How often do you bed your cows?

[mncowboy]

I'm curious how often folks bed their cows, particularly in the northern states. Do you bed them as soon as the snow flys or do you wait till calving starts before you roll out the bales?
Thanks in advance

 

[snake67]

I'm curious how often folks bed their cows, particularly in the northern states. Do you bed them as soon as the snow flys or do you wait till calving starts before you roll out the bales?
Thanks in advance

We are in Canada

The answer?

Never

Honestly cannot remember the last bale of straw we had that went to cows in the field.

We might bed the shelters if we have some in there - but that is only to keep them dry and off any mud.

None of our cows are under a man made shelter this year.

They might lay on some waste hay in the field - but they are as capable as moose and deer - how often do they get bedded?

When calves come - we MIGHT bed in the field - but if there is waste hay we do not bother.

When it snows the bedding is wasted under the snow anyways.

As long as that calf gets up and is dry and gets a suck it is good to go.

If Mom cannot raise it then they both go down the road - we try to the best of our ability to get the entire herd on "push button" mode.

They have a bush for shelter from the wind - round bales for feed and they seldom see any grain either - if the hay is 9% or better they will be fine.

I am sure there will be others who do it different but this is how we do it.

Best to you

Bez

 

[mncowboy]

Thanks for the response. I used to bed every time it snowed but have scaled it back pretty hard in the past few years for the same reason you just stated. Now its just to give them a dry spot to calf or or around the holidays just to spoil them :cboy:

 

[Deepsouth]

Now that's a loaded question! :lol2:

 

[Aaron]

Exact same as Bez. We basically run the same operation from different ends of the province.

 

[snake67]

Exact same as Bez. We basically run the same operation from different ends of the province.

I guess we do - don't we?!

Suspect we are as similar as peas in a pod - I just wish I could go back to your age again young feller!

My best

Bez

 

[Stocker Steve]

We bed yarded up weanlings once or twice a week depending on the temperature. Deep bedding saves a lot of feed during cold temps. ND did some studies on this in the past.

We bale graze some corn stalks and a lot of meadow hay with the cows. They lay on some of this after we move the bale rings. Does this count as bedding ?

 

[randiliana]

The cows only get bedded at calving time. And that depends on the weather and is generally only during the month of March, or if there is a nasty snow storm in April. We keep shelters bedded for the baby calves tho. We do bed anything we keep around the corral, replacement heifers etc during the winter.

 

[redcowsrule33]

We will give them stalks if it is muddy at calving time, or like last week when we weaned and a few days later it turned cold and windy and we wanted to keep the udders out of the snow, but then we just moved the rings around the stalks early. Otherwise they just get the stalks they won't eat and clean snow. Our cows don't see the inside of a barn, but have windbreaks.

 

[Oldtimer]

I don't bed anything either- except possibly during calving if we're having really cold nasty weather, when I'll feed straw in behind the windbreaks- or throw some in the calf shelters ... I do feed a lot of straw in the winter- rolling it out in the pasture just like the hay-- and whatever they don't clean up often becomes a bed ground...

 

[Beef Man]

We don't bed cows in the winter but do bed everything in the lots as good beding is just like feeding some extra feed in cold weather. I think weekly beding is one of the cheapest things we do on these background calves and sure does make them look a lot better to the buyers. We also feed quite a lot of straw and sometimes it has been a tough decision if its beding or feed. One thing that has been good here is we live close to a lot of farmland and usually easy to find straw to bale. Ofcoarse we do bed a lot during calving and when we calved early'er we used a super lot of straw and have been out checking at calveing time and maybe --10,-20 degree's below O and baby in the straw getting up and ready to go. One thing that makes it a bit of a problem is it sure adds to the manure supply but have to look at the value of the fertilizer and how it help's build up the soil.

 

[glacierridge]

We have a few outside, there is cornstalks there for them to rest on under their shelter should they choose to use it.

The sheds get bedded and cleaned as needed.

The younger calves get bedded daily and cleaned as needed, the bigger calves (who poo a LOT more) get cleaned and bedded daily.
Works out good to run the barn cleaner with those bigger calf pens.