Cleaning up rest of hay

[Kell-inKY]

I left the cattle this morning with maybe a half a days worth of hay in the hay ring. I am getting tired of a pile here and there since they always seem to be almost out before I head to work. I figured this time I would make them clean up the bottom but am having second thoughts. I have never had them go through a fence yet and everything is iced over but I sure don't want this to be the first time. There is snow and ice covering the ground everywhere and even if there wasn't there is not really anyplace for them to go but electric doesn't work too well in ice. They were hollerin' at me this morning so I know they are expecting a bale.

When it gets this low they push the ring around and then end up making a mess or laying and crapping on it.

So, it is about an hour round trip if I decide to go put hay out, and I don't get an hour lunch.

They've never missed a meal in their life so I have no experience with it, I might not make it home until late with kids going to soccer etc.

Worried for nothing?

 

[dun]

In the cold and snow/ice we always feed them even with a little left in the rings. It's their heat generation method, digesting the roughage.

 

[bigbull338]

theres nothing wrong with making them clean up the hay in the ring.that is if you dont mind putting hay out in the dark.we let our cows clean up the hay rings before we put hay out.now with this cold we are keeping the rings full.

 

[Bigfoot]

Cleaning up is just a necessary evil of cattle. Might as well not waste any.

 

[pricefarm]

Usaly I make my cows clean up all the hay till the hay rings are empty. But wih all the snow and cold we have been having I have been keeping the rings full and I unroll one everyday so that the calves will have somewhere dry to lay. The cows have been cleaning up the one I in roll pretty good then they eat whats in the hay rings.

 

[angus9259]

Mine have to eat it all but they are right at my place. Hay's too expensive to not make em eat it all. If I had a bad bale and I can see it's just chaff, then I'll put out fresh hay.

 

[fenceman]

I keep them in hay if weathers bad. If it looks like its going to get muddy ill put out plenty to avoid having to put it out in the mud. When weather turns nice i make them clean up. It does seem to me though when you make them really clean up everything, and then put out new bales they really tear through them. If you keep the rings full they slow down on how much they eat.(kind off get bored with hay and maybe browse around the pasture more). I've also started setting bales out in open windy areas, they go to eat and then go back to the brush to loaf. Seems to cut down on waste. Of course im in central tx. And winters not to extreme here

 

[Jogeephus]

Snow and ice .... perfect weather for them to get out.

 

[ChrisB]

Mine will run out of hay 4-5 hours before feeding time. They will be quietly waiting to be fed, but I figure if they are quiet they aren't too hungry yet.

 

[ousoonerfan22]

If the weather is bad I like to keep hay in front of them if we get some warm days then they can clean up what's left in the rings.

 

[kjonesel]

I know it may appear that your cows are wasting hay but here is something to think about. What is left in the bale ring is not the best part of the bale so it probably doesn't have that good of nutrition value, so the cows are taking in less than optimum hay. If you move your hay rings after every bale they will go back a pick through it if there is anything there worth eating. If you don't move your rings every time then it would keep the next bale up out of the mud and keep from ruining more hay. What is left, which probably is partially rotten already, is becoming fertilizer for you future hay crop. If you expect your cows to maintain and raise calves or worse yet if you are feeding feeders then your goal should be to find ways to make them eat whenever they want.
I guess the funniest thing I overheard about feeding hay was a year ago a farmer was talking about buying a tub grinder so that he could grind up his round bales and make his hay better. My son was attempting to explain to him the fallacy of his thinking and just couldn't get through to him how illogical it was to put rotted material into the diet of his cattle. The man just wouldn't agree with my son so my son took his tea spoon and went and got a spoon of manure and put it into his glass of iced tea and asked him if that made the tea better. He then saw my son's logic.
As for our farm I am blessed for the past two years to have enough hay and my goal is to always go into the winter with at least 25% more that I expect to use in the worse of weather. If I don't have that much then I look at moving stock to the sale barn in the fall.

 

[dun]

There's "claening it up" and cleaning it up. We put out hay when it's down to a couple of inches when the weather is nasty. We move the feeder at least a cow and half length away from the old spot. That gives the calves a dry clean area to lay aound on while the cows are at the feeders.

 

[ousoonerfan22]

We feed hay in poor area's in the pasture and with this bermuda hay hopefully we are getting bermuda started in these poor area's. We also move the rings on each bale. We had one bare ridge that hardly had any grass and after feeding bales there the last three winters it grows good grass now.

 

[Nesikep]

I feed 80 lb squares and have 25 head, but I give them as much as they eat and clean up... Right now I'm feeding 8 bales to about 22 head, when it's cold, windy, snowy, etc they will get more.. probably 11 bales in the worst of weather. I feed my younger stock separately but the same rules go for them.. and they get better quality hay.
Right now I'm working through some oat/barley hay, and they are a little fussier about cleaning that up.

 

[angus9259]

What is left in the bale ring is not the best part of the bale so it probably doesn't have that good of nutrition value, so the cows are taking in less than optimum hay.

Not always true. If you feed stalky chaff and have high bale inconsistency maybe.

Also, when hay is sampled it is sampled throughout the good and bad. "Bad" can me more fibrous and less digestible perhaps, but that doesn't make it "bad" for cattle to eat. It can be good and necessary for cattle to eat some of the stemmier stuff even though they don't want to depending on what else is in the hay and what else is being fed.

A cow doesn't know how to eat what's best for it or we would never have bloat or acidosis.

 

[highgrit]

This is just a guess on my part, but I would think grinding hay would up the TDN. Does anyone know if that's the case?

 

[Dayton L. Kitchens]

My dad always believed in unrolling the round hay bales in extreme cold weather as calves and cows would use the remainder to bed down. He said keeping something between the cattle and the ground was much more important than something over their heads.

 

[angus9259]

My dad always believed in unrolling the round hay bales in extreme cold weather as calves and cows would use the remainder to bed down. He said keeping something between the cattle and the ground was much more important than something over their heads.

Probably true. I don't do either! If the deer can survive and thrive laying in the thickets and snow, so can the cows. If they can't - they don't get to stay at Hotel Cattle in Michigan.

 

[talltimber]

There's "claening it up" and cleaning it up. We put out hay when it's down to a couple of inches when the weather is nasty. We move the feeder at least a cow and half length away from the old spot. That gives the calves a dry clean area to lay aound on while the cows are at the feeders.

x2

The weather broke here finally, at least for time being, and they had a foot or so left in one ring this morning and half that or less in the other. I'm gonna let them clean that up a little more today and set out one maybe two for them this afternoon, depending. I always move the ring just far enough to clear the leftovers like that. Cows will root through it to find the best of it, and gives the calves a place, like you say. Sometimes if I have jumped the gun a little and they had more left than I thought, I'll back drag the pile a little and spread it out some. Bigger bedding area.