• Client: USDA National Resource Conservation Service
• Date: August, 2010 – February, 2011
• Project Type: Conservation Activity Plan (CAP), Resource and Forage Inventories, Forage Animal Balance, Rotational Grazing Plan, Contingency Plan, Ecological Range Site Mapping, GIS Mapping and Database Development
• Info:  Ladder Livestock contracted Blue Mountain to work in conjunction with the ranch operators and the local Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) district conservationist to develop a comprehensive grazing plan.

Ladder Livestock is a large and complicated transhumance operation in north-central Colorado and south-central Wyoming with 140,000 deeded or leased acres.

The components of a grazing conservation activity plan are defined by the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) and include an inventory of ranch infrastructure, forage inventories, estimations of grazing utilization and a rangeland trend evaluation.

Blue Mountain used the information from these inventories to complete forage balance worksheets and develop a grazing rotation plan that will preserve rangeland condition while meeting animal forage needs. Ecological Range Site maps were developed by evaluating edaphic, topographic and vegetative characteristics per NRCS guidelines to supplement forage descriptions.