Our Feeding Situation

[TexasBred]

In the case where protein was my main concern I'd probably spend a bit more and get a higher quality alfalfa which would allow you to cut the alfalfa a bit and increase the straw...16-17% alfalfa is pretty "low grade" stuff.

Well, one thing you must consider is where we live vs where you live. Our frost free season is from about mid May to sometime in Sept. We get 1 cutting out of our hay. 14%-17% alfalfa is pretty much the norm. We don't get the rainfall generally to even consider a second cut, and if you do take a second cutting you run a pretty good risk of winter kill on your alfalfa.

All the hay we have, we put up ourselves. I cannot afford to buy even the low grade stuff, let alone consider buying second cut alfalfa.

Sounds like you're doing good with what you got. :nod: :clap:

 

[randiliana]

Sounds like you're doing good with what you got. :nod: :clap:

Thank you, yes we are. It is good to talk to different people from different areas to see what they do. Sometimes you can pick up an great idea, but some things simply don't work every where.

 

[TexasBred]

Sometimes we forget exactly where everyone is, what they have available as well as how they prefer to operate. Best Wishes. :tiphat:

 

[Alberta farmer]

randilianna: What are your costs to tub grind? What are your costs per ton to truck in straw? I know you said $5 a loaded mile but not sure how many bales that involves or how many miles?
The hay I bought last year was $2.75/1150 lb. bale for around four miles. This was done with a tandem picker truck that hauled 17 at a time. I found some hay for $32 about twelve miles from home but the hay hauler figured it would cost about $4 so I bought the stuff across the road for $35 and will haul it myself. Probably cheaper to have bought the other stuff but then I figured I'd help the neighbor out a bit by buying his stuff.

 

[randiliana]

randilianna: What are your costs to tub grind? What are your costs per ton to truck in straw? I know you said $5 a loaded mile but not sure how many bales that involves or how many miles?
The hay I bought last year was $2.75/1150 lb. bale for around four miles. This was done with a tandem picker truck that hauled 17 at a time. I found some hay for $32 about twelve miles from home but the hay hauler figured it would cost about $4 so I bought the stuff across the road for $35 and will haul it myself. Probably cheaper to have bought the other stuff but then I figured I'd help the neighbor out a bit by buying his stuff.

Our cost to tub grind is the cost of fuel, since my DH runs the tub grinder for the guy that owns it. If we had to pay for it, it would be $100/hour + fuel. Would have cost us about $600 with the fuel incl. but we only had to pay for $120 of fuel.

The trucking cost us about $25/ton in freight. They were med sized square bales, weighing in at 700lbs, they were able to load 72 of them on the truck for a load of about 25 ton. Round straw would have cost us more per ton, simply because you cannot put as much ton on the truck. The fact that they were square, and we didn't have a way to feed them was part of the reason we decided to tub grind the feed.

The problem we have down here right now is that we are between 1 and 2 hours from any hay or straw. We have just gone through 2 years of drought, and hay or straw is very hard to find. What it basically is coming down to is the bottom line, and while straw may not be the best bang for the buck, we have enough good hay to make straw work for us. It comes down to the fact that we can buy enough straw to get us through the winter, but we would only be able to buy about 1/2 of the hay we would need to get us through.