Feeding hay

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coachg

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Do you keep hay in front of your cattle 24/7 or do you make them clean up what you put out and them put out more later ? We are predicted to have temps in the teens next week so I normally feed more often but I normally make them clean up what I feed .
 
It would be nice to make them clean it up. But honestly i Have to feed hay when i can. Alot of days i may have time today none tomorrow. So when I can if they run out and need it then I may not have time. Just easier this time year to keep it out. We will be done with tobacco in couple 3 weeks life will slow way down then.
 
I like for them to clean up as much as they can to reduce waste, but try to keep them from running out completely so they stay spread out and don't all pile in around one bale and risk a calf getting trampled since the little ones like laying at the edge of the feeders sometimes on the hay that has fallen out. It can still happen regardless, but I like to try to reduce the risk at least. I try to keep them stocked up a little extra when the weather is bad since they eat through it quicker.
 
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With temps this cold, I like to put out a little extra to give them some bedding during the cold. I am not saying that is the correct thing to do, but it makes me feel better.

I had to leave a calf that got stuck in a pond, wet and outside during a 5-degree (F) night. So, I want to make sure they have bedding during cold nights.
 
I feed every day generally first thing in the morning. Right now 43 cows are getting one big square a day. That is about 28 pounds or so a day per cow. I drive along kicking off a flake every 20 feet or so. Moving the cows to a different field today so I wont feed them first thing. Cowboys will show up about 8:30-9:00. Cows will be hungry by then and should follow the feed truck. They have to cross the bridge which is always a question. Sometimes they walk right across. Sometimes they put the brakes on.
 
Have good quality hay but with the drought this summer our second cutting was slim and none . Made what we normally try to bail but have a few more mouths to feed and started a couple months early feeding hay . I definitely feed extra in cold weather but was just wondering everyone else's thoughts. This time of year I'm counting bails and praying for an early spring !
 
We mostly graze stockpiled native grass over the winter supplementing with 38% protein cubes. If we have snow/ice we keep hay in front of the cows 24/7.

Last winter we fed hay from 12/23/23 to 3/2/24 due to drought. We had to graze acres we normally stockpile.

Coachg, have you considered limit feeding hay? We set hay out in a small area, turn cows in for 2-3 hours then pull them out to cube them. It's a pita but doable unless you have cows scattered around a lot of pastures. It has got us by a couple of times in short years.
 
That shows me 2 things,
You had very good hay
You feed the correct amount.
yea they are all spoiled rotten. I set out all my rolls ahead of time and I always put a roll of alfalfa out there with the others. I'll even put out bales from different fields.. they'll usually have a wide assortment of grasses everyday. fescue, orchardgrass, clovers, alfalfa, johnson grass, etc.. I'll let them in after I'm done unrolling and its usually a lot of running, kicking and battling.

If I had to actually put out rolls in rings i'd probably have to feed 2-3 times as much hay and a lot more work.
 
Do you keep hay in front of your cattle 24/7 or do you make them clean up what you put out and them put out more later ? We are predicted to have temps in the teens next week so I normally feed more often but I normally make them clean up what I feed .
I always went by the idea that you need your cows gaining weight in breeding season, staying in decent condition over the grass season while they are raising calves, and losing slowly over the winter until they calve. So somewhere around a 100/200 pound fluctuation over the entire year depending on frame.
 
Feed everyday, maybe for 2 if we have appointments in town for a day. Forcing them to clean it up before you feed next wouldn't be my thing. You can always expect some wastage unless the hay is 100% super quality.
 
How are folks providing winter water? I always found that missing feed for a day was less of an issue than missing out on ample drinking water.
 
Continuous flow tire tank waterers. Very small amount of water from underground pressure line keeps a 600 gallon tank open all winter long. Install an overflow (the white 4" PVC in the center with a vent stack for filtering debris), so you don't end up with a skating rink, drain down to a field tile.
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I should mention that it's important to install a check valve on the supply line in the tank, so if the pressure pump shuts off, tank water can't siphon/backflow into your supply line and contaminate it. I've seen alot of installations of tire tanks without this... not expensive ($15), but good practice (I think it's actually "illegal" to not protect your supply line this way). It'd be the same check valve that you'd put on your well, to prevent drain down. Use brass, not plastic. Home Depot Brass Check Valve

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Put this check valve as the first thing on the line coming into the tank, then a shut-off if you want one, then a "T" for placement of a 1/8" brass needle valve, to give you the continuous flow part, Home Depot 1/4 x 1/8" Brass Needle Valve, and then your float controlled valve for filling the tank (I've been using Jobe MegaFlow full flow valves, and like them).

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Open the needle valve as much or as little as required by the temp you're experiencing to keep the tank open. I typically set these appropriately when we first get to weather that's going to freeze the tank over (like maybe 15 degrees or so, typically with the number of critters that I have drinking, they'll be able to keep it open or break through the ice above that), and then close it again at spring warm up. Way cheaper to pump a little bit of water than it is to try to heat a tank. Takes very little flow. Geo-thermally heated... It's not "the movement of the water", it's that you're bringing in water that's slightly above the freezing temp. You can just let the tank run over too without a drain apparatus, but that'll make for a ice rink where the cattle approach, without a plan for where it will go. On one of my other waterers that I converted to contiuous flow (so it wasn't plumbed with an overflow), I just dug a little trench in a direction away from the critters... that was a "fenceline" waterer, without critters on the one side of the fence.
 

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