Started feeding cow herd
- Thread starter gcreekrch
- Start date
kenny thomas
Well-known member
You will feed more this weekend than I will feed all winter.
That would change if you came and fed mine and I’ll look after yours. I’d like some country with your grass on it.
chevytaHOE5674
Well-known member
Tis' the season.
I've got plenty of grass here I coulda went into 2026 grazing but the deep snow ruined those plans 10 days ago.
Guess that's why we spend all summer making hay.
I've got plenty of grass here I coulda went into 2026 grazing but the deep snow ruined those plans 10 days ago.
Guess that's why we spend all summer making hay.
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Dave
Well-known member
Neighbor says we spend half the year making hay and the other half feeding it.
chevytaHOE5674
Well-known member
I shoot for 3 months making hay and 7 months feeding. That leaves 2 months to work on other things. Haha
crossbreed
Well-known member
I’ve got quite a bit of winter mix grazing left but have already fed about 20 bales with 45 head grazing. Won’t turn them in when it’s raining to keep it from being mucked up
crossbreed
Well-known member
Question for those who roll out hay and move polywire. Do you follow up by dragging to scatter hay piles and break up to scatter the manure piles?
RDFF
Well-known member
Nope... never drag or try to spread anything. Frozen cowpies are all gone by grass growing time. As your soil becomes more alive, the issue becomes trying to keep some residue (or cowpies too) on the surface. It all just disappears... I never even think about big cow turds anymore... they just don't last at all. No need to try to spread them... the soil biology will do that.
Dave
Well-known member
Never did over on the coast where I moved poly wire. Here I drag every spring as soon as the cows leave. Not concerned about hay but there always seem to be areas where the cows gather the manure piles are about 3 feet apart. Everyone around here feeds on the hay fields. And everyone drags the fields as soon as the cows head to the hills.
I cut hay where I feed. So I pull diamond harrows over the feed ground in the spring to scatter the manure. This gathers a lot of the sisal string as well as lowers the ash content of the next hay baled on it.
kenny thomas
Well-known member
Since the cows are only on the same area for a short period of time the manure piles dont build up much. And they eat a high % of the hay so what little thats left is very scattered out. There are not any piles if it's unrolled.
If the weather cooperates I sometimes do seed some clover and pull a chain drag over some of the pastures in late February.
crossbreed
Well-known member
That's what mine looks like. Ends up growing in clumps that the cows won't eat
crossbreed
Well-known member
Chain harrow is what I have been using and it's worked pretty well. Rolling out bales with some clover in them hopefully get some established. Worked well with the rye grass
I try to feed the cows such that they spread their fertilizer evenly and heavily enough to make a significant difference. I wouldn’t harrow it if I wasn’t haying it.
CowboyRam
Well-known member
I winter my cows out on my alfalfa field, so it needs to be drug with a chain harrow in the spring when the cows come off; it helps break it up and spread it out. I also have to load and spread the manure from where the cows spend the night.
I find if feed heavy enough to make a significant difference my alfalfa fields become grass hay fields which is fine because of the increased tonnage due the fertility.
RDFF
Well-known member
First, I'd probably suggest that you potentially could "increase" the density of your manure coverage more so it looks more like "Silver's" than Dave's (more pats even closer together, by feeding MORE ANIMALS there, for a longer period of time), so that you don't end up with more sparsely spaced manure clumps, which turn into more sparsely spaced grass clumps.
Second, I'd probably suggest that maybe you're not achieving enough "rest & recovery time" between when the feeding, and then also by that feeding, the manure... has been applied, .................and when the grass is intended to be consumed. How long has it been between these events?
Third, I think that you'll find that as you move down this soil building, biology building path, this issue will become less and less of a concern, specifically BECAUSE you'll be accelerating the consumption rate of the soil micro-biome, to the point where those cow-pats just don't last nearly as long as they used to... As your soil biological populations explode, they also have to be being fed commensurately. THEY are what generate the plant available nutrients, through their "life-cycling"... living, consuming, and dying, ...at an ever increasing rate, and in ever increasing numbers. That turning over of "biological bodies" in the soil is what creates that really rich soil that the grass thrives on... (it's also what makes that really rich, "living soil" smell so sweet!).
The biological system wasn't designed to require US to break up those cow-pats. It was designed (by God) to function perfectly all on its own, as a "perpetual motion machine"! We just need to LET IT, and perhaps at times, once we understand how it functions, to "help it" (nurturing and keeping, Gen. 2:15), by intentionally providing more fuel, so that more biology can grow and function at a higher level. THAT is where livestock in the equation, ON THE LAND, and potentially bringing in organic matter (i.e.: in the form of hay and other feed for the animals, or other plant material, or compost, etc.) can really exceptionally ramp up the soil biological capacity. You could have absolutely nothing but pure granite rock hundreds of feet thick, and if you bring in hay, and let the animals consume it and poop and pee all over that rock you WILL be building soil right on top of that rock. If you just "house" the cattle on that rock with no bedding, and move them off and feed them elsewhere, you will be building soil there too, because they will be pooping and peeing and drooling, etc., all over that rock, when they are there..., your "soil building" just won't be as fast. And if you only "haul some manure onto that rock" from a feedlot someplace, you ALSO will begin building soil on that rock.
But the fastest way to build it will be to actually keep and feed those animals right there ON that rock..., because their living presence there is daily and continuously adding in biological components to that soil building process that just "bringing the animal waste" to it simply doesn't and can't do in the same way, and to the same level. Some of that added biology may only have the ability to be alive once it's been shed by the animal for a few hours... but because it was there, and continues to be there because the animals are LIVING there, it continues to be a part of that biological equation that's called "life". A part of that biological life that we've been called to "NURTURE"................... and to "KEEP".
THAT is why it can be so beneficial to be actually properly "housing and feeding" the livestock right there on the pastures that we want to grow. Anything less,.... is exactly that.......... "less".
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CowboyRam
Well-known member
I still add fertilizer. I finally got a quote from the CO-OP today, so now I'm trying to compare apples to oranges. My alfalfa is starting to get in pretty thin, so I am rotating out 45 acres this next year. Still trying to figure out what I am going plant; barley, german millet, or japanese millet. I think I may get more hay out of the japanese millet, but I'm not really sure.
GoWyo
Well-known member
My hay guy plants forage barley into a thin stand of alfalfa and it makes pretty good hay. Feeding some now to replacement heifers. Could get a couple more years out of your alfalfa. Or go oats and then plant millet as soon as the oats are off for a good second cut.
