stopping cattle from wasting hay

[farmerboy777]

Does anyone use a round bale chopper or a tmr/chopper? When we feed round bales out of the greenchop wagon (to our beef cows in the winter months) it seems to me that they pull a lot of hay out on to the ground. Which in return is wasted. We do feed a little corn silage and would like to mix chopped hay and the corn silage together and put it in a drive through feeding line. Think this may work or would it just cost to much? How do you stop the wasting of hay? Thanks and God bless.

 

[dun]

Choppingto a shorter length is about the only way I've seen.

dun

 

[preston39]

Does anyone use a round bale chopper or a tmr/chopper? When we feed round bales out of the greenchop wagon (to our beef cows in the winter months) it seems to me that they pull a lot of hay out on to the ground. Which in return is wasted. We do feed a little corn silage and would like to mix chopped hay and the corn silage together and put it in a drive through feeding line. Think this may work or would it just cost to much? How do you stop the wasting of hay? Thanks and God bless.

==========
Farmer,

Dun is right I think. One further thought. To stop waste we have experimented with a slanted back drop board so when they get a mouth full and raise their head the excess hits the back drop and goes back into the trough.Also it helps with control of loss when we are putting feed into the trough from the Gehl auger from the holding tank with drive by arrangement. We grind alfalfa as part of our feed mix.

Also, we find the... cone designed..... round hay feeders reduces waste when you feed the whole round bale.

Grinding the round bales would be the best IMO if the troughs are set up correct. Never could convince myself that the cost of the round bale grinder was worth it...and it is a good deal of work when done correctly. Some grind and drop directly onto the ground..which I think is a greater waste than the amount they pull out and drop.

 

[farmerboy777]

I have also been looking at mixing weat straw with the hay and corn silage since I purchase all of my hay and my brother has 40 acres of weat. I don't have the time anymore to raise hay for we like to stick with corn and beans and hay is easy to find. Am I going of the deepend here or not yet? I would have everything tested to make a good ration.

 

[Texas PaPaw]

A friend unrolls his round bales in the pasture. He says the cows swoop in like a giant vacum cleaner and gobble it up with little waste. It also gives better manure distribution than feeding in rings or wagon.

Regards

Brock

 

[dph]

I wish I could help you about mixing silage with ground hay. Our neighbors on each side of us feed ground hay almost exclusively. I think they are both good cattle people. But I guess we balk at spending the $14/ton it is running here to grind it.

I have heard people say the cows will waste a third of the bale, but I just don't believe we suffer from that. I don't see a third of they hay on the ground when we come up with the next bales for the rings. If we get in a muddy situation in spring or late fall, then maybe. But even if they wasted a third, an 1800 pound bale will run you $35-40 here. so let's say it was figuring out to $44/ton, one third would be $14.67. I don't see how they are gaining anything.

That being said, they both have 3 times as many cows as we do, and need 3 times as much hay. They can't be as choosy as we can about when we mow and bale. If it allows them to mix the poorer hay in with the better, they could very well figure it is worthwhile. A lot of guys will mix cornstalk bales in there to "stretch" their hay.

 

[msscamp]

I wish I could help you about mixing silage with ground hay.

Sure you can mix silage with ground hay - we do it anytime we can get the silage. The cows love it!

 

[Stocker Steve]

When we feed round bales out of the greenchop wagon (to our beef cows in the winter months) it seems to me that they pull a lot of hay out on to the ground. How do you stop the wasting of hay? Thanks and God bless.

I have the same issue. The research data indicates that a straight feeder - like yours - wastes the most hay. My understanding is that the side by side postition of the cattle causes them to pull out more often and thus drop hay more hay than if they were using a round feeder.

Do you have any other style of feeders?

 

[Susie David]

We've found that the type of hay has alot to do with how much is wasted. The fine stemed alfalfa grass gets 98% consumed the courser the stem the more gets strung out. Considering a hay chopper or building one for the small bales.
Dmc

 

[Stocker Steve]

We've found that the type of hay has alot to do with how much is wasted. The fine stemed alfalfa grass gets 98% consumed the courser the stem the more gets strung out. Considering a hay chopper or building one for the small bales.
Dmc

I know that they clean up alfalfa well. I always assumed it just tasted better, but you are right about the "stringing."

 

[fojokin]

Does anyone use a round bale chopper or a tmr/chopper? When we feed round bales out of the greenchop wagon (to our beef cows in the winter months) it seems to me that they pull a lot of hay out on to the ground. Which in return is wasted. We do feed a little corn silage and would like to mix chopped hay and the corn silage together and put it in a drive through feeding line. Think this may work or would it just cost to much? How do you stop the wasting of hay? Thanks and God bless.

==========
Farmer,

Dun is right I think. One further thought. To stop waste we have experimented with a slanted back drop board so when they get a mouth full and raise their head the excess hits the back drop and goes back into the trough.Also it helps with control of loss when we are putting feed into the trough from the Gehl auger from the holding tank with drive by arrangement. We grind alfalfa as part of our feed mix.

Also, we find the... cone designed..... round hay feeders reduces waste when you feed the whole round bale.

Grinding the round bales would be the best IMO if the troughs are set up correct. Never could convince myself that the cost of the round bale grinder was worth it...and it is a good deal of work when done correctly. Some grind and drop directly onto the ground..which I think is a greater waste than the amount they pull out and drop.

Thats one of the best ideas we use w/ the longhorns, they bail rings as we some times call em'. But our bulls and hows started to mess up the plastic ones so we built our own suare feeder instead out of boards, it fits right about the bail and usually does a decent job of keeping the hay inside the square (so as to be not trampled on, ect)

 

[R Lance]

I get very little waste when i feed in pasture also it spreads mthe manure automaticlly

 

[Highland Girl]

We use a round feeder. I put a round bale in the middle and then pack small square bales of straw around it. They have to work a lot harder to get the hay and I find they can't pull out big lots to fall on the ground. We hardly get any waste. Also it is helping our highlands trim down as they came to us fat fat fat!!!

 

[Bez!]

Well, we ran the pencil over the hay vs bedding issue.

If we do not use any bedding, the wasted hay is a non issue.

So we just let them pull some out on the snow. They sleep on it.

My bedding bill is zero.

Bez!

 

[farmerboy777]

Thanks for all of the advise. The one thing to making money is to keep a low overhead. [/b]

 

[kenojoe]

We feed square bales in our hay ring and have fair amount of waste. Do the hay rings that are enclosed on the bottom half save much hay? I have watched the hay blow out about as fast as I could dump it in on some of those real windy days.

 

[dun]

We feed square bales in our hay ring and have fair amount of waste. Do the hay rings that are enclosed on the bottom half save much hay? I have watched the hay blow out about as fast as I could dump it in on some of those real windy days.

The enclosed bottoms save a good bit of hay, until it rains very much. Then it just turns to nastiness.

dun

 

[Bullbuyer]

I agree with dun - they can help a little. One thing I've noticed is that those with the haysavers are a little lighter built.

 

[aplusmnt]

We feed square bales in our hay ring and have fair amount of waste. Do the hay rings that are enclosed on the bottom half save much hay? I have watched the hay blow out about as fast as I could dump it in on some of those real windy days.

The enclosed bottoms save a good bit of hay, until it rains very much. Then it just turns to nastiness.

dun

We have a couple that have sheet metal around them, half of it has came off I been thinking about welding some wire around the bottom, saw some at TS that had some small squared wire welded around the bottom. Might save some hay and let the water out.

 

[Bez!]

Bottom line is - cattle will waste feed. Nothing you can do about it. Big amount or small amount - all the same.

They pull it out, crap on it, step on it and then start over again.

Bez!