limit feeding of hay

[rjbovine]

I've never been around anyone that has limit fed hay. I'm asking because with hay in short supply and expensive . Has anyone feed this way? How would be the best way to feed large rd bales. How do you figuare how much they need to eat. With snow on the ground and cows nursing calves is this a poor time to start ? Thanks for your help I need it . :help: rj

 

[Isomade]

I've never been around anyone that has limit fed hay. I'm asking because with hay in short supply and expensive . Has anyone feed this way? How would be the best way to feed large rd bales. How do you figuare how much they need to eat. With snow on the ground and cows nursing calves is this a poor time to start ? Thanks for your help I need it . :help: rj

Have you tested your hay?

 

[rjbovine]

yes I have . I'll need to look up results and post .

 

[rjbovine]

I went back and looked I posted 8-07-12 results of the hay . grasses, pasture . and hay forum thanks for looking rj

 

[Banjo]

in 2007 and '08 when we had a hard drought here, i fed a 1/2 of a (5x6)bale a day unrolled to around 35 or 40 cows.They would have liked a whole bale.If they can all eat without having to fight for a bite around a hay ring. I think they can get enough to eat if they aren't having to fight for it. Also it gets the calves out of the mud. These cows didn;t start calving untill mid Feb. and March also. Just watch their condition. Mine survived just fine.

 

[Bigfoot]

Lucky p has a good thing going. It sounds time consuming, but I think his wife does the shifting. You might pm him if he doesn't reply here.

 

[M5farm]

We've had so much rain in the last few weeks. That I started unrolling 1/2 bale a day for 15 cows and 9 calves. Hardly any wasted and they are holding condition good .

 

[Isomade]

I went back and looked I posted 8-07-12 results of the hay . grasses, pasture . and hay forum thanks for looking rj

Copy and paste it so we can see it here.

 

[cross_7]

I've never been around anyone that has limit fed hay. I'm asking because with hay in short supply and expensive . Has anyone feed this way? How would be the best way to feed large rd bales. How do you figuare how much they need to eat. With snow on the ground and cows nursing calves is this a poor time to start ? Thanks for your help I need it . :help: rj

Looks like your hay is 8% protein 55% tdn
lactating cows needs about 2.1-2.4 total protein, your at about 1.5 or so at 20#'s hay per head
your going to need to supplement protein and I have no experience with snow but your going to need to supplement energy I'd think

Edit
You could probably get by with molasses tubs WITHOUT urea on limit feeding, but if you hand feeding every day you should be able to get cheaper protein
Alfalfa hay is hard to beat if you can get it for the money

 

[Caustic Burno]

I've never been around anyone that has limit fed hay. I'm asking because with hay in short supply and expensive . Has anyone feed this way? How would be the best way to feed large rd bales. How do you figuare how much they need to eat. With snow on the ground and cows nursing calves is this a poor time to start ? Thanks for your help I need it . :help: rj

Did during 2011 drought went to buying bulk feed at 220 a ton hay was running 200 a ton that year and culled my ass off.
Culled from 37 to 12 to save the pasture and stretch the hay. I had two years worth for 37 and barely made it on 12 feeding through the summer, fall and winter till next spring. I didn't limit feed I limited hay.

 

[Isomade]

I've never been around anyone that has limit fed hay. I'm asking because with hay in short supply and expensive . Has anyone feed this way? How would be the best way to feed large rd bales. How do you figuare how much they need to eat. With snow on the ground and cows nursing calves is this a poor time to start ? Thanks for your help I need it . :help: rj

Looks like your hay is 8% protein 55% tdn
lactating cows needs about 2.1-2.4 total protein your at about 1.5 or so at 20#'s hay per head
your going to need to supplement protein and I have no experience with snow but your going to need to supplement energy I'd think

Ok, Do they have calves on em? What do they weigh? If no calves when? Are they in good condition, what is BCS? How much of this hay do you have available to feed per head per day?

 

[Lucky_P]

We started limit-feeding in 2007 - virtually no local hay to be had; 'imported' from out west was sky high.
Trials at OSU indicated that cows could do OK on as little as 2.5#/hd/day (5# was better) hay, so long as you supplemented to meet other nutritional needs.
It worked well enough for us that we've continued it the following 5 winters - cows come through the winter in better condition than they did when they just had free-choice access to sorry locally-produced overmature 'hay'. And, since the cows come in & out every day, they're much easier to handle now than they were 6 years ago.

We shoot for ~10#/hd/day hay - which works out to the cows having access to the hay feeders (large rounds in hay rings) for about 1.25 hours, then they come out to eat 8-10#/hd modified distiller's grain product. Then, they stand around waiting for their shot at the hay again the next day.
Distiller's grain was cheap when we started; has gone up a lot the last two years; we're at the point now, that we're looking at buying more hay next year and feeding less distiller's grain.

Feeding 2 groups; wife gets up at 5am, lets the first group in to hay, goes back to bed. I get up at 6, put out the grain for the first group, they come out to eat grain, and the second group goes in to eat hay. When the first group finishes their grain, we push 'em out of the barnlot, put out the grain for the next group, then I go to work and she lets the second group out to eat grain around 8. Pretty well finished with the whole deal by 8:30 - leaving her the rest of the day to play tennis or ride horses.

 

[Bigfoot]

Sounds like Lucky has good help.

 

[rjbovine]

Lucky ..Very interesting how you are feeding hay . How many head per hay ring ? I think I will try this way of feeding . I would hope it would cut down on the waste that I'm seeing around the ring . thanks rj

 

[Lucky_P]

rj,
Herd is split pretty evenly, with regard to mature animals - about 35/group, though the fall-calving group in with the bulls has about 30 calves in addition to mature cows. I keep hay out in 6 rings and try to make sure that they all have hay in them, so that all animals have an adequate chance at getting their fill during their time in the hay-feedling lot. They average about one roll per day - though they don't always eat 'em all down at the same rate, so, for instance, this morning I had to put out 3 new rolls, as they'd cleaned up three of the six I put out on Sunday.

There's still some waste, but less than I experienced when they just stood around the hay rings all day long.
If I have time (most days) I'll usually go around the feeders with a pitchfork after each group and fork any loose hay back into the rings or pitch it over the fence to the wife's horses. Takes maybe five minutes or so.

 

[Banjo]

rj,
Herd is split pretty evenly, with regard to mature animals - about 35/group, though the fall-calving group in with the bulls has about 30 calves in addition to mature cows. I keep hay out in 6 rings and try to make sure that they all have hay in them, so that all animals have an adequate chance at getting their fill during their time in the hay-feedling lot. They average about one roll per day - though they don't always eat 'em all down at the same rate, so, for instance, this morning I had to put out 3 new rolls, as they'd cleaned up three of the six I put out on Sunday.

There's still some waste, but less than I experienced when they just stood around the hay rings all day long.
If I have time (most days) I'll usually go around the feeders with a pitchfork after each group and fork any loose hay back into the rings or pitch it over the fence to the wife's horses. Takes maybe five minutes or so.

I'm sure you know what your doing. and if it works for you that's great. But why don't you just unroll them all one roll a day out in the clean pasture field away from the mud. Is it because you don't want to start a tractor every day or something else? It wouldn't be anymore time consuming I wouldn't think....assuming you have a cab tractor which does make big difference this time of year. Not trying to second guess ya, just curious.

 

[Lucky_P]

No, banjo, I don't have a 'cab' tractor. Just two old ones - a 1961 JD 2010 and a '94 Case 1294.
while some folks swear by unrolling hay, I tried it a few years ago, and they wasted - trampled/pooped/peed on - way more than the loss I get limit-feeding in rings.
Yes, it's muddy as all get-out(well, it's frozen right now) in the barn lots and close up to the barn lots in the two sacrifice paddocks the cows are in right now, but they'll go back out to stockpiled fescue in Feb, and I won't be feeding any longer.

Limit-feeding is not for everyone. Requires more effort than just dumping a roll of hay out every day or two. Started out for us as relatively inexpensive way to get the cows through a winter when decent quality hay was either not available or was exorbitantly expensive. Until the last year or so, on a relative feed value basis, the distiller's grain was less expensive than hay; with escalating corn and DDG prices, that's not so much the case - and next year, we'll probably buy in and feed more hay and less DDG - but the benefits of increase ease of handling the cattle, especially as my wife and I get older, has been well worth the extra expense and labor of our limit-feeding system - not to mention he improved condition of the cows and the improved growth rate of the calves, compared to how they were when they had free-choice access to the crappy overmature junk hay I could get locally.

 

[ohiosteve]

I've found that limiting waste really helps stretch out the hay supply. My neighbor feeds about 65 momma's and he unrolls round bales twice a day with almost zero waste unless it is excessively muddy. The key is frequent feedings and only giving them as much as they will eat. His cows get no supplement so they really go to work on the unrolled bales. Pasture is well fertilized too. I do the same thing but with small bales, I'm only feeding 10 right now so I give them a couple bales in the morning and a couple in the evening thrown on the ground.

 

[Bigfoot]

I've found that limiting waste really helps stretch out the hay supply. My neighbor feeds about 65 momma's and he unrolls round bales twice a day with almost zero waste unless it is excessively muddy. The key is frequent feedings and only giving them as much as they will eat. His cows get no supplement so they really go to work on the unrolled bales. Pasture is well fertilized too. I do the same thing but with small bales, I'm only feeding 10 right now so I give them a couple bales in the morning and a couple in the evening thrown on the ground.

It occurs to me back in the day when I was a kid, and we fed square baled it was really like limit feeding. They just got what they could clean up. Way less waste, but more time consuming.

 

[Lucky_P]

Yep, Bigfoot - I grew up feeding square bales, too. Virtually no waste - they got what they'd clean up in a short time frame - or, more likely, they cleaned up what they got... But, I also have some serious doubts about whether those old gals ever got 'enough', if you know what I mean.

U of Minn has a beef cow wintering ration calculator - handy little spreadsheet system.
http://www.extension.umn.edu/beef/compo ... rition.htm
Farm manager(wife) spent some time with it yesterday, recalculating feed needs; as a result, we've bumped up time at the hay feeders to allow more DM intake, and cut the distiller's grain portion more or less in half. Following these calculations will necessitate buying in additional hay next year, if we keep similar cow numbers - but unless grain/DDG prices drop, it'll still translate into significant $aving$, as the distiller's grain prices have escalated significantly over the past two years.