Lot size

[pricefarm]

I run 1 cow calf pair per acre. I rotational graze during summer and it works great. My problem is winter time. At my house I have 12 acres. I have 12 cows that have fall born calves on them. (They where all born in sept.). So there are a lot of hoofs walking through the pasture and the make a mess of it by spring time. I have some rented land where I have cows also and would like to bring them home when the grass is gone and feed them at my house during the winter. So there would be a total of around 30 cows with calves. All of them would have calves on them. What size lot would u need for them? They would be in it from dec-April ? There's a local dairy that said they would work out some kind of deal with me and take any extra manure I had for there corn fields. I would be feeding hay in hay rings. So there would be around 4 hay feeders. Also I would buy down rock for a good base the scrape manure and wasted hay off the top.

 

[RanchMan90]

500 square feet per head is necessary correct?

 

[pdfangus]

i HAVE 12 ACRES AND I would hate to have to look at it all winter with thirty pairs on it....
in my mind the alternative would be to create a hardened dry lot feeding facility...but that is hard on calves...

 

[pricefarm]

i HAVE 12 ACRES AND I would hate to have to look at it all winter with thirty pairs on it....
in my mind the alternative would be to create a hardened dry lot feeding facility...but that is hard on calves...

They wouldn't be on the pasture just in the lot. How is that hard on calves in your opinion?

 

[pdfangus]

i HAVE 12 ACRES AND I would hate to have to look at it all winter with thirty pairs on it....
in my mind the alternative would be to create a hardened dry lot feeding facility...but that is hard on calves...

They wouldn't be on the pasture just in the lot. How is that hard on calves in your opinion?

overall level of sanitation.
lack of exercise
concentration of disease causing organisms
crowding.

 

[pricefarm]

Thanks all valid points worth considering

 

[JW IN VA]

It would depend on your soil type.Jim could tell you more about that.Here, you wouldn't dare put 12 pair on 12 acres for that long.
There is also the factor of having room to "pick" between meals and the minerals gained.I can feed all the good hay and supplement i want and they still won't do as well.

 

[pdfangus]

It would depend on your soil type.Jim could tell you more about that.Here, you wouldn't dare put 12 pair on 12 acres for that long.
There is also the factor of having room to "pick" between meals and the minerals gained.I can feed all the good hay and supplement i want and they still won't do as well.

I can't think of a soil type or location in Virginia that would support that stocking rate for long....
The sandy coastal plain soils might get a little less messed up but they would not support the forage needs.

Va Tech says two acres per animal unit....
an animal unit is 1000 lbs of animal regardless of species.
in my experience three is better unless there is superior grazing management and soil productivity.

 

[No Rest Farm]

I struggle with the same issues and was thinking about creating some sort of dry lot. I'm tired of planing so much grass every spring

 

[pdfangus]

I struggle with the same issues and was thinking about creating some sort of dry lot. I'm tired of planing so much grass every spring

your local NRCS office or Soil and Water District can give you technical assistance for such work and may or may not have some assistance funding....my district does not have funding because our funding was allocated to other things....but we could still help plan such an improvement.

 

[Bigfoot]

This may just be my experience, but the dead of winter mine don't venture too far from the hay ring. A cloudy or rainy day, they hang real close. A warm bright winter day, and they will venture out, but the majority of my place never gets a cow track dec-mid feb. they lay total waste to about 3 acres, and track up probably another 12-15 acres. That's about 100 head though.

 

[Dave]

This may just be my experience, but the dead of winter mine don't venture too far from the hay ring. A cloudy or rainy day, they hang real close. A warm bright winter day, and they will venture out, but the majority of my place never gets a cow track dec-mid feb. they lay total waste to about 3 acres, and track up probably another 12-15 acres. That's about 100 head though.

I have had the same experience. Several years ago I just closed the gate. They now destroy about 2 acres. I have several sheds for them to get out of the weather and the feeders are all actually on concrete which makes it easier to keep clean. When it is raining, which is about 80% of the time here in the winter, they stay around the feeders or in the sheds. The other pastures are more productive because they don't get beat up in the winter.

 

[Ky cowboy]

We have 7 cows and 2 bulls on about 1 1/2 acres. We do spring calves so the calfs get pulled off late fall and out in the barn to wean and start on grain. We don't have rock beds for the hay rings or anything like that yet just keep them up out of the low areas, we have a slight ridge we feed on and when it's cold and nasty we might unroll a bale for them to bed in. Works well and the rest of the pasture does better in the spring. This year we're going to sow some pearl millet after we turn the cows out in the big pasture.