Grazing stock piled Forage?

[hayray]

Any of you having any luck grazing stock piled dormant forages for the winter, like hay fields? If so, are you having to supplement with any thing? Grazing cows and heifers? I am looking to save on hay, since I can sell everything I have and I have a lot of leased property available and some hay fields with 2nd and 3rd cut left over that I could not get to because of all the rain. Now we are pretty much setting into cold weather but should be a couple of months before getting too much snow. I know a bunch of you are from Texas and probably have good info. on this and that advice is appreciated, hoping some one from up North can answer also.

Ray

 

[dun]

Depends on what the forage is. Wintering sheep on alfalfa alwasy worked well. Wouldn;t graze alfalfa with cows in the winter because they'll break off the plants at the ground and it takes it longer to start back up in the spring. Most cool season grasses stockpile well, fescue stockpiles the best. Grasing stockpiled fescue is how we get through most of the winter. If it had good regrowth in the fall there is generally no protein supplement required for bred dry cows and bred heifers. Might need an energy source for cold winter days/nights.

dun

 

[mtncows]

Watch the mineral.Keep magnesium supplement out at all times.

 

[dun]

Watch the mineral.Keep magnesium supplement out at all times.

With dormant grasses what's the reason for the high mag?

dun

 

[Andrew]

Hello Ray,
I'm from Texas and we do a lot of foraging on dormant stock piled warm season grasses. Most of it is native grasses and some of it might be bermuda.
It works fine as long as you supplement them with some protein such as cubes or sweet feed. This winter I'm using cotton seed which is much cheaper per pound of protein than anything else available around here.

Cows don't get fat but they just keep in good form.

The only problem is if the cows eat the grass to the ground, they will make a lot of hoof holes in the mud and those really screw up the land.
Aside from that, foraging stock piled grass is about the only way to utilize the native fields.

Andrew

 

[Andrew]

Ray,
Forgot to add that last winter I didn't buy any hay at all because I divided 80 acres into 3 sections and kept 12 cows in each section for almost 2 months. Sounds brutal but they survived ok and didn't loose much weight. I don't plan to buy any hay this winter either. I currently have 15 cows and a bull but I have 245 acres now.

Andrew

 

[J. T.]

I stockpiled KY 31 fescue last winter, fertilized with 60 lbs. N/acre. As Dun said, the cows only got some shelled corn on cold wet nights. No protein supplements, no hay, just minerals. Turned cows in on the grass Dec. 10 and they grazed it for the remainder of the winter. Cows looked good. Doing the same this year. As long as the rains come when needed so I can fertilize in the fall, I'll probably never feed hay again.

 

[Beef11]

Any of you having any luck grazing stock piled dormant forages for the winter, like hay fields? If so, are you having to supplement with any thing? Grazing cows and heifers? I am looking to save on hay, since I can sell everything I have and I have a lot of leased property available and some hay fields with 2nd and 3rd cut left over that I could not get to because of all the rain. Now we are pretty much setting into cold weather but should be a couple of months before getting too much snow. I know a bunch of you are from Texas and probably have good info. on this and that advice is appreciated, hoping some one from up North can answer also.

Ray

Your climate is similar to ours with snow and the ground freezing and such. We wait till the hay has froze good and then turn them out until its gone or snowed over. In the spring you are fine until the mud sets in then get them off so they don't destroy the hay fields.