Feeding cows when you don't have enough hay

[TexasRancher]

Remember, you can buy all the feed you want, but, if your ponds arent holding up you're done. I've heard people now saying their ponds are done and they spent all summer buying hay. I guess they can sell now, but they paid a high price already for it. After 2011, we made sure the next drought we were good on ponds first.

So now you tell me? I wasn't around cattle in 2011. Currently fixing my pond deeper and the dam/overflow pipe higher...my gusher of a well...has finally pumped dry last week, but I'm getting a backfill-refill rate of 200 gallons per day....which is just under what the cattle need by 50 gallons. I calculate I'll be hauling water in 20 days if we don't get some rain soon. We're pretty much 110 days no rain, only traces....only in Texas do you have to worry about not seeing any rain in 20 days...seems like along time. When I was a child in Upstate N.Y. it rained or snowed once or twice a week.
After this experience....I will never complain about endless days of rain affecting my life anymore. I literally call up the weather radar and calculate the time of rain...usually 4 to 8 minutes of rain....I'm delighted if we get to 15 minutes....but that doesn't happen much.

 

[cowgirl8]

In 2011, we were pumping water from our last pond in Oct. Not sure how long that lasted, but from pictures i took, looks to have started raining spring of 2012. Here in Texas, we get 10 yr droughts, 10 yr floods, occasional hurricanes upland as far as the red river. Texas is the land of extremes. I dont recall much from 2005 other than we didnt make the 10 yr mark so a lot of people were caught off guard. Seems in 2005, we hauled water on a trailer. So far this year, we're ok on water except for a few ponds, but have new ones in pastures these are in. If we hadnt dug new ponds, we'd be in bad shape right now.

 

[Lucky_P]

2007 we had a disastrous freeze at Easter, then went with a 1" rain event between May 1 and Nov 30. Almost NO local hay made. Some people were paying as much as $100/roll for local cornstalks and/or CRP 'residue' released by USDA for haying in October - I saw one roll a neighbor fed that ended up with an ATV-sized pile of 1-2" diameter honeylocust trees once the cows picked out what edible material was present.
We started limit-feeding. Research has shown that cows can get by on as little as 5# of hay per day, so long as all other nutritional needs are met. We bought in some expensive hay out of OK (I swore I wouldn't pay as much as I did... but I did) and fenced off a hay-feeding area. Cows were allowed enough time in the hay lot to consume about 10#/hd/day, then tolled out and fed about 12-15# modified distiller's grain product per animal.
The cows stood around for about 23 hours a day complaining, but they all survived - and actually, they came through the winter in better shape than in the past when they'd had free-choice access to sorry, locally-produced hay (probably cut in late June or July). That feeding and close daily handling/sorting tamed 'em down a lot, too.

We continued the limit-feeding in subsequent years, but bumped daily hay consumption up to about 25#/cow - mostly fed by unrolling on pasture - and adjusted DDG levels, based on plugging hay analyses into a beef cow ration calculator. We only fed what hay the cows could consume in about a 1.5 hrs - unrolling while they were eating their DDG ration. Even at 25#, they still stood around and complained, but I knew they were getting what they needed, even if it was not as much as they wanted.

 

[Texas G@l]

We've limit feed hay over the years like Lucky_P...but just home grown hay. The results were good all the way around. The calves those years were super easy to pen and work since they were used to being handles from birth.

We will probably do the same again this year with the grown cows and unroll hay for the heifers we're trying to hang on to.

 

[ClinchValley86]

Stock pile any feed you can while you can. Corn here is getting chopped, plants are burnt up and the ears arent full. I heard tell yesterday of corn going over $20 a hundred by the end of next month

I had to get an extra 100 pounds at the coop for a morning feed last week. Bulk price for us has been $320/ton all summer.

Co-op charged me $28 for 100 pounds of whole shell corn. I about took a shitt right then and there.

Made it to my bulk place that evening. They had gone up to $360/ton.

Don't know how people will continue this

 

[Aero]

I will not disagree. If I had several hundred acres to run cattle on I'd stock light enough that I didn't need winter feed, but with small rent pastures it isn't practical.

You have to bring nutrients back on the farm if you are taking animals off. I would rather bring in hay than fertilizer.

 

[Brute 23]

I'll take fert all day long.