TexasBred
Well-known member
Boogie....if you get a chance shoot a pic. of those cradles and post it for us.
Caustic Burno":2e95nq41 said:Never seen a winter to start out like this winter pasture has gone nuts with these temps and I haven't had to put out the first bale yet. I was thinking yesterday on pulling the cradles down to the pasture.
chenocetah":1swx27nk said:Well, like I said, maybe I've got the luxury of having more hay available than most people. If feeding hay is a major cost for you, then I suggest exploring the options that might be avaible to reduce the cost of that practice.
dun":13zcng0m said:Making them clean up the hay is a long way from letting then lose any condition.chenocetah":13zcng0m said:Maybe I've had the luxury of having more hay avaible than some people, but we keep our hay racks and hay feeding trailers stuffed full all of the time. That means we might feed 5 bales some days and 50 others. Not all of our hay is the same quality and I feel the cow is a better judge of what she needs to fill her up than I am. Some types of hay they eat more of than others.
Just my opinion that its easier to keep a cow up than it is to let her go down a little and then try to get her back.
hooknline":2pbxwy39 said:remember though also, they will clean up the hay before they eat the pasture most of the time. Most animals will take the higher nutrient forage over the rest, leaving the lower nutrient stuff for when they run out of the good stuff. All this does is make them spoiled, at least in my limited experience.
JRGidaho`":123twqmj said:hooknline":123twqmj said:remember though also, they will clean up the hay before they eat the pasture most of the time. Most animals will take the higher nutrient forage over the rest, leaving the lower nutrient stuff for when they run out of the good stuff. All this does is make them spoiled, at least in my limited experience.
Interesting. Our cows always preferred stockpiled pasture to hay. When we were space-bale feeding, they would always graze out all the grass around the bales first before they took any hay.
Maybe that's just a testimony to how poor of hay we made????
We must make lousey hay too. Ours might grab a mouthfull now and then but they far prefer to glean anyting they can off of the pasture.JRGidaho`":2r52ve6e said:hooknline":2r52ve6e said:remember though also, they will clean up the hay before they eat the pasture most of the time. Most animals will take the higher nutrient forage over the rest, leaving the lower nutrient stuff for when they run out of the good stuff. All this does is make them spoiled, at least in my limited experience.
Interesting. Our cows always preferred stockpiled pasture to hay. When we were space-bale feeding, they would always graze out all the grass around the bales first before they took any hay.
Maybe that's just a testimony to how poor of hay we made????
hooknline":3h4w5gul said: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.
hooknline":29tiz63e said: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.
When ours are on really good WSG pasture they'll knock down a fence to get to the old summer stressed fescue. We board some cows for a neighbor that are fed WSG hay during the winter and they'll knock down a fence to get away from the fescue and eat the old stemmy and poor WSG. I really think a lot of it has to do with what they're used to that helps to build their preferences.JRGidaho`":s81lxc5k said: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.