, managed trees make a profitable farm

Bill Lawhon enjoys pointing out the quality of the cattle and pastures on his 250-acre farm in Knox County.

Bill Lawhon grew up on a small Tennessee farm about 100 miles south of Memphis. After high school in the early ‘60s he went into the Navy, serving his time and getting out just before Vietnam. Rather than pursue farming, he got a doctorate degree from the University of Tennessee and went to work for Columbus-based Battelle Labs doing environmental engineering work.

In 1984, he setup his own environmental engineering firm, and another business doing technical service and hazardous waste cleanup. Although, through it all, he never lost the itch to farm. Because his wife, Bonnie, was from Ohio and his career was here, they looked for years for a farm they could call their own.

Finally, in 1992, they found the place they would call home — a 120-acre farm in Knox County south of Mt. Vernon.

“Knox County was awful pretty, and it was the right place at the right time,” Lawhon said.

Although the farm was showing its age. Once a prosperous pre-Civil War farm, an absentee landlord had owned it for almost 70 years before the Lawhons came along, and all the barns had fallen down. The old house also was finished.

“When we got it, it was pretty rough,” Lawhon said. “There were no buildings, fences, water — nothing.”

Tree farming paid off

The farm was in crops when Lawhon acquired it, and that’s how it stayed for the first 10 years or so, as he added another 126 acres in 1995. And while his work kept him from focusing on the crops, he put a lot of thought into the farm’s forestland. Although the trees were seen as having no value when he purchased the farm, he felt otherwise and managed the woodland accordingly.

Because the old barns on the property had fallen down before Bill and Bonnie Lawhon purchased the property, the build this barn to house equipment. A lean-to off the back also provides shelter for cattle in the adjacent barn lots. In the foreground of this picture is a recently planted stand of paw-paw trees. “I’m always experimenting with something,” Bill said.

“I had two guys come and offer $25,000 and $27,000 to log the farm, but instead I hired a consultant and looked into it,” he said. “Seven years later I cut seven trees per acre on 80 acres, just to clean it up some, and it paid for this farm. We sold seven trees per acre for $125,000 — we manage out trees.”

Seeing the return he reaped from tree farming, Lawhon is frustrated that other farmers don’t put a little effort into it and earn similar rewards. Especially since Ohio is about 30% forested, with much of that forestland owned privately by farmers.

“How many farmers have the value of their timber on their profit and loss sheet?” Lawhon said. “These guys are so sophisticated on their grain dealings, yet they won’t hire someone to come in and help them with the value of their timber.”

His efforts earned the farm the Ohio Tree Farmer of the Year award in 2001. And, when Ohio hosted the National Tree Farm annual meeting in Columbus in 2003, the event’s forestry field day was held at the farm.

This wetland was added 10 years ago to filter rain runoff from the lots outside the barn in the background.

Lawhon added a wetland to a wooded area of the farm about 10 years ago. It is down the slope of a hill from the barn he and Bonnie built and filters the water running off of the barn lots. Roads through the wooded areas are maintained and enjoyed by grandkids and local Scout groups. He also planted a stand of American chestnuts and pines as a wildlife corridor.

“The critters need to have a place to live too,” Lawhon said. “We manage our grass and our tree.”

From crops to grass

Managing the grass started about seven years ago, when Lawhon decided to transition the farm from crops to pasture for beef cattle. He picked up the idea from another local beef producer, Tim Lester, who grazed his cows.

USDA Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) cost-share dollars helped pay for some of the transition efforts — assisting with some fencing, waterlines and heavy-use pads — but much of the transition was done independently.

Lawhon uses this 3-year-old Black Angus bull primarily for breeding heifers because it has good calving-ease EPDs. “He’s a beauty, and he gives you 60-pound calves all day long,” Lawhon said. The Red Angus bull in the background to the left is used more as a terminal sire on the cows and produces calves that are regularly 25 pounds bigger than the black bull’s calves.

“We’ve been totally in grass for three years now,” Lawhon said. “The herd is growing with the grass, but my philosophy is first you’ve got to have the grass, then you can bring the cows. If you end up with a lot of cows and no grass, then you’re buying feed, and you can’t make any money doing that.”

The key is having grass that can be grazed. That’s why when seeding his pastures, Lawhon chose to spend a little extra money on improved novel endophyte tall fescue for some of his pastures because of the hearty spring growth and its ability to stockpile in the fall. The new novel fescues are more palatable and animal friendly, without the grazing problems associated with traditional fescues.

“The colder it gets, the more the cows love this grass. I love this stuff. I can’t say enough about these new fescues,” he said. “The cows eat it and don’t seem to have a problem. They’ll go right off the orchardgrass onto the fescue and never miss a lick.”

Red clover is frost seeded onto the fescue to further improve the stands through the legume’s nitrogen-fixing quality. Stands where clover will be frost-seeded in the late winter are grazed down hard in the fall so the broadcasted clover seed has more potential for soil contact.

A 15-acre alfalfa-orchardgrass field provides the farm’s hay needs and also is grazed once in the late fall after freezing. The three cuttings this year yielded 78, 45 and 30 large round bales, respectively. Hay also was made this summer off of a 13-acre novel fescue pasture that had been grazed twice in the spring. It yielded 55 round bales that were equivalent to a second cutting in quality.

Fencing has been an on-going project, with a little more still yet to do this fall. The farm’s pastures have been divided into 29 separate paddocks, which can be further subdivided with a single strand of hotwire as needed for managed grazing.

Woven-wire fence is used for all the perimeter fencing to ensure cows don’t get out.

“I’ve never gotten a call about having the cows out,” Lawhon said.

The woven-wire is particularly important for keeping calves contained. Lawhon plans to add some woven wire in areas where he moves cattle between pastures, simply so the calves won’t slip under a high-tensile wire and get away.

“I’ve got no problems moving cows, but the calves can be a challenge,” he said. “If one takes off the other direction, then they all go, and then the mommas don’t want to come.”

With the rotational system, moving cows is important, with cows only staying in one paddock for three days at the most. Lawhon added another 24 acres from a neighboring farm three years ago and now has 250 total acres, including 130 acres of pasture. Of the pasture, 40 acres is on the side of Hopewell Road where is house and barn sits, and the other 90 is across the road. Hotwire on reels is used to make an alley across the road when moving cattle from one side to the other. As long as the calves are contained, things go smoothly.

“My cows are so used to moving every three days that they may be belly deep in grass, but once they see me coming they are ready to move,” he said. “You don’t have any problem moving cattle when you rotational graze.”

Lawhon grazes his cattle from April until the first of January, when his stockpiled grass runs out. From January through March, the herd grazes a 10-acre stand of corn, supplemented with hay. The cows and calves have access to a tenth of an acre of the corn and one bale of hay each day. (See the October issue of Ohio’s Country Journal for a detailed explanation of Lawhon’s winter feeding program.)

Aside from containing and moving calves, the only other real challenge Lawhon faces is groundhogs.

“We’ve trapped and shot 147 groundhogs just on the 90 acres across the road,” he said. “That’s my biggest problem is groundhogs.”

Water is crucial

The watering system for the pastures was mostly added in three stages from 2008 to 2010 using 5,000 feet of buried 2-inch heavy-duty line. Today, every pasture has a water tank. Some of the tanks are frost-free, with plans to add more. Some of the tanks also are placed in the center of the paddocks, so the paddocks can be subdivided but still have water access. The water pump is in the barn near his house and pumps water almost a mile to the farthest tank away.

“The issue with pumping water is not the length, it’s the elevation change. Even though we’ve got some ups and downs, the elevation is all about the same,” Lawhon said. “I was concerned we wouldn’t be able to get water from the barn to the farthest paddock, but the elevation there at the high point and at the barn is the same.”

The only pasture without permanent water is on the land that was added three years ago, and the plan is to revive an old well on that property and use it to water that pasture and barn. The farm is blessed with good water, which is critical for raising animals.

“This whole rotational grazing thing will not work if you don’t have water,” Lawhon said. “That’s what guys really should focus on first. You build fences based on how you can water.”

Crossbred cattle are key

The farm currently has 62 cows and replacement heifers, with a goal of reaching 85 cows to best use the land available. His herd is a mix of Shorthorn, Black Angus and Red Angus crosses. He thinks the combination of hybrid vigor and the Shorthorn genetics produces healthier calves that finish better.

The herd is a mix of Angus and Shorthorn, and the crossbreeding helps produce healthier, more efficient calves, Lawhon said. Lawhon’s ideal “momma cow” is three-fourths Angus and one-fourth Shorthorn. He appreciates the mothering, milking, finishing and docile traits that come with the Shorthorns.

“Another thing I like about the Shorthorns is a calf will never go hungry with them,” Lawhon said. “I’ve seen three calves nursing off of them. They produce milk. I don’t ever have a bad-looking calf.”

With a fall-calving herd, the calves are with the cows throughout the winter on the standing corn, then they are weaned at 500 to 600 pounds in March using fenceline weaning.

“Fenceline weaning works like a charm, but you need woven-wire fence with a hot wire to do that,” he said.

Because the calves are with the cows over the winter on the standing corn, with hay available, they already know what corn and hay are when they are weaned. So, getting them bunked trained to corn and accustomed to hay only takes about 30 minutes, Lawhon said.

Today, he sells his calves as weaned calves right off the farm. Once his buyers saw how they performed, they have sold well.

“The first year, we took some to market and they were discounted because you could see some of the Shorthorn in them,” Lawhon said. “But they don’t discount them anymore. These crossbred cattle grow well, they’re hardy and they cut well.”

A sustainable, one-man show

Lawhon has sold the two businesses he founded and now is “retired” to the farm full time. His daughter Sara and her husband, Ryan, and their four children live nearby in Mt. Vernon and help some at the farm. But a cattle handling system is in place and the facilities have been built with the goal of one person being able to do all that is needed.

“We’re trying to get to the point where one guy can handle everything, and the older you get, the less hassle you want,” Lawhon said.

When he decides he is too old or tired to manage the cattle, Sara and her family will likely take them over. But regardless of what happens, the farm will remain a farm. Most of the land was entered into the Ohio Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Easement Purchase Program three years ago. So, rather it’s timber, cattle or some other enterprise, it will hopefully remain a profitable farm for many years to come.

“Our philosophy is the farm has to pay for itself,” Lawhon said. “We manage our timber and sell timber, and we manage our cows and sell cows. That’s what we do here.”