With today's management systems, the cost of making hay far exceeds its value to grazing businesses. Studies have shown that winter feed costs are the largest single factor limiting the profitability for most livestock operations. In virtually every area of the USA, year-around grazing--without hay--is possible, yet many graziers continue making hay.

Kick the Hay Habit: A Practical Guide To Year-Around Grazing by Jim Gerrish will show you how much it really costs to produce a ton of hay. He explains how to use nature as your guide for low-cost winter grazing; how to conduct a pasture inventory; how to select the optimal breeding and birthing seasons; how to custom design your own winter forage system; and how to make the transition from hay feeding to grazing.

Wouldn't you rather spend your time monitoring pastures and moving livestock than making hay?

Both the beginner and the experienced grazier will benefit from Kick the Hay Habit. Gerrish shares his personal experiences as a grazier in Missouri and Idaho as well as insights he gained as a researcher at the University of Missouri's Forage Systems Research Center. As a grazing consultant he has helped farmers and ranchers throughout North and South America.

Wouldn't you rather Kick the Hay Habit, dump the heavy metal, and start collecting the profits?

Jim Gerrish grew up on a grain and alfalfa hay farm in south-central Illinois. He spent over 22 years conducting beef-forage systems research and outreach while on the faculty of the University of Missouri. With over 20 years of commercial cattle and sheep production on his family farm in northern Missouri, he also has one foot solidly planted in commercial livestock production.

His research at the University of Missouri-Forage Systems Research Center encompassed many aspects of plant-soil-animal interactions and provided the foundation for many of the basic principles of Management-intensive Grazing.

Today, with his wife, Dawn, he contract grazes a commercial cow-calf operation on 260 irrigated acres in Idaho. He has received awards from the American Forage and Grassland Council, Missouri Forage and Grassland Council, National Center for Appropriate Technology, USDA-NRCS, the Soil and Water Conservation Society and others. He is also an independent grazing lands consultant providing service to farmers and ranchers on both private and public lands across the USA and internationally.