stocker gain on hay

[bman4523]

Was talking with an agent some months back about my idea of putting up coastal hay in summer and bringing stockers on the place in late fall and feeding the hay. he seemed to say that you gotta have more than coastal hay for stockers to put on good gain. Can this work if I over seed the coastal in fall with wheat to supplement the hay. I'm running cattle in central Texas on 80 acres of coastal. Your comments, thnx bman

 

[Nesikep]

I'd guess about 2 lb/day depending on the animal

 

[novatech]

I'd guess about 2 lb/day depending on the animal

Also the quality of the hay.
Most people do everything they can not to feed hay due to the expense. Hay, IMO is a supplement. The only way I could see it being feasible is if you could buy hay cheaper than you could grow grass. I know of someone that did this, when hay was plentyful and cheap.

 

[bigbull338]

yes you could overseed your costal to wheat rye an clover.an gaze the calves on that as well as feed hay,but youd also need to feed 3lbs of range meal a hd a day to keep them gaining nicely.but the q is can you gain enough weight in a month to off set your out of pocket feed cost.

 

[Stocker Steve]

The only way I have seen great gains on hay only is when you buy some thin cows, worm them, and let them camp in front of a bunk full of alfalfa mix hay. Up to 100# in 3 weeks.

 

[novatech]

yes you could overseed your coastal to wheat rye an clover.an gaze the calves on that as well as feed hay,but youd also need to feed 3lbs of range meal a hd a day to keep them gaining nicely.but the q is can you gain enough weight in a month to off set your out of pocket feed cost.

I have grazed stocker Angus on native bur clover and rye gettin3bs. per day with no range meal. We had to feed the some P poor hay to keep th scours down.

 

[bman4523]

My thinking here is to have some of my own coastal fields cut and baled and put up until late fall and then bring in the new crop of stockers feeding them baled coastal and letting them graze on the over seeded (winter wheat?) coastal fields until the warm season grass comes back in spring. Just got the impression that the stockers cant realy make gain on baled coastal.

 

[novatech]

All I can advise you on this is to get several good sharp pencils. Formulate a business plan. Take every item on the plan and estimate all costs. Then go back over it putting down all things that can happen with "Murphy's Law". Don't forget the rain or lack there of. Anticipated buy and sell prices can rip you a new one.
Another factor is your skill / knowledge, and experience will play an important role from choice of cattle to when to buy and sell to meet the market demand.
What I would do if I were you is first calculate how much money you can afford to loose. Then buy 2, 3, 3, 4, or however many stockers and try it for a year. Keep close records. This may give you some idea of the costs you can anticipate before dumping everything you have into what may just look like an easy money maker.

Murphy's Law; I had 150 stockers on very good grass that gained like crazy. When it was time to sell I hauled them to the sale barn. On the way I had a flat tire and rolled the trailer scaring up the cattle. I still made it to the sale. The market price had dropped 15 cents a lb. (back then 10 cents was a lot more than it is today) not to mention the discount on the beat up cattle. My dreams of a nice tidy profit went to a big loss in an 8 hour time frame. This is with no supplemental feed costs of any kind and no health issues.

 

[CJohnson]

I run stockers in E Texas and have lots of coastal. Stockers will not gain on coastal mid July to August, and will actually lose weight if you don't supplement them then. Most coastal hay will be 8-12% protein unless fertilized heavy and cut at 3 weeks (most people cut at 4 weeks to maximize tons/ac). Stockers will not gain on that. If you have them on winter pasture (wheat / rye / oats / ryegrass) and supplement the winter pasture with coastal hay then they will do great. However, it is expensive to plant. If you no-till then count on about $150/Ac. If you disc and plant into prepared seedbed then count on $200/Ac. It is much cheaper to lightly disc and broadcast ryegrass / clover into coastal fields but this will not give you grazing most years until February. You would need to stock at 1 head per acre in the Fall, and 1.5 head per acre in the spring (on wheat / rye / oat / ryegrass). You will have good gains in the warm season most years May to July depending on moisture, last frost, etc. Stockers will gain much better even through heat of August on Tifton 85. This would be a much better grass for warm season grazing of stockers due to better digestability. Hope that helps.

 

[JustSimmental]

80 acres of coastal --- expensive hay...

Instead of baling your hay at 3-4 weeks and making 3 1000# bales per acre wait til 8-10 weeks and roll 6 - 1000# bales per acre. Yeah sure the CP will be low, but the TDN will maintain about 50%. In the fall, plant rye instead of wheat at 2.5 to 3 bushels per acre (this years Reg. Rye seed was $15/bu) Check out the Plant-o-vator for No-Till in pastures. http://www.tarversales.com/index_files/plantovator.htm Put out about 75 Units of N/acre post-emergence and limit graze your calves 3-4 hours per day then put them on your "rank hay". (see below)

On your "rank hay" use the Haymaster System with the Pro 20 and you will increase the CP content from 5% CP to 10 to 13% CP for $6/bale and sell your excess hay to your un-enlightened neighbor-- treated or untreated. http://www.haymastersystems.com

Feed some High Mg Mineral free choice 3 weeks prior to grazing rye and season long.

JS

Was talking with an agent some months back about my idea of putting up coastal hay in summer and bringing stockers on the place in late fall and feeding the hay. he seemed to say that you gotta have more than coastal hay for stockers to put on good gain. Can this work if I over seed the coastal in fall with wheat to supplement the hay. I'm running cattle in central Texas on 80 acres of coastal. Your comments, thnx bman

 

[TexasBred]

JS....every day that hay goes past the prime stage the one number that drops the greatest is TDN. Learn what it means and apply it to your operation. Google, cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. If this is the kind of "hay" you feed you would be about as well of to be feeding nothing.

 

[user1]

Wheat pasture and then throw some old roughage out. The least expensive and great gains.

 

[Jogeephus]

JS....every day that hay goes past the prime stage the one number that drops the greatest is TDN. Learn what it means and apply it to your operation. Google, cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. If this is the kind of "hay" you feed you would be about as well of to be feeding nothing.

Here is a good illustration of what you are talking about. In my situation, getting a clear handle on this made a big difference in profitability. Sometimes you need to feed the good stuff and sometimes filler is fine. You surely don't want to feed your best hay when the cows have good grazing or are being supplemented but each person has to weigh out their unique situation but understanding this is key to no matter what you are doing.

 

[JustSimmental]

Tex ---- that bermuda wont drop much, if any, below 50% TDN. The CP will drop from potentially 13% to 5-6% CP..... When we treat the hay we bring that bale up from 5% to 10-13%-- this is just economics.

If it costs $200/acre to fertilize Bermuda hay fields say with a 100-60-75-10 N-P-K-S and we make 3 rolls per acre that equals $66.67 for fertilizer; and this doesn't count mowing, tedding, raking, baling, net wrap, fuel, or your time--so lets say all together it costs:
Fertilizer per bale = $66.67
Diesel --mowing/bale = $0.67
Diesel -- tedding/bale = $0.33
Diesel -- raking/bale = $0.33
Diesel -- baling/bale = $0.50
Net Wrap/bale = $5.00
Total invested in 1 roll of hay (not counting your time) = $73.50. 12%-13% CP and 58% TDN
The feed value of this equals (CP x TDN) 0.125 x 0.58 = 0.0725 ~ 0.07
You can bale 240 rolls /cut

By letting your hay get rank, on purpose, this is what you get for your investment:
If it costs $200/acre to fertilize Bermuda pastures say with a 100-60-75-10 N-P-K-S and we make 6 rolls per acre that equals $33.34 for fertilizer; and this doesn't count mowing, tedding, raking, baling, net wrap, fuel, or your time--so lets say all together it costs:
Fertilizer per bale = $33.34
Diesel --mowing/bale = $0.67
Diesel -- tedding/bale = $0.33
Diesel -- raking/bale = $0.33
Diesel -- baling/bale = $0.50
Net Wrap/bale = $5.00
Total invested in 1 roll of hay (not counting your time) = $36.75. 5%-6% CP and 50% TDN Plus another $6.00/bale to treat it to raise the CP = $42.75
The feed value of this equals (CP x TDN) treated bale > 0.125 x 0.50 = 0.0625 ~ 0.06
You can bale 480 rolls /cut

What part of $73.50/roll and $42.75/roll don't you understand?

If your plans are to make 480 rolls of hay per season and you make that on one cutting, you save even more money, because if you insist upon baling at 3-4 weeks you have to cut it twice instead of just once, so this increases your expenses even more--so lets add that too.

baling @ 3-4 weeks maturity cutting it 2 times = $73.50 x 2 cuttings x 480 = $35,280
Baling @ 8-10 weeks maturity 1 time = $42.75 X 1 cutting x 480 = $20,520

So by baling it at 3-4 weeks you end up spending an extra 15K, which in the end decreases the money you put in your pocket, but you make the best friends of the Fertilizer Co-op List. With that 15K savings you could buy the equipment to treat the bales for yourself and your 5 closest friends.


Is the difference between .07 and .06 really worth 15K to you? -- if so, OK.

JS

JS....every day that hay goes past the prime stage the one number that drops the greatest is TDN. Learn what it means and apply it to your operation. Google, cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. If this is the kind of "hay" you feed you would be about as well of to be feeding nothing.

 

[TexasBred]

What part of $73.50/roll and $42.75/roll don't you understand?

Oh I understand it well but it seems you have no idea about the values of hay. The part that concerns me most is the part that is totally undigestible and goes right thru the animal. Now figure that into your cost. Also consider that that part that is undigested also contains "protein" thus the value of "Digestible Protein".

You mentioned "treated hay"? Was that the "juicing system" you mentioned in your past life? Is so please refer back to my response on those claims. It's a total waste of money. Now...onward thru the fog son. :mrgreen:

 

[JustSimmental]

I see that you have NO Data --again for your claims... that's fine --- all is good

Happy New Year

JS

You mentioned "treated hay"? Was that the "juicing system" you mentioned in your past life? Is so please refer back to my response on those claims. It's a total waste of money. Now...onward thru the fog son. :mrgreen:

 

[TexasBred]

I see that you have NO Data --again for your claims... that's fine --- all is good

Happy New Year

JS

You mentioned "treated hay"? Was that the "juicing system" you mentioned in your past life? Is so please refer back to my response on those claims. It's a total waste of money. Now...onward thru the fog son. :mrgreen:

And you used cooked up numbers that you pull out of your ass and expect everyone to add them as a book to the Bible. I gave you true numbers many months ago. I was hoping that during your long absence you had been digesting some of them and actually using the facts to improve your bottom line. Juiced hay!!! :lol2: :lol2: :lol2:

 

[JustSimmental]

no cooking the books here -- go ahead and spend your money for 13 CP hay ---- its ok with me if you continue to be on the best friends list of the Co-op.

JS

 

[TexasBred]

no cooking the books here -- go ahead and spend your money for 13 CP hay ---- its ok with me if you continue to be on the best friends list of the Co-op.

JS

Protein is not that critical. Digestibility and energy are....learn it !!!!!

 

[Nesikep]

We're on the worse friends of the co-op list.. we avoid any inputs on our land, we try to find a balance between how many cows we can hold consistently, how much hay we can sell, and how much land we can keep for better paying crops (IE, grain, vegetables)