Feeding Hay

[Anonymous]

I wasnt saying anyone makes bad hay. But everytime I put out a round bale of alfalfa, the cows always came running, and left the bahia field to sit there and grow until the hay was gone.
I would think that if your cows arent eating the hay, then you both have really good pastures! Nice work.

hook,

I knew you weren't saying we made bad hay. My comment was a little bit tongue-in-cheek. dun is from MO and I used to be. We readily admit our hay is less than ideal!

It is easy to grow good pasture in MO, but hard to make decent hay due to the weather. That is one of the reasons we got away from making and using any hay. Expense was the biggest reason.

But you're right, cows will develop their own preferences and just when you think you really have them figured out, they'll fool you.

No worries, I just wanted to make sure I wasnt taken the wrong way. I have spent quite a bit of time in MO, and it can be hard to bale, with the wet summer into fall. Hard to get hay to dry with all that rain, esp the last couple years. :tiphat:

 

[dun]

in MO, and it can be hard to bale, with the wet summer into fall. Hard to get hay to dry with all that rain, esp the last couple years. :tiphat:

It does seem like either there isn;t enough rain to make good hay or there is too much rain to get it to dry right.

 

[Aero]

Aero - I didn't leave out those costs, they were included.

hmm... that would be very surprising.

 

[MoGal]

in MO, and it can be hard to bale, with the wet summer into fall. Hard to get hay to dry with all that rain, esp the last couple years. :tiphat:

It does seem like either there isn;t enough rain to make good hay or there is too much rain to get it to dry right.

Here, here, I'll second that and add to it that we get either too much rain in a short period or not enough...... even the grain crops....... of course if one knew ahead of time one could play the futures market pretty good.

 

[chenocetah]

Aero - If you are spending more than $12 in eq, parts, fuel, supplies and labor & more than $3 in trans costs just to put up a 4 x 5 net bale on the average, then you are spending more than is necessary to get the job done.

 

[backhoeboogie]

Boogie....if you get a chance shoot a pic. of those cradles and post it for us.

I don't have recent pics. Here's one of the first ones.

http://ranchers.net/photopost/showphoto ... puser/2144

 

[Lucky_P]

Free-choice hay - they waste an amount about equal to 50% or more of what they consume.

Cows can actually get by on as little as 2.5-5.0 lbs of hay per day, so long as their other nutritional requirements are met with concentrate feeds.
We've been limit-feeding our beef herd for the past 3 winters, and they look better, calf survival rate is better, breed-back rate is way better than when they had free-choice access to all the crappy local 'holiday' (overmature, stemmy) local hay they could eat.

Currently, our cows get an hour and fifteen minutes at the hay feeders (this averages out to about 10 lbs/hd/day), go out to 6-10# of modified distiller's grain product, and then they go back out to pick over the sacrifice pasture they're in until Jan 1, when the bull comes out and they go to stockpiled fescue.
Limit feeding has cut hay wastage to almost nothing, as we make them clean it ALL up before we restock the hay-feeding lot.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Lucky_P - I think - most c/c producers do not feed suppliment. The cows nutritional need comes from hay. In my neck of the woods - cows need to be "hand fed" almost 6 months of the year - no pasture grazing from maybe Nov - late Mar. If the only hay you had to feed was POOR quality, then, yes, you would have to do something different to meet their nutritional needs. Our hay completely meets their needs.
I feel the only thing we could do better, would to limit TIME eating our high quality hay.

 

[JRGidaho`]

Lucky_P - I think - most c/c producers do not feed suppliment. The cows nutritional need comes from hay. In my neck of the woods - cows need to be "hand fed" almost 6 months of the year - no pasture grazing from maybe Nov - late Mar. If the only hay you had to feed was POOR quality, then, yes, you would have to do something different to meet their nutritional needs. Our hay completely meets their needs.
I feel the only thing we could do better, would to limit TIME eating our high quality hay.

I hear there are some places around the country where the by-product feeds are cheap enough it is actually more cost effective to feed mostly fiber-based by-products like corn gluten or distiller grain with just enough hay to provide long fiber for rumen health. I think that is what Lucky_P was talking about. I know there has been a lot of studies in the corn belt and plains states regarding limit feeding hay and they all tend to show it to be a better alternative to full hay feeding.

Out here in ID corn gluten is over $200/ton and DDG is even higher so I doubt if it works quite the same way here.

 

[TexasBred]

Neither will replace long stem roughage. Cows need grass in one form or the other.