Corn stubble

[dun]

From Drovers:

Estimate grain in stubble fields (Pasture Management)
By Drovers news staff (Thursday, December 28, 2006)


As winter approaches, producers across the Midwest and Plains will send cattle out to graze in grain-stubble fields. Too much grain consumption, however, can cause digestive problems in cattle accustomed to forage diets. University of Nebraska animal scientist Rick Rasby recommends esti-mating the amount of spilled corn in a field to help deter-mine a grazing strategy. An 8-inch ear of corn, he says, contains about a half-pound of grain. Using that estimate, 112 ears would equal 56 pounds or 1 bushel. If corn is planted in 30-inch rows, Rasby says, counting the number of ears in three dif-ferent 100-foot furrow strips and dividing by two will give an approximate number of bushels per acre. Count small or broken ears as half ears and very large ears as one and a half. Any amount beyond 8–10 bushels per acre, he says, requires a well-planned grazing strategy to limit grain consumption.

 

[Stepper]

When i was pheasant hunting in Kansas back in November. I saw where farmers had run a strain or two of electric fence arround some corn/milo feilds that had been harvested and they had turned cattle in on them to graze them.

I had never seen that done before. But while walking through the feilds that had been harvested i saw some grain that had been dropped by the combine here and there but not really that much. I was wondering if they cattle got that much protein out of the stubble but i guess according to that scientists study there is more grain lost when it is being harvested than a person would think.

Has anyone arround North West Arkansas ever put cattle on grain stubble feilds before. That looks like it would be a good soruce of feed. I tried to find out more about it when i was hunting out there but never ran into any cattle farmers to ask them about it. I talked to an old man at the coffee shop who said that was a common practice there.

 

[Jogeephus]

I know a fellow who turned his cows on a corn field blown over by a hurricane. Tried to convince him to limit graze or not to do it at all. Of course, they were pretty until they tried to calve - then it got really really ugly.

A lot of people here will turn the cows on picked cotton fields. Its amazing how the cows can go through these sparce looking fields and fleshen up.

 

[Angus Guy]

Somebody tried to over think grazing cornstalks. We do it every year with no problems. Only thing you need to be aware of is to make sure the cows have either grass (as in waterways ) to eat to. If the fields don't have any it's not a bad idea to have some hay available.

 

[Stepper]

Angus Guy,

How many acres of cut corn stubble that is say a foot high does it take per head to graze cattle ? And do you have to supplement with anything other than maybe a little hay it there is not grass in the feild ?

 

[mnmtranching]

Grazing corn stalks is real common, and I don't know of anyone having problems. Stubble is what is left after silage is chopped, not much feed there. Corn fields after the combine are great for feeding beef cows, not much corn. What corn there is, is in the whole ear form. Cows eat cob and all, little danger of overeating. The shelled corn is scattered and cattle can eat only a little at a time. If there is a large spilled pile it could be a problem if not picked up. But most likely the whole herd would quickly gobble it up, get the runs, then be OK. 8)

 

[somn]

Angus Guy,

How many acres of cut corn stubble that is say a foot high does it take per head to graze cattle ? And do you have to supplement with anything other than maybe a little hay it there is not grass in the feild ?

There is about 4 tons of dry matter stover per acre. Of this four tons per acre usually 25% will get taken up and eaten before the field gets manured up to bad. So basically 1 ton of dry matter per acre. I'm a feedlot man not a grazer but that is how many tons are available. We feed pound for pound cornstalks in the place of alfalfa in the feedlot. But we feed it for roughage only. I'd guess an acre per cow per month but I might be all wrong. I'm sure someone will tell me. Remember I said I guess.

 

[Stepper]

Thanks Somn for the information. That will give me something to think about.

 

[somn]

Thanks Somn for the information. That will give me something to think about.

Don't let those farmers tell you that you owe them something for feeding your cattle. 90% of the nutrients in the cornstalks they eat get returned back to the field in manure.

 

[IL Rancher]

We did it a few times and a lot of folks do it around here (We would probably do more but the renter wants in to chisel so we have gone to baling the stalks instead) and would run 140 cows on 140 acres or so. Depending on your variety and the soil and yield you can be all over the place as far as how long it will hold up. I think we did ours for the whole month of November and a bit of December but we did give a little Alfalfa hay every day unrolled.. It worked okay.. Now, if we were to do it on a larger scale we would probably supplement with wet Distillers grains or something to that affect as those two mixed together, along with an approbriate mineral give a lot to a dry cow.


I know I drive around here and see 600 acre fields and just wish I could talk the farmers into letting us run the cows through there in November and December.. The lack of fencing would make me a bit nervous but that could be overcome.

 

[mnmtranching]

We have so much here to, the corn is almost all irrigated and very heavy. The disks are in the fields right behind the combines, often same day. And the fences are long gone. I used to run cattle on my uncles irrigated corn, but lost it when he retired. It was very good cow feed, they fill up on husk and leaves. When cows are on frozen ground there is little waste. I didn't feed hay until there was heavy snow cover then a mixed grass. The cows would put on weight. We had about 100 cows on a 1/4 section and had feed for about 3 months.

 

[IL Rancher]

We ran the baler through some irrigated corn after shreading the stalks. Oh god was that stuff thick.. More and more of those pivots are going up around here too. I know the boss keeps talking about maybe putting some on 320 of our ground but doesn't think the bump in rent will make it worth while. If he does it than I will never be able to make enough money to pay the rent on that ground to get it away from the current renter.. With rent values doing what they are... Yikes.

I think some of the guys around here would litterly attatch a plow to their combine if they tought it would work out without getting in the way of moving the corn out,

 

[dph]

Here's our old stand by: An acre / cow / month. This year I read an article from an extension fellow who said when the corn quits going through them 5lbs of decent hay would provide them with enough protein. Lately, there seems to have been some talk of cows being able to do just as well with 5 days worth of protein fed at once as they are being fed their allotment each day. That being said, we unroll a good hay bale for them every so often. If we have 60 cows on a field, and are feeding 1800 pound bales, one bale every 6 days would suffice. So one bale for the first week after they quit passing corn, and then gradually a bale more and more often to get to the end. 60 cows will eat that bale in no time, with much less waste. my 2 cents.

 

[Stepper]

So if you had an unlimited supply of cut corn feilds. How many months of winter could one graze cattle on them ? I would think that the futher you get into the winter months that the quality of the cut corn feilds would lessen wouldnt they ?

 

[dph]

Yes, they would lessen. It has to do with time, but I think it also has to do with moisture. If its dry, I think the stalks last longer.

 

[Dusty]

Here in Kansas, we still as of 1/1/07 have cattle on stalks, we are just getting the idea to pull them in and start to feed them, we have waterways and as long as the weather is mild, above 32 deg. we feel that the cattle can salvage the stalks, we turn a cow per acer out on stalks, we like doing this with corn and milo, milo we have actually calved out on with a dry winter. Really cuts down on the wintering costs of a cow....

 

[regenwether]

They work great. I run my cow's along with my hay stubble. The cows will go back and forth and balance themselve's out. I'll turn them out from the middle of Oct.-Nov. My goal is to try to get to Christmass without Haying them.

 

[lukem86]

I run my cow's along with my hay stubble

How do you regulate where the cows graze? Do you keep them on stalks part of the day move them to grass the other part?

My stalks are right next to the pasture every year and I have been trying to figure out a good way to get the most out of the stalks and utilize the stockpiled pasture before both are useless. Based upon the weather the past couple of years here, I need to use the stockpiled grass up by the end of Dec. if not sooner, or all we get is rain and 30-40 degree temps and a pugged up pasture if i turn out the cows. But by the end of Dec. the stalks are not very palatable, or a lot less than they would be in Oct/Nov.

 

[Angus Guy]

If that is the pasture they're going to be in all winter just open a gate into the cs and let them have at it. When you do start feeding just feed them somewhere in stalk field. This might help with the soft pasture problem.