Greenhouse grown fodder for dairy cattle

[Von Helman]

Hello everyone I am a long time lurker and now a new member here and I’d like to open a discussion on greenhouse fodder for cattle.
We have had a greenhouse here where we produced fodder (Barley) for sheep and it worked out really well. Now I am building a new greenhouse and larger project and would like to ask a few questions and see if anyone else is feeding dairy cattle with greenhouse fodder such as miniature lettuce or other types of greenhouse grown fodder.

Here is an example

http://www.verticrop.com/about.html

Also anyone with feed lot experience I’d like to know how many dairy cattle can be housed in a 25,000 sq ft corral when they are being fed daily like a feed lot. I already have an idea but I want others to chime in and give me their opinions.


thank you

[TexasBred]

A good dairy cow will starve to death with a belly full of lettuce. Without checking I'd guess that it's probably 90% water.

[Von Helman]

ok let me say I am also plan to feed it barley but the entire post is about what types of greenhouse items should be fed to dairy cows..

I agree on lettuce alone not being enough .. sorry for not being more clear..

[Jim62]

Sounds to me like you're going to have some mighty hungry cows after a week or two.

What would be the point of an operation like this? Tax write-off?

[TexasBred]

ok let me say I am also plan to feed it barley but the entire post is about what types of greenhouse items should be fed to dairy cows..

I agree on lettuce alone not being enough .. sorry for not being more clear..

Can you just grow some good grass in the greenhouse??

[1wlimo]

I would think that most of crops you could grow to produce feed in this sort of system has a too high seed cost to be viable. If barley works keep to it. I know this is what they use in containerized systems.

[gonzo]

I'm sorry V H but I don't understand unless you don't have the land at your disposal why you would try to grow enough forage for cows in a green house.I must be missing something.

[Von Helman]

Can you just grow some good grass in the greenhouse??

Well I plan to grow a lot of Barley for the sheep but I was just wondering if anyone else was doing such a system and if they had any type of "roughage" suggestions. Like I said we have done this barley fodder for sheep and it works great.

[Von Helman]

I'm sorry V H but I don't understand unless you don't have the land at your disposal why you would try to grow enough forage for cows in a green house.I must be missing something.

That's basically it,

What I am trying to do is create a system for dairy cows where they can be kept in a small lot of land and have their feed produced on site in a greenhouse. This project is to help better make use of land and limited resources and to be a working model, thats all. you know try something new and improve on whats already out there.

Guess I have too much time on my hands huh?

[gonzo]

No not at all I was just reading the post and didn't understand what you were doing.

[pdfangus]

personally I can not imagine the green house capacity needed to produce feed for a single cow on a daily basis year round. Especially a dairy cow.

can some one quantify this for me. I know how much a cow eats.....what I don't know is how much greenhouse space it would take to raise feed for one cow to feed her completly.

[Douglas]

These pictures will help you understand the concept:

http://www.grazegreen.com/index.html

Click on the photo gallery.

[Douglas]

According to the site above you can produce 500 lbs per day in the smallest greenhouse. They show the variable cost as $76 per ton. The capital cost would probably be equivalent to purchasing hay making equipments. I don't buy all of it, but i do think hydroponics (sp?) will become more more important in food production in the futures.

[TexasBred]

Can you just grow some good grass in the greenhouse??

Well I plan to grow a lot of Barley for the sheep but I was just wondering if anyone else was doing such a system and if they had any type of "roughage" suggestions. Like I said we have done this barley fodder for sheep and it works great.

The probelm with trying this method on cattle is simply the huge amount of dry matter intake necessary for milk production. Everything you grow in that greenhouse is going to be extremely high moisture requiring a tremendous amount of intake to amount to the needed dry matter.

[dun]

The labor is also a lot more extensive then one would think. We at one time had a neighbor that had a hydroponic greenhouse and it wasn;t nearly as simple as people would have you believe.