Is this viable

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frenchie

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I have been thinking of making a few changes here in the feeding dept.
Been thinking of approaching one of large grain farmers and supplying him with a chaff wagon and buying the chaff off him and adding a bit of barley to it ,instead off making hay.We calve on grass, so it should work.


Has anyone here ever fed chaff?
 
frenchie:

There are a lot of folks who have fed this stuff and you and I both know it is good feed. I think you will still have to supply the hay though. Certainly a good mineral suplement as well.

I just do not know anyone who has removed hay / something similar completely from the animals diet.

I would suspect there will still be some requirement for the roughage - but I know you could cut it down quite a bit.

Why not a test group for one winter to study the results?

My animals survived on straw and some barley/oats for almost three winters, so I am sure there is a possibility here - just haven't ever given it any thought.

Saskatoon, Guelph U's perhaps? CCA?

Over to you,

Bez

Bez
 
Bez":3k8h8ofk said:
frenchie:

There are a lot of folks who have fed this stuff and you and I both know it is good feed. I think you will still have to supply the hay though. Certainly a good mineral suplement as well.

I just do not know anyone who has removed hay / something similar completely from the animals diet.

I would suspect there will still be some requirement for the roughage - but I know you could cut it down quite a bit.

Why not a test group for one winter to study the results?

My animals survived on straw and some barley/oats for almost three winters, so I am sure there is a possibility here - just haven't ever given it any thought.

Saskatoon, Guelph U's perhaps? CCA?

Over to you,

Bez

Bez

Well Bez

Kinda of planned on using some straw.Just want to get out of the hay making game..and utilize that ground for more stockers.Then I can ditch most of my farm equipment as well


shorty wrote
Just make sure it doesn't have a lot of weed seeds mixed in, If it does you'll be getting more than you bargained for.

good point.
 
We bale corn chaff and soybean chaff. We feed it to our mature beef cows over the winter. Never tried feeding only chaff though. We supplement with haylage.
 
Yes - there is feed value in straw. It runs at somewhere in that 6-8 % range.

We also were able to get some "green feed" bales - underdeveloped oat bales. We call them forage oat bales - really good feed - cows tear them apart before the best of the best alfalfa.

You have to watch out for impaction. Lots of available water or good snow to lick. Mineral provides the top up.

Times were tough back then - drought drove the price of bales in my area to $107.50 per round bale. Still have the invoice and I will someday frame it.

Barlet straw is good but beards on unthrashed grain heads can be a problem. Working from memory I think it was 6 row barley that caused the smallest amount of grief.

Chaff is great if you can get it and the cows love it. Some folks drag a "gatherer" behind the combine and drop it all in piles for the cows to eat in the winter time.

frenchie is simply using his noggin and economizing - it is a good thought and I believe it would work. Just have to ensure there is enough chaff to be had. It would take a lot.

In fact frenchie you might consider having your neighbour drag the chaff piles for you in his field - he gets the benefit of the added manure. All you need to add is the single strand of electric fence.

These diets are really what I call a maintenance diet - the cows do well on them, but will not put the big weight on - but they make it through the winter fine and usually calve out with no probs.

Congrats on reaching 1000 - does that mean you are an old guy? :lol: :p

Bez
 
Bez":19go1wkn said:
Chaff is great if you can get it and the cows love it. Some folks drag a "gatherer" behind the combine and drop it all in piles for the cows to eat in the winter time.

frenchie is simply using his noggin and economizing - it is a good thought and I believe it would work. Just have to ensure there is enough chaff to be had. It would take a lot.Bez

Well I have seen some info that 1500 of chaff will feed 70 cows..My 4 closest grain farming neighbours farm 2700 acres ,9000 acres ,11,000 acres, 7000 acres.



Bez":19go1wkn said:
In fact frenchie you might consider having your neighbour drag the chaff piles for you in his field - he gets the benefit of the added manure. All you need to add is the single strand of electric fence.

It would be cheaper all right. depends how much the land is spread out.

Bez":19go1wkn said:
These diets are really what I call a maintenance diet - the cows do well on them, but will not put the big weight on - but they make it through the winter fine and usually calve out with no probs.


It will work..I ,ll make it work..We have done the straw thing and it worked well.

Bez":19go1wkn said:
Congrats on reaching 1000 - does that mean you are an old guy? :lol: :p

Bez

:oops: :frowns:
 

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