How much roughage for cows?

[tamarack]

We had a very bad drought here this year and not much hay or straw for winter any ideas on how to winter cows on little hay ,straw and barley or oats.we are going to have to feed in oct and probably till june due to overgrazing this summer.I have 150hay bales 100 straw 700bu barley on hand now and 80 cows to feed will have to sell some but trying to figure out how many.

 

[Angus Cowman]

around here I have always figured a (12-1500lb)cow will eat 1000lb bale of hay per month roughly in your country were the weather is harsher it might be more than that
that is just the formula we have always used for having hay on hand for winter

sorry to hear about your situation and hope you get some relief

 

[TexasBred]

You've already overgrazed once and are now short on hay. I'd say it's time to downsize the herd. Oats, barley or any other grain does not replace hay/grazing.

 

[Lucky_P]

Cows can do OK with as little as 5 lbs of hay per day(actually, as low as 2.5#, but that's pushing it!), so long as you provide supplemental nutrition in the form of corn, distiller's grain, soyhull pellets, corn gluten meal, etc.
Hay availability and quality was virtually nonexistent in our part of the country in 2007 due to a disastrous spring freeze and drought - no rain from May 10 to October 30. We started 'limit-feeding' - 10 lb hay/cow +10 lbs modified distiller's grain/cow, and the cows came through the winter in much better shape than they did in years past when they had free-choice access to all the crappy low-quality local hay we could keep in front of them.
We liked the system so well that we've continued it in subsequent years. Cows get 1.25 to 1.5 hours at the hay feeders - which works out to about 10#/hd/day - then come out to eat their distiller's grain. They pretty much stand around waiting for the next feeding, as there's really nothing in the 'sacrifice' paddocks they spend the winter in until they go to stockpiled fescue in January. Daily feeding, and requiring them to walk past us coming and going has done wonders to improve docility and handling ease.

 

[TexasBred]

Cows can do OK with as little as 5 lbs of hay per day(actually, as low as 2.5#, but that's pushing it!), so long as you provide supplemental nutrition in the form of corn, distiller's grain, soyhull pellets, corn gluten meal, etc.
Hay availability and quality was virtually nonexistent in our part of the country in 2007 due to a disastrous spring freeze and drought - no rain from May 10 to October 30. We started 'limit-feeding' - 10 lb hay/cow +10 lbs modified distiller's grain/cow, and the cows came through the winter in much better shape than they did in years past when they had free-choice access to all the crappy low-quality local hay we could keep in front of them.
We liked the system so well that we've continued it in subsequent years. Cows get 1.25 to 1.5 hours at the hay feeders - which works out to about 10#/hd/day - then come out to eat their distiller's grain. They pretty much stand around waiting for the next feeding, as there's really nothing in the 'sacrifice' paddocks they spend the winter in until they go to stockpiled fescue in January. Daily feeding, and requiring them to walk past us coming and going has done wonders to improve docility and handling ease.

A by-product like the DDGS would work With a limited supply of hay as would wet brewers grain and corn gluten feed due to the low starch content but always try to keep your roughage to grain ratio at a minimum 40:60 and 50:50 is even better. Soyhulls is "roughage" but still nothing replaces long stem roughage. Is it better for cattle? Anything beats low quality crappy hay. :lol2:

 

[tamarack]

Thanks for info gives me more options to mull through and try. :idea:

 

[novaman]

I realize you are short on straw but if buying straw is an option I've heard of guys that inject liquid feed into straw bales to make them more palatable as well as add nutrition. Just thought I would mention it so you could keep it in mind.