How many cows can I run

[oakcreekfarms]

We have 3 pieces of land that we are switching into pasture. We have a 2 60acre plots and then a 40 acre. What kind of grass would you use, we live in central kansas.

I want to do some rotational grazing on it. Is there a way to know how many pairs I could run on it. We would most likely spray it and fertilize all plots of land every year. We will also be creep feeding the bulls as a contempary group.

 

[MikeC]

Fescue grows good just about anywhere. Contrary to popular thought about the endophytes causing performance problems I have never had or seen this problem. Dont know about there but here in March I put out 300 pounds per acre of 19 19 19 fertilizer and with the plenty of rain we get in april by may the grass is past ankle high and lush and green. Fescue would be my pick. For good performance and hay some people around here sow bermuda grass. We plan on doing that this year as well.

You're advocating planting "endophyte infected" fescue for pasture?

All the visual observations and research I've seen shows that
cattle on "Uninfected" fescue will outgain the ones on the "Infected" variety by at least 2 to 1.

Long term effects are even more obvious. Feet, etc.

Forget the endophyte infected fescue!

 

[dun]

High endophyte escue has advantages if you don;t rotationally graze over the friendly endophyte type, better persistance under abuse. HE fescue if properly managed works good, the important part is the proper managment.

dun

 

[MountainFarmChar]

Well im just saying my visualy observations on cattle around here on fescue there have been no problems that everyone describes. No feet problems, no calving problems, etc. Maybe we have low endophyte fescue here I havent a clue but I have had cattle in some shape form or another all my life and have had none of the problems of toxic endophyte fescue period. I wont argue with someone over the internet cuz after all its just like running in the special olympics when it is all said and done all parties involved are still retarded. I was just telling what has been from MY personal experience. Granted these experiences with everyone else may vary.

The special olympics statement you make so often is out of order, most all cattle people / farmers I know are family people and would never use such an insensitive and disrespectful statement .

 

[Kent]

The endophyte that causes fescue toxicosis is present in the stems and seed of the plant, but not so much in the leaves. Also, the plant produces only one seedhead per year. For pasture, clip the fields with a bush hog in spring once the seedheads emerge to keep the cattle from eating them. The rest of the season, only the leaves of the grass will grow. This will minimize the effects of the fungus. If possible, do not feed straight fescue hay to cows in winter, especially if they are lactating. Feed either a different grass hay or a 50/50 fescue/legume hay. Legumes will also minimize the effects of the fungus.

The first year I went from straight fescue hay to straight orchardgrass hay on my fall-calving cows, the average weaning weight of my calves jumped nearly 50 lbs. (same bull) and has stayed at that level every year since. Keeping the fescue endophyte out of your cows will pay dividends in the long run. However, as a pasture plant, KY31 fescue is as hardy as they come, so that is a consideration as well. It is a very useful pasture plant and cows will do OK on it, but you can see significant gains by exercising some management practices.

I have fescue pastures and orchardgrass hayfields, and that has worked well for me. Orchardgrass works well in pastures if you don't have much drought and hot weather, but does not persist like KY31 fescue.

 

[cfpinz]

The special olympics statement you make so often is out of order, most all cattle people / farmers I know are family people and would never use such an insensitive and disrespectful statement .

Agreed, it gets kind of old.

216 reminds me of someone. Naw, it can't be...

cfpinz

 

[MikeC]

Effects of High Endophyte Infected fescue:

Be sure and click on #2

http://forages.oregonstate.edu/organiza ... tml#Table1

 

[dun]

Effects of High Endophyte Infected fescue:

Be sure and click on #2

http://forages.oregonstate.edu/organiza ... tml#Table1

And if you dilute the endophyte with legumes or other forages (managment) the effects aren't near as severe. When we interseeded clover into the fescue pastures at the old farm our weaning weights went up significantly. We've never had a problem with fertility of the cows or heifers, fescue foot, sloughing of tails, etc. Trying to erradiacte HE fescue from an area is an exercisein fulity. If I was startting with bare ground I'ld plant some native WSG and probably a friendly endophyte variety of fescue. OG and timothy don;t handle drought worth snot. Those and brome don;t have significatn enough fall growth to stockpile. That is in our environemnt/climate.

dun

 

[MikeC]

I understand your dilemma dun. But the gentleman earlier seemed to be advocating the "PLANTING" of endophyte fescue for pasture.

There is a lot less of it here over the past 20 years. The state had a program for replacing it and many took advantage of it.

I know I would never go back to it.......................

This management your talking about. Have you ever figured this exercise to be more cost effective than renovating it?

 

[dun]

I understand your dilemma dun. But the gentleman earlier seemed to be advocating the "PLANTING" of endophyte fescue for pasture.

There is a lot less of it here over the past 20 years. The state had a program for replacing it and many took advantage of it.

I know I would never go back to it.......................

This management your talking about. Have you ever figured this exercise to be more cost effective than renovating it?

The biggest problem with renovating is getting rid of the original fescue. Multiple burn downs over several years in which you don;t get any grazing, then you finally can plant the new stuff. If you don;t totally eliminate the HE stuff, no matter what you plant you end up with basically diluted HE fescue after a number of years. The going rate used to be figured @ $100 per acre to plant the freindly stuff, but that was with just one chemical burndown of the HE stuff. That was 4-5 years ago when we had considred converting a field that had been in nothing but ryegrass, sudan and winter wehaeat for 8 years. We planted native WSG and have a pretty decent stand of fescue in that field.

dun

 

[preston39]

Fescue grows good just about anywhere. Contrary to popular thought about the endophytes causing performance problems I have never had or seen this problem. Dont know about there but here in March I put out 300 pounds per acre of 19 19 19 fertilizer and with the plenty of rain we get in april by may the grass is past ankle high and lush and green. Fescue would be my pick. For good performance and hay some people around here sow bermuda grass. We plan on doing that this year as well.

You're advocating planting "endophyte infected" fescue for pasture?

All the visual observations and research I've seen shows that
cattle on "Uninfected" fescue will outgain the ones on the "Infected" variety by at least 2 to 1.

Long term effects are even more obvious. Feet, etc.

Forget the endophyte infected fescue!

======
MikeC,

Are you up from the wrong side of the bed today?

It is almost impssible to keep HE from creeping into the pastures. How do you prevent it? Maybe you have a secret to share with us.

Most everone knows it is better but, please reference the 2 for 1 study?

 

[MikeC]

I posted the link above. Several of the studies are 2 for 1.

I even observed a study at the West Alabama Blackbelt Research Station firsthand on fescue back about 10 years ago when some steers were gate cut into two pastures.

One was infected fescue and the other was ryegrass.

After 60 days of grazing the steers in the ryegrass gained about 2 1/2 lbs per day. The steers on fescue gained only 3/4 lbs per day.

I just hate the stuff. It prolly don't bother you guys as much because you don't have the heat we have. That's when it really tells off.

Those cows stay in the pond all day.

 

[Family Tradition]

over the internet cuz after all its just like running in the special olympics when it is all said and done all parties involved are still retarded.

I Agree with you MFC I have a handicapped brother-in -law and every time here a comment like this I really wonder about the person making the comment because my brother-in law would never speak of anyone in those terms.

 

[Beef11]

its just like running in the special olympics when it is all said and done all parties involved are still retarded.

It takes a big man to put handicapped people down to make themselves look better. Try demonstrating some class and see where that takes you.

 

[dun]

I just hate the stuff. It prolly don't bother you guys as much because you don't have the heat we have. That's when it really tells off.

I hated the stuff at first too. Couldn;t get rid of it quick enough. Then I started learning more about it and how to make it work for me instead of against me.
One of the earlier drought years I pulled the cows off of the fescue and turned them into some of the nicest lespedeza I had ever seen. Aftwer about a week, even though they still had plenty of good lespedeza left, they would graze under the hotwire on the fescue. I finally turned them back into the fescue and every couple of days ran them in the lespedza. I figured they were so used to eating hotdogs that a steak didn;t appeal to them.

 

[Family Tradition]

Cowyboyup apology accepted. I understood what you meant in original post but that particular wording has always been one of my biggest hang ups. I stayed in trouble from the 1st grade on for taking up for the handicapped and that was along time before I had a brother-in law. NOW ON WITH THE THREAD.

 

[Brandonm2]

Mike, we had Kentucky 31 fescue here for years. Cows did pretty good on it. When AUtriumph came out we planted every acre we had in it (DEBACLE OF THE HIGHEST ORDER) great gains, great stand year 1....great gains, mediocre stand year 2, year 3 just mediocre. I can't talk for other states or the Blackbelt South; but in North Alabama give me KY fescue AND Sericea Lespedeza all day long and then some. The fescue greens up March 1 and the sericea takes comes out young and tender just when the fescue toxicity starts to get bad. When the sericea gets woody and stemmy in August you start to get a bunch of fescue growth and if you are not overgrazing you got forage into December and the stuff stockpiles great. I got a ~100 acres we are cleaning up now. Our working plan is plant it in Sericea in a coming Spring (2007 is not looking good) and come back and drill in Kentucky 31 fescue and Crimson or Ladino Clover (I know the clover is an exercise in futility; but it is nice for the first two years) that fall. I talked with one of the Auburn Beef Specialists at length and given the terrain, soil type, part of Alabama, seasonal flooding, etc he thought that was the best plan he could come up with. The biggest problem with fescue is finding cattle that WILL perform on it. I prefer a bull who was reared knee deep in the stuff. That may just be old school paranoia; but some cattle do well on fescue and some fall apart.

 

[Cowdirt]

Well im just saying my visualy observations on cattle around here on fescue there have been no problems that everyone describes. No feet problems, no calving problems, etc. Maybe we have low endophyte fescue here I havent a clue but I have had cattle in some shape form or another all my life and have had none of the problems of toxic endophyte fescue period. I wont argue with someone over the internet cuz after all its just like running in the special olympics when it is all said and done all parties involved are still retarded. I was just telling what has been from MY personal experience. Granted these experiences with everyone else may vary.

The special olympics statement you make so often is out of order, most all cattle people / farmers I know are family people and would never use such an insensitive and disrespectful statement .

You're right Mountain Char. I didn't think that statement was appropriate the first time and it doesn't get better with use. I know folks who participate in the Special Olympics that certainly aren't retarded and if they were it is still very poor taste.

 

[oakcreekfarms]

Well I still don't really understand what should be done with my situation. Does anyone have any idea how many cows I could run. I have looked at the Kentucky Fescue, does anyone know how it does in kansas.

 

[Brandonm2]

Well I still don't really understand what should be done with my situation. Does anyone have any idea how many cows I could run. I have looked at the Kentucky Fescue, does anyone know how it does in kansas.

That is the problem with asking for site specific advice on the internet. I have never stepped foot in Kansas; but I know that you need something that is both drought tolerant and winter tolerant. The university experiment stations and private seed companies are always developing new cultivars of popular forages. Contact them for the latest information. I would also have my soil type information handy. Plant the best forage available for YOUR specific soils type. Take the time too research this decision; because a mistake can be costly.