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Each ton of hay harvested is equivalent to 68 animal unit days (AUD). (2000 lbs/ton /26 lbs DM/AUD X 88% DM/ton of hay) How much of those AUD you harvest is largely determined by your grazing management. With set stocking (continuous grazing) you may harvest only 30-50% of that yield. With...

Sounds like all the more reason to 'Kick the Hay Habit'... Stocker Steve is exactly right. You generally can't afford to harvest hay if the yield is less that 1-1/2 ton/A. If you do honest complete cost accounting, it is rare to find anyone producing hay for under $80/ton. The $120-$160/ton...

You should be able to largely manage the weeds with timely harvest and fertility. While P & K are always pushed as key nutrients for alfalfa production, do not forget to test for sulfur, boron, & molybdenum. Depending on your soil genesis & past cropping history, you may need one or more of...

I haven't drug a pasture since 2007 when diesel fuel hit its peak price. If you have a healthy biologically active soil, manure piles break down from the bottom up. The connection between the pile and soil is key for the process to happen. When you drag the pasture to 'knock down the turds', it...

If this were true fescue foot, I don't think they could recover in as little as a week. Even if they were completely removed from the fescue, recovery usually takes at least a month and frequently longer. If the toxicity were severe enough to knock their tails off, the foot problems would linger...

Hi 3X, Fescue toxicity is, for the most part, reversible if the cattle are completely removed from the infected fescue. The recovery period is longer the more severe the exposure has been. Severity of exposure depends both on level of endophyte fescue in the diet and duration of time. A calf...

The soil temperature lespedeza needs germinate is same temperature needed for corn.

As a self contained unit we have used the Stafix SX (.25 j output $275) in a lot of diferent situations. We find we can run up to about a mile of hi-tensile 1 or 2 wire on it and 3-5 800 to 1000 ft polybraid reels and maintain about 3500v. Any longer hi-tensile fence and we lose capacity. As a...

We've been using Stafix for about 20 years and have been very satisfied. We have had everything from the little SX solar unit up to the M36 w/ remote control. The output joule rating on a Stafix compared to stored on Gallagher is about 20-30% higher. If you pay the same money for a 3j Stafix...

From what I understand, only the hard seed passes through the rumen undigested. If the cow grazes a clover plant that has mature seed on it, up to 80-90% can pass through the cow and still germinate. Once the seed is harvested and stored, the hard seed content decreases and the readily...

I think 9 times out of 10 it is simply a matter of grazing management that doesn't allow the newly seeded pasture crop to thrive. i.e. not managing for optimal leaf area for solar energy capture. Almost every pasture I have ever seeded has only gotten better over time.

fargus, I'm still missing something. What was wrong with your calculation? An acre 6" slice does weigh 2,000,000 lb and one percent of that would be 20,000 lb. So a 1% increase in OM would be 20,000 lb more OM added to the soil. I know 20,000 lb crop residue would not translate to 20,000 lb...

My point is our yields with legume mixtures were as high or greater than neighbors using N fertilizer so we had no motivation to use N. In our county in MO the average carrying capacity was 4-5 acres/pair for year-around, so we were over twice the stocking rate with no N-fert. In our valley in...

fargus, I think your math is correct and the 20,000 lb OM is what would have to be added to raise 1%. Next to impossible to grow 20000 lb forage in most of US & Canada, let alone have that much returned to the soil. When I take soil samples, I always scuff away the debris layer on the soil...

One year trying to do clover instead of N-fertilizer may or may not show anything, depending on the season. It usually takes a few years to build the legume component to the needed level. I've probably mentioned it before, but there were only three occasions in the 22 years we ran cattle and...

I'd have to say all the comments above concerning when and how N becomes available from legumes are accurate. 1) As soon as N-fixation begins, there is some leakage from the nodules. Not a big contribution in the first few months of growth, but significant in older stands. 2) As forage is...

hey dun, thanks for the lead in as I was just passin thru. The actual quality loss on fescue even after a couple months under snow is not all that great. It is the physical act of cows trying to lick it up off the ground that limits usefullness. Cows that have been trained to do it can get by...

Back when we were in MO we always got the best crabgrass where we had winter grazed or fed hay during the spring thaw and got a lot of hoof action. Just as good as disking. Where we grazed when the ground was frozen usually had very little crabgrass. I do miss crabgrass for summer grazing here...

I don't know how many cows you're talking about feedng, but if you are feeding big round bales of alfalfa or any other kind of hay, I think an unroller is one of the best investments you can make. It lets you feed hay just where you want to and gets good manure distribution by chnaging where you...

Yeah, CB, it's a pretty good trick to get them to do that, but we've got them to that point. When we strip graze stockpile in the winter, we usually run about 100 hd/acre/day. You can just about walk across the field stepping on cow pies all the way. In the summer we run about four cycles a year...