Brandonm22":1cni4x2w said:
Can you winter those cows for six months in THAT kind of weather without any GRAIN though??? NO GRAIN is a higher more difficult standard than NO CREEP.
Brandonm22 - yes - no grain. I could NEVER afford to feed my cows grain. :shock: My COWS get a GOOD mineral year round. They get rotational grazing throughout our summer (usually end of April thru early Nov). As many big dry bales the weather will let us put up & the rest BALEAGE in winter. NO GRAIN. I run more than just a backyard full of cows. I would go bankrupt trying to grain my cows. Besides, I don't have any way to feed that many cows grain. You don't put feed on the ground around here.
My replacement HEIFERS get grain thru their first winter until they are bred (at most 5#/hd/day), then they are turned out to pasture with the cows and are treated as cows from then on. (they are hayed in seperate paddocks than the cows during the winter & are kept seperated after calving til grass - but still no grain).
So, yes, I can get those WW without creep feeding the calves or graining the cows. I wean calves in Sept, so the cows get into good BCS BEFORE winter on fall pastures. Like I said, we have GREAT grass here in NY and my cows are great milkers.
This was our attempt at late fall stock-piled grazing - weather kinda didn't cooperate.
There were 40+ cows in this group. We do have RED ones too, just don't see any in this pic.
Here's some weaned replacement heifers - pic taken same day as above - I was feeding mineral.