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| A
West that works |
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Jack Hagelstein
manages his ranch near Roswell, N.M., for more grass, less bare
dirt, more grass and a cattle operation that pays. |
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| A New Mexico ranch
couple first decided the health of the range was their top priority,
but fat cattle and fatter bottom lines followed |
By Courtney
White
for Headwaters News |
When Jack and
Pat Hagelstein bought the Comanche Hills Ranch a few miles due
east of Roswell, N.M., they had two "radical" goals
in mind: manage for the health of the land, not simply stocking
rate, and make a profit.
Of course, "radical" is not a word Hagelstein would
use himself. A former rancher who, as a young man, went into
the real estate business, Hagelstein is conservative in his
philosophy and businesslike in his approach to ranching. His
decisions are deliberate, carefully researched and focused on
the bottom line.
The bottom line, in this case, being healthy land.
"It's all about integrity," said Hagelstein,
"in family matters, in business, and on the land."
In fact, the Hagelsteins view themselves as a land "healers"
– restoring ecological integrity to land through management
of their cattle. In five years the Comanche Hills ranch has
seen a reduction in the amount of bare soil visible and an increase
in the density and variety of grass. Hagelstein has watched
lots of juvenile plants get started and the quantity of vegetative
litter increase – all positive indicators of land health.
"The ranch was in good condition when we bought it,"
Hagelstein said."But I knew it could get better."
A recent Rangeland Health assessment by the Bureau of Land Management
– half of the ranch is public land – confirmed the
upward trend.
"He is meeting all 17 of the Rangeland Health indicators
that we use," said John Spain, the BLM range conservationist
for the area, "plus four we added for wildlife and endangered
species."
And Hagelstein continues to meet these targets although the
ranch received only five inches of rain last year.
"His management is definitely contributing to the health
of the range, and he had standing forage even in a bad year,"
Spain said.
Hagelstein uses a slightly different indicator. Instead of the
usual bare ground, he's got weeds and grass all the way
up to the edge of his water troughs.
"The other day in Sunday school someone prayed for rain,"
he said. "But I thought: ‘we live in a desert'
– why not steward instead what the good Lord gave us?"
Yesterday
Born in Lubbock, Hagelstein's family moved to eastern
Colorado where his mother taught school and his father ranched.
When he was halfway through high school, the family packed up
and moved to a farm near Hobbs, N.M.
Bitten by the "ag" bug, Hagelstein majored in economics
in college before returning to ranching in Colorado, where he
worked for seven years, living the good life.
All that changed upon the dissolution of the family farm. Suddenly
without a career, Hagelstein decided to try his hand at real estate.
He earned a license, bought an apartment building, met and married
Pat, a speech therapist, and started a family that now includes
five children. After a period of tough times, the financial
outlook brightened and the Hagelsteins expanded their apartment
holdings.
But the call of ranching gnawed at Hagelstein. When the family achieved
a financial target in 1996, he began to look for a ranch to
buy. He didn't consider it a big career leap.
"We managed the apartments like they were a ranch,"
he said. "We grew slowly, watched our debt, managed responsibly,
and hired good people."
Integrity and honesty were the keys to their success, he said.
Their profit came from buying apartments "wholesale,"
fixing them up so they were attractive places to live and then
selling them "retail."
He intended to apply the same business "added value"
philosophy to cattle ranching.
This would prove harder than it sounded. After searching fruitlessly
for a few years, the Hagelsteins spied an ad for a ranch in
a newspaper and drove to Roswell to take a look. They made an
offer on the place the next day. By the winter of 1999 he had
170 head of cattle on the ranch – and a problem on his
hands.
"I jumped in with both feet," he said, "and quickly
found out that 20 years proved to be a long time to be out of
the business."
By chance, Hagelstein read about the Quivira Coalition in American
Cowboy magazine and decided to investigate. He came to a tour
of Jim Winder's ranch in 2000 and liked what he heard
about controlling the timing, intensity and frequency of cattle
impact upon the land. He went home and bunched his cattle into
one herd and began moving them every two to three weeks through
the ranch's eight pastures. To control them, he decided
to haul water rather than build new fences. It wasn't
just the cost of new fencing.
"When this was open country, the animals didn't stay
in one place if there wasn't any feed. They moved on,"
he said.
Through Quivira workshops, Hagelstein met Kirk Gadzia, a range
specialist and educator, who helped the family develop a grazing
plan, and rancher Guy Glosson, who teaches low-stress livestock
handling methods. Both became mentors to the Comanche Hills
Ranch.
With their help, Hagelstein began to watch the ground carefully
and almost immediately began to notice improvement. He attributes
the upward trend to two management methods: the rest he gives
the land; and animal impact.
Pastures are rested from livestock grazing at least 75 percent
of the year. Animal impact is natural, too.
"It's nature's way of tilling the soil,"
he said.
There was an additional bonus to watching land heal: "I'm
getting paid to do it," he says with a smile.
Today
In a time when ranchers, especially those on public land, are
struggling to stay economically viable, Hagelstein has a business
plan that is profitable.
"We trade cattle," he said, "buying low and selling
high." They buy yearlings at the local sale barn, fatten
them up on the ranch and then sell them for a profit. Hagelstein
rotates cattle through his herd sometimes as often as three
times a year, depending on a calculation that Hagelstein uses to determine
the right time to sell.
"Our costs are low, and I don't have to maximize
capacity to make a profit," he said. He summarized his
business philosophy this way: "You make your profit when
you buy, not when you sell."
Using this plan, the Hagelsteins tripled the size of their operation
in two years. They sell a truckload of cattle every two weeks.
They are buying an additional ranch to boot. It has 64 acres
of irrigated ground, which Hagelstein intends to divide into 50 paddocks
with electric fencing so he can control the rotation of his
animals tightly. He says he got the idea from Sam Montoya, a
rancher on Sandia Reservation, north of Albuquerque.
The rest of the new ranch, 1,500 acres, is BLM land ,and Hagelstein
intends to use it literally to let his animals rest. "Recess"
is what he calls it – a place for the animals to play.
"I devote a lot of my time to taking stress off of the
cattle," said Hagelstein. "Stress makes them sick,
just like it does with humans. The difference is, they can't
tell you when they're feeling stressed out."
A lack of stress in their relationship with the BLM is a key
part of the Hagelstein's success to date. This lack of
stress works in both directions.
"Jack has been extremely good to work with," said
John Spain, "He is extremely cooperative."
This relationship was put to an unexpected test, however, in
2001 when the BLM discovered a patch of critically endangered
Pecos sunflowers on the ranch.
"Jack's response was great," Spain said. "In
cooperation with the BLM, the pasture was cross-fenced to allow
the area to be deferred during the critical growth period for
the sunflower."
"I didn't mind," Hagelstein said. "In fact,
I took it as a challenge that I wanted to meet."
The Hagelstein's cooperation with the BLM recently produced
another benefit. A Cooperative Management Plan was completed
and signed last fall which allows them to graze numbers above
their permit levels, within an established limit, without prior
approval by the BLM.
In fact, according to Hagelstein, the Comanche Hills Ranch has
enjoyed a 150 percent increase in permitted AUMs (Animal Unit
Months – or the amount of forage a mother cow and her
calf can consume in one month) to 3,600.
The flexibility offered by the BLM is unusual, to say the least.
"He's one of the very few we've done this with,"
said Spain.
In response to the increase in AUMs, Hagelstein reduced the mother
cow herd numbers and grazed a larger number of yearlings during
the dormant (winter) season.
It increased his bottom line as well.
Given the amount of grass Jack and Pat have grown recently –
Jack figures the ranch has enough grass now for two years even
if the rains quit tomorrow – it is likely that Hagelsteins
will continue to enjoy the fruits of their labor for many years
to come.
Hopefully, their blending of the "radical" goals of
healthy land and healthy profits will not be seen as so unusual
for long. |
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|  Courtney
White writes
a monthly column for Headwaters News that focuses on people
who embrace a sustainable approach to western resources.
White is executive director of the Quivira Coalition, a Santa
Fe-based group devoted to collaboration as the approach to
an ecologically healthy region.
Much of Quivira's emphasis is on ranching, but its principles
of education, cooperation and innovation apply to many of
the region's biggest issues.
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