Well, I said I was out of this one - but you want more info.
First - I have never in my life personally posted a picture on this site and I never will. I have sent two to someone else to post for the pic contest. Won one and placed dead last in another.
Go here:
http://www.agrireseau.qc.ca/bovinsbouch ... 05%20p.pdf
Fairview is my old home town - we did the cattle thing there for a lot of years. Miss it terribly.
I know or know of all the guys in this paper you will see and read.
Page 20 has a picture winter, spring, summer and fall - of the same field from the same direction taken from the same spot in the field.
machslammer wrote:
I feed about 100 rolls on 15 acres to 15 cow/calf pairs during the none grass growing months
If I was feeding 100 bales on 15 acres I would put them all out in groups of ten bales - I would take all the wrap or twine off of them and walk away - I might or might not - depending upon the conditions - separate them with a wire and walk away. I am done feeding for a year.
Waste? Yup - but I have said this so many times I get tired of writing it.
That waste pencils out into the profit side. So in the end it is NOT waste at all!
So - right now you have to stop calling it waste - you cannot take from fields and not put back in. That hay you call stomped is actually going back to the ground. Every bit of pizz and schitte is going back into the ground and it is going right back in where they stand. They work it in for you.
This is not a one time shot - it is a continual thing - if you do it one year and then quit you will not see the full benefit.
If you do not want to try it that is fine - but as I said - everyone complains about mud and feed and ruts and forgets about their time and their fuel and their wear and tear and their fertilizer they buy and the beat goes on. And - important - in your area it really MIGHT NOT work for you. But if you have not tried it how the h e l l will you ever know?
But every time I read this stuff from you folks it starts around now and goes until around April - complaints all the time. Fancy jury-rigged pieces of kit that in the end are a pain in the azz and mostly do not change your situation one iota. And every year I tell folks about this system and one year even Aaron chimed in.
To the best of my knowledge not one of you folks down south has ever truly tried it and not one of you who writes in here regularly about mud problems has really stopped writing in about field conditions and mud problems and how can "I modify a feeder to make it work in wet conditions" and "moving round feeders in the mud" and preventing rutted fields and so on.
If you are running a high density 10 cows on 3 acres and store all your feed in a 24 x 24 garage this system probably would not work - but if you have a farm and are capable of moving cows and do not hay your pastures (we never, never do) and do not pasture your hay then you might want to try something new.
I guess what I am saying is if you are a hobby guy and do not have some land, then keep feeding the old way - if you are a farmer or rancher then you need to look at this ( AND swath grazing for dry or cold areas) because it will indeed make a change to your bottom line. If that sentence alone does not interest you then I am wasting my time. LOL
Even if you do not do some of the things I do here - then you still need to change and up date - or nothing will really change for you - ever! LOL
One real big, big benefit of this is the improvement of marginal land and the clearing of brush and shrub land - this system will make your crap land better. If you have the time it will also allow you to literally clear land - and that is in heavy brush and turn it into real good pasture - and not one dollar is spent on bulldozers and backhoes. We have used the cows here to turn about 50 acres of crap land into top notch pasture. It took us about 5 years. Just feed all the bales in that crap land and watch the changes - lay all the bales out and leave. In fact take a picture from the same spot every year so you can compare as time goes by.
Hmm.... - I got two big steel custom made feeders up here that I abandoned in an old pasture - I must get them out for scrap because you know something? When I came here all the locals advised me that my old system would not work and I would need feeders because the ground was too wet and mud was an issue. I used them for two years and went back to my old system. Now folks here are copying me.
I just copied this from another post I made:
I never start a tractor to feed an animal all winter unless it is an unusual circumstance. I never have to clean pens and spread manure. I never worry about ruts. My fertilizer costs are lowered. Cattle never stand in knee deep mud to eat at feeders so they stay a lot cleaner. I never have to go out in the mud and rain or snow and move feeders. I never have to slog through the mud. I never have to get dirty working in lousy conditions. All of this is worth money - but most folks will tell you they spend little money feeding and forget about the wear and tear on equipment. Most folks will also tell you that it takes very little time to do their feeding. But it is every weekend or every other day and that time does add up.
You will see how these guys feed and there is some info there on swath grazing as well.
You guys all worry about losing the bottom of your bale - but the costs for us are more than borne out by the benefits of feeding in place. When I came here folks laughed at us - now probably everyone who knows us and has more than 10 beef cows down here in the
deep south of Canada does it the way we do. We are probably right out of cows once we get rid of the last original bunch we trucked in from the west when we came here. They will go this Spring I suspect. Am now too crippled up to do much more than walk 100 yards to see if they are still alive.
In closing - go back and read all the old posts - there is a tonne of complaining and moaning about tough conditions and more. And you know something? Those conditions ARE tough. But you can make some operational changes that will make your life easier. Improve the ground. Make it easier for your cattle AND possibly improve your bottom line.
Year after year after year those posts have not really changed much. But no one ever does anything other than a tiny bit of this or that. And in the end they really have not changed anything.
Read that paper - maybe some of it would work for you. Anyone in the mid west that does not use swath grazing is missing out and spending a pile of money that does not need to be spent.
I promise to never - ever - write about this ever again because I do not want to bore you
Am well and truly out of this one now - enjoy.
Best to all
Bez__