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Post by Allenw on Mar 8, 2020 11:35:55 GMT -6
I thought what we feed through the winter or other dry spells for quality forage production to get through them would be an interesting post. Feel free to include what you would do different, what you've done in the past, future plans and past failures.
I always end up with some late or damaged hay to feed. This year I've been feeding 3lbs of 38% cubes every other day with less then ideal hay and whatever dry grass they pick up. It's worked well, better then feeding 20% cubes and better then the roughage buster I've tried in the past. I've feed some good quality small protein blocks in the past but couldn't keep the consumption down where I wanted and don't have enough cattle to take a pallet of the harder blocks.
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Post by the illustrious potentate on Mar 8, 2020 13:51:53 GMT -6
Running them on small grain winter pasture a few hours about 3 times a week works well and seems to be economical on protein costs.
They stay in good condition and get very little hay. Have to have the right mix of grass to broke ground and in proximity to make it work. But where that happens, it works real well.
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Post by 1982vett on Mar 8, 2020 16:29:23 GMT -6
I began feeding my better quality hay ~ 9 1/2 % end of November after the killing frost. As the winter grasses came on I eased into the 7 & 8% stuff. Stopped putting that out almost a month ago. Used somewhere around 1.25 tons of hay per cow this year.
I’ve always spent money on winter pasture in the past. Didn’t even do that this year opting to go the hay route. Still have a bag of range meal out of the 10 I bought back in November and used about 8 bags of 20% cubes to pen with. They’ve gone through 6 bags of stock salt and 2 bags of Purina wind and rain mineral.
Currently weighing the need/want to fertilize in order to replace the hay used. Hay meadows certainly could use some seeing I didn’t fertilize since the fall of 2018. I have a feeling it’s going to be a dry spring and a summer that’s not going to be any different.
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Post by fence on Mar 9, 2020 6:35:03 GMT -6
I've pulled cattle off the oat pastures to start getting them ready for warm season annuals. And to make some oat hay on one.
So we're really feeding heavy for the first time this winter.
I'm feeding the cows at home 2 year old Milo stalks. Along with 7-8 pounds of wcs x wsc. Cows not at home getting a little better hay and liquid feed.
I do hay same as cattle....sell the good stuff and keep the sorry for myself.
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Post by birddog on Mar 9, 2020 7:15:20 GMT -6
I cut my hay usage in half this week but will start rotating quicker. We seem to be at the point where the grass is coming up good, just not very nutritional. The cows are a little thinner than I like, but most have 5-7 month calves on them. I will wean a bunch in mid April. I have a 30 acre oat patch that the cows will be on later this week. Its not very good so my plan is to let them eat it down low and going ahead and no till drilling some Sorghum Almum into it if it will dry up some.
The other oat field is 50 acres and is about 10" tall. It has 25 calves on it and they are not making much a dent in it. Hope to bale it up in late April/early May. I fertilized it again last week before the rain. The native Ryegrass has just really started coming on this week.
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Post by 1982vett on Mar 12, 2020 7:02:24 GMT -6
I stopped feeding almost a month ago.
Penned cattle yesterday..... got the bag of cubes on the back of the truck and went to the pasture. Blew the horn, got out and dropped the tailgate getting their attention. They started coming towards me so I got in and started to the pens. Looked back and half were not following. Circled back to entice the non followers and the rest ran past me back to the others. Nothing wanted to follow. Said to self....they can’t resist following a roll of hay......stupid thought....so back with the truck to stir them up and drive them out....another stupid though. They just moved around enough to get out of the way of the truck. So I try the bag oh cubes again. This time they followed.
Penning cows isn’t easy when they aren’t hungry.
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Post by hughespieds on Mar 12, 2020 10:09:07 GMT -6
Checked my hay yesterday and was out. Cows on opposite side of pasture but were watching me. Put out a bale and they didn't move so that's the last bale of the season. Easy hay year for me as they consumed just a little over half than they usually do.
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Post by Allenw on Mar 15, 2020 14:59:10 GMT -6
In the last week my cows have dropped way back on hay consumption. I was going to move them to another place but am leaving them where whey are now to try to control the winter grass in the pasture.
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