A couple of quick questions for you guys. Wasn't sure were to post this.
We use to chop silage for backgrounding our calves. Lately we have to switched to using hay and a Purina feed to put the weight on them and have been using the silage for our cows. The silage is usually put up on the river bottom that is prone to being wet and flooding. We might have 130-145 bushels off it in a good year, usually we chop the poorer end of it. We always debate wether it is cheaper than hay or not, but what we really like about it is spend 1 to 1.5 days chopping and you have fed the cows for a month. We think that is tough to beat.
We feed the silage straight. We usually don't add protein, depending on how it tests. Anyone else on here do the same thing? We usually have them on silage for about a month and a week. We usually put them on it after we get the calves out of the lot, through the month of Jan into Feb. Most times these cows are coming right out of the stock fields and could use a little bit of conditioning, though that said their BCS score would still be considered all right (5). After the month, some cows will be fairly fat. Then they will usually then go onto stockpiled fescue if it wasn't too dry the year before and will stay on pasture the rest of the year. The replacement and bred heifers will usually be on silage for 2 or 3 weeks longer, often we may keep a couple of cows back that may not quite be in the condition of the others to run with them.
Are we feeding the cows to "rich" a feed? Is it all right to feed straight silage for that period of time? A lot of area guys grind hay to feed with it, but the going rate is about $14/ton. Our hay, with few exceptions, is usually pretty good quality and we don't think we gain anything by grinding it, even figuring in a reduction in waste.
Just curious on anyone else's opinion, thanks.
We use to chop silage for backgrounding our calves. Lately we have to switched to using hay and a Purina feed to put the weight on them and have been using the silage for our cows. The silage is usually put up on the river bottom that is prone to being wet and flooding. We might have 130-145 bushels off it in a good year, usually we chop the poorer end of it. We always debate wether it is cheaper than hay or not, but what we really like about it is spend 1 to 1.5 days chopping and you have fed the cows for a month. We think that is tough to beat.
We feed the silage straight. We usually don't add protein, depending on how it tests. Anyone else on here do the same thing? We usually have them on silage for about a month and a week. We usually put them on it after we get the calves out of the lot, through the month of Jan into Feb. Most times these cows are coming right out of the stock fields and could use a little bit of conditioning, though that said their BCS score would still be considered all right (5). After the month, some cows will be fairly fat. Then they will usually then go onto stockpiled fescue if it wasn't too dry the year before and will stay on pasture the rest of the year. The replacement and bred heifers will usually be on silage for 2 or 3 weeks longer, often we may keep a couple of cows back that may not quite be in the condition of the others to run with them.
Are we feeding the cows to "rich" a feed? Is it all right to feed straight silage for that period of time? A lot of area guys grind hay to feed with it, but the going rate is about $14/ton. Our hay, with few exceptions, is usually pretty good quality and we don't think we gain anything by grinding it, even figuring in a reduction in waste.
Just curious on anyone else's opinion, thanks.
