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    Rotational Grazing Question.

    Rotational grazing has a huge learning curve, but can give tremendous benefits. There are grazing charts or you can make one with a calendar to keep track of your moves and can get a history of pasture performance that will help plan for the future grazing. Just starting out you have to just...
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    Grass only operation

    I may never achieve year round grazing, but the goal is to reduce hay usage. I believe the hardest thing is getting the correct stock density and getting the right calving season. The other is realizing you will need to spend the time moving and adjusting temporary fencing to graze and develop...
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    help?!?!?!?!?!?!

    I checked into a custom grazing contract and this fellow was in SE Iowa and he wanted a $1.20/hd per day for a year. He furnished mineral and winter feed.
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    Fencing

    You should be able to clear a fence line even if it is highly erodible soil. You will need to confirm this with NRCS, but should have no problem if it is going back into pasture. If you have multiple species of livestock, I would go with the high tensile woven wire. All fence is high priced...
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    Hard Cull'in Criteria

    In the long run economically it has always shown buying cows is cheaper than raising replacement heifers, but someone needs to raise them or we will have no cows. There could be an opportunity with good consistent F1's. We have an industry with huge variances in type of cows and that has to do...
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    Bred Heifer Purchase Question

    If you have never calved heifers they are too expensive for you. The real issue is they are heifers and you plan to run them on cornstalks which is fine except you have to keep them growing and will have to supplement them, calve them, and sell them. Fancy heifers will lose you money. Older...
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    Opinion needed on leasing land

    I would disagree with the others on making money raising hay on $45 an acre rent. It depends on the tonnage. It is too far for me personally to go for raising hay. In the long run it would be easier to plant to corn or beans.
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    Questions about hay field

    Dun is correct. I believe it is too late to put N on the field. It may do more to stunt the clover. Good Luck!
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    Haybine,Disc or Sickle

    Sorry i never got back to you. The 4020 will handle any of the nine foot disc mowers fine. Keep the cover in good shape because I assume you do not have a cab. These covers are for your protection as the mowers can really throw rocks and other debris.
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    Haybine,Disc or Sickle

    When looking at disc mowers you need to look at the size of the tractor you are going to use with the mower. Mowers with individual gear boxes weigh more than the ones with the open bars where the oil moves up and down the whole bar. Does your tractor have weights and a heavy enough 3 point...
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    IS HAY REALLY TOO HIGH?

    We need to have a plan in place for drought. I don't think anyone could have planned for the length of the drought this year in the south. I believe most times it is economically unfeasible to feed thru a drought( or a long drought). Plan to sell cattle, hire a custom grazer out of the drought...
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    Looking forward past the drought

    The best thing will be to Manage intensive Grazing and possibly move up to High Density grazing(Mob Grazing). Get a some of Jim Gerrish's books..Look up: American Grazing Land Services
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    Did I do something wrong??

    Sometimes when you medicate calves too long it kills all of the good or so called beneficial bacteria in the gut. I'm not big on probiotics but they can help in that situation. I find the best thing to do with scouring calves is give them electrolytes. I still use nuflor 3 cc in mouth and 3...
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    Fescue Hay Question

    i'm glad to here that you were able to get fescue up in a timely manner. Your area is probably the closest with hay to the drought area. The biggest problem is the drought area encompasses a larger area than what your area will be able to supply in hay.
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    Fescue Hay Question

    I would suggest staying away from the fescue hay this year. It is highly likely that most was mowed and baled tooooo late, because it stayed too wet in the areas where there is hay. Too wet too long means over mature most likely. You might be able to buy straw bales and ammoniate them with...
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    Alfalfa Hay advice

    You can feed the alfalfa just like grass hay, but you really need to drop the intake bake to 20 -25#/ day to be affordable. I would suggest feeding it along with the grass hay. 1 to 1 ratio or 2 to 1 ratio of grass bales to alfalfa depending on the quality of the grass. If the cows or calves...
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    Having lots of trouble

    Lepto is easily spread so should always be in the vaccination for breeding stock. Most every animal can get it and spread it by urine. mouse peas in feed, cow eats feed, cow peas on grass, etc.
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    Having lots of trouble

    Suzie, the calves are up to 120lbs. Lepto is not the problem as they are still growing. Dead calves don't grow. Lepto can cause fetus mortality, but it will occur before full gestation. I think this is definitely more a genetic problem of a female line that throws large calves bred to a sire...
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    Having lots of trouble

    Calving size is a 50/50 situation. The cow or heifer has as much to do with calf size as the bull. The best way to explain it is if you breed a horse to a donkey you get a mule. You are breeding two largely different sized animals with success. It sounds to me like your Charolais are...
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    Speaking of fence chargers

    My chargers are 110 volt chargers and I've only sent them in once for a lightning strike. Most of the time mine have been fried by power surges on the input side of the boards. i use surge protectors but they have failed. My point is that chargers can fail from either fence strikes or power...
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