customcattle
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I am looking into buying a feed mixer/feeder wagon to feed cows and weaned calves with. A vertical grinder/mixer would be ideal, but the budget doesn't allow that. My question is how will a horizontal auger mixer/feeder handle a ground hay ration? What kind of horse power do I need to run a wagon? I looked at a BJM C900T yesterday that was in decent shape, and from what I can tell is around 350-400 cf. We have a 65 horse tractor that I would be using to feed with. I'm also wondering some opinions on the importance of having scales on the wagon? The one I looked at doesn't have scales with it.
We currently keep our calves and feed them for 90-120 days depending on the market and how long corn stalks last. In the past we have always just used a self creep feeder and either rolled out hay to them or (mainly) put it in a bale wagon and let them have at it. I have always been leery of just giving them an alfalfa bale, so I have rationed them out, and let them have either crp grass hay or oat bales in the bale wagon. I have noticed a lot of waste both with the alfalfa bales being fed on the ground as well as a whole lot of waste from the bale wagon. With cows I basically only have to feed during calving and if we have a bad storm, or on the rare occasion that we run short on corn stalks, but have always fed them in the same way as the calves, again noticing a whole lot of wasted hay. This is why I would like to go to feeding a ground, mixed ration of oat and alfalfa hay together, with the possibility of adding in some ground corn and dystillers/ protein pellets in the future.
We currently keep our calves and feed them for 90-120 days depending on the market and how long corn stalks last. In the past we have always just used a self creep feeder and either rolled out hay to them or (mainly) put it in a bale wagon and let them have at it. I have always been leery of just giving them an alfalfa bale, so I have rationed them out, and let them have either crp grass hay or oat bales in the bale wagon. I have noticed a lot of waste both with the alfalfa bales being fed on the ground as well as a whole lot of waste from the bale wagon. With cows I basically only have to feed during calving and if we have a bad storm, or on the rare occasion that we run short on corn stalks, but have always fed them in the same way as the calves, again noticing a whole lot of wasted hay. This is why I would like to go to feeding a ground, mixed ration of oat and alfalfa hay together, with the possibility of adding in some ground corn and dystillers/ protein pellets in the future.