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<blockquote data-quote="Douglas" data-source="post: 1546689" data-attributes="member: 8840"><p>This is an old newsletter article i copied a while back. From Matt Poore extension agent at NCSU, Jim Green is/was at Va Tech</p><p></p><p>Feeding hay in October?</p><p></p><p>It is not unusual for my neighbors in Virgilina to slow down as they pass our place as they look and wonder what we are up to now. That happened several times all through the month of October as it was pretty obvious that we had started feeding hay even though you can see we have more grass than most farms around us. This is something that Jim Green told me about a long time ago, and about 5 years ago we decided to give it a try. His logic was "if you are going to feed hay for at least 30 days each winter, why not do it in the fall when the conditions are more conducive to the practice?" I generally argued the point because we had always stretched our grass just as far as it would go before feeding hay. Starting to feed hay before we really had to just was a very hard thing to convince myself would be a good idea.</p><p></p><p>The year we started it was very dry in the late summer and fall. We really didn't have much grass, and I could see that if we grazed around one more time we would be pretty much out of grass by Thanksgiving. So, we pulled the cows into a sacrifice area and fed for the month of October. We did get some rains throughout the month, and by November the grass had really come out and we were able to</p><p></p><p>graze all the way through February. That experience made me realize I should have been listening to Dr. Green all those years rather than stubbornly holding on to my traditional practices.</p><p></p><p>Since that time we have fed during October and into mid-November every year. This is how it works: Our main sacrifice area is about 5 acres and is just behind our big pond and adjacent to our main working pens. We let this area come out real strong in grass during August and September, and then put the mature cows (75 head) in there about the time they start calving in early October. The cows graze the area for about a week before we need to start feeding hay. We unroll good quality hay for them, starting with a bale a day and then increasing them based on how much they will clean up as they completely graze the area down. During this time we are in the first cycle of calving (first 21 days) when we expect about 2/3 of our calves to be born. This is an advantage because we know right where the cows are, it is a fairly small area easy to check, and we are real close to the working pens if we have any problems.</p><p></p><p>After about 3 weeks the area starts to become a little messy (especially if we get rain), so we move to an adjacent 5 acre pasture where they graze a week or so and then we start unrolling hay there. We cut out the cows that have not yet calves, and move the cows with calves on to the remainder of the stockpiled grass starting about mid-November. This general practice has really made calving a lot easier and I believe is very important to our goal of having cows on good stockpiled forage during the colder times. Essentially that deep winter grazing gives them a much better environment in the harsh conditions as they don't have to fight around hay feeders in a muddy lot and we don't have to work as hard taking hay to them for unrolling in bad conditions. I actually enjoy feeding cows hay, and I must say after I got used to it, it is a lot more fun in October than it is in January.</p><p></p><p>This year our approach really paid off. We had essentially no rain during September. We had fertilized early to grow stockpile, and got a few tenths of rain to melt the fertilizer but the grass had really not taken off as of October 1. If we had gone ahead and grazed it we might have gone 30 days in total, and that would have been it for the year. Once October came we got a little rain and the pastures responded some, and then during later October we got a couple of inches of rain and the pastures really took off. As of today as I am writing this we are just a few day s away from going back to grazing, and it looks like we will be in good shape to graze into the month of March! If you think you will be feeding hay at all next winter, consider pushing 30 days of your hay feeding into October.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Douglas, post: 1546689, member: 8840"] This is an old newsletter article i copied a while back. From Matt Poore extension agent at NCSU, Jim Green is/was at Va Tech Feeding hay in October? It is not unusual for my neighbors in Virgilina to slow down as they pass our place as they look and wonder what we are up to now. That happened several times all through the month of October as it was pretty obvious that we had started feeding hay even though you can see we have more grass than most farms around us. This is something that Jim Green told me about a long time ago, and about 5 years ago we decided to give it a try. His logic was "if you are going to feed hay for at least 30 days each winter, why not do it in the fall when the conditions are more conducive to the practice?" I generally argued the point because we had always stretched our grass just as far as it would go before feeding hay. Starting to feed hay before we really had to just was a very hard thing to convince myself would be a good idea. The year we started it was very dry in the late summer and fall. We really didn't have much grass, and I could see that if we grazed around one more time we would be pretty much out of grass by Thanksgiving. So, we pulled the cows into a sacrifice area and fed for the month of October. We did get some rains throughout the month, and by November the grass had really come out and we were able to graze all the way through February. That experience made me realize I should have been listening to Dr. Green all those years rather than stubbornly holding on to my traditional practices. Since that time we have fed during October and into mid-November every year. This is how it works: Our main sacrifice area is about 5 acres and is just behind our big pond and adjacent to our main working pens. We let this area come out real strong in grass during August and September, and then put the mature cows (75 head) in there about the time they start calving in early October. The cows graze the area for about a week before we need to start feeding hay. We unroll good quality hay for them, starting with a bale a day and then increasing them based on how much they will clean up as they completely graze the area down. During this time we are in the first cycle of calving (first 21 days) when we expect about 2/3 of our calves to be born. This is an advantage because we know right where the cows are, it is a fairly small area easy to check, and we are real close to the working pens if we have any problems. After about 3 weeks the area starts to become a little messy (especially if we get rain), so we move to an adjacent 5 acre pasture where they graze a week or so and then we start unrolling hay there. We cut out the cows that have not yet calves, and move the cows with calves on to the remainder of the stockpiled grass starting about mid-November. This general practice has really made calving a lot easier and I believe is very important to our goal of having cows on good stockpiled forage during the colder times. Essentially that deep winter grazing gives them a much better environment in the harsh conditions as they don't have to fight around hay feeders in a muddy lot and we don't have to work as hard taking hay to them for unrolling in bad conditions. I actually enjoy feeding cows hay, and I must say after I got used to it, it is a lot more fun in October than it is in January. This year our approach really paid off. We had essentially no rain during September. We had fertilized early to grow stockpile, and got a few tenths of rain to melt the fertilizer but the grass had really not taken off as of October 1. If we had gone ahead and grazed it we might have gone 30 days in total, and that would have been it for the year. Once October came we got a little rain and the pastures responded some, and then during later October we got a couple of inches of rain and the pastures really took off. As of today as I am writing this we are just a few day s away from going back to grazing, and it looks like we will be in good shape to graze into the month of March! If you think you will be feeding hay at all next winter, consider pushing 30 days of your hay feeding into October. [/QUOTE]
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