with drought, has anyone ever fed sawdust?

[circlebllc]

Fed lots of green oak leaves. The chainsaw would start and the cows would come running.

 

[AdamsCreek]

Something to look into
https://youtu.be/5NSWCc-yAzQ

https://youtu.be/1LmMA9ckAqQ

 

[Allenw]

Droughts come and they go , you have to have a plan . That is management , our drought has broken , just before the trigger date . Looks like we're gonna have pasture , and enough hay IF the winter isn't too severe . We may not be out of the woods , we cut some sorry hay for filler and were glad to get it . But ,selling down , is also management , we have sold completely out and concentrated on forage production before , and actually had a bigger margin. You have to follow your heart , but you can't let it rule your mind.

I'm convinced with the weather patterns we're having you need to have 20 or 30% of your herd that can be sent to town at the first sign of drought. That could be bottom end cows marked for the purpose or stocker calves, just some plan to cut numbers when needed.

 

[TexasBred]

I read about people feeding sawdust, but it doesn't say how to break it down, also had a guy in the 50's that fed shredded news paper during the drought. Anyone done this and if so how to do it so the cattle can break it down and get the nutrients?

What nutrients??

I can't find any info on oak, that's why I am asking. If it's just roughage then the only benifit would be energy?

BK I figure they'll burn more calories trying to digest it than they'll get out of it.

 

[greybeard]

"BK I figure they'll burn more calories trying to digest it than they'll get out of it."

I guess it would at least keep em warm in the winter tho...while they starve to death.

 

[TexasBred]

I wonder how much straight commodity mix or the 14% cubes it would take a day for a bred cow to survive the winter? Both are fairly cheap if you can buy them in bulk. Do feedlots feed hay? You could feed a cow 20#'s a day of bulk feed for about $2 a day. Could she survive on this alone if she could find even a little pickin through the day? Need to recruit a beef cattle nutritionist to the board.

20% cubes are running about $8.75 a bag around here and you're getting them for $5.00?? Wow. Buying bulk might be a little bit cheaper but not a whole lot.

 

[BK9954]

I wonder how much straight commodity mix or the 14% cubes it would take a day for a bred cow to survive the winter? Both are fairly cheap if you can buy them in bulk. Do feedlots feed hay? You could feed a cow 20#'s a day of bulk feed for about $2 a day. Could she survive on this alone if she could find even a little pickin through the day? Need to recruit a beef cattle nutritionist to the board.

20% cubes are running about $8.75 a bag around here and you're getting them for $5.00?? Wow. Buying bulk might be a little bit cheaper but not a whole lot.

Our 20% cubes have gone up to $8.10 a bag and corn has gone up to $6 a bag.

 

[BK9954]

I wonder how much straight commodity mix or the 14% cubes it would take a day for a bred cow to survive the winter? Both are fairly cheap if you can buy them in bulk. Do feedlots feed hay? You could feed a cow 20#'s a day of bulk feed for about $2 a day. Could she survive on this alone if she could find even a little pickin through the day? Need to recruit a beef cattle nutritionist to the board.

20% cubes are running about $8.75 a bag around here and you're getting them for $5.00?? Wow. Buying bulk might be a little bit cheaper but not a whole lot.

Fehner and Sons in Gonzales Texas they have people to drive all the way up from the valley to buy their feed here

 

[Caustic Burno]

I wonder how much straight commodity mix or the 14% cubes it would take a day for a bred cow to survive the winter? Both are fairly cheap if you can buy them in bulk. Do feedlots feed hay? You could feed a cow 20#'s a day of bulk feed for about $2 a day. Could she survive on this alone if she could find even a little pickin through the day? Need to recruit a beef cattle nutritionist to the board.

20% cubes are running about $8.75 a bag around here and you're getting them for $5.00?? Wow. Buying bulk might be a little bit cheaper but not a whole lot.

TB could probably answer the pounds a day to satisfy nutrition needs.
You still need x number of pounds equaling 30 pounds to fill that cow up.

 

[Lucky]

I wonder how much straight commodity mix or the 14% cubes it would take a day for a bred cow to survive the winter? Both are fairly cheap if you can buy them in bulk. Do feedlots feed hay? You could feed a cow 20#'s a day of bulk feed for about $2 a day. Could she survive on this alone if she could find even a little pickin through the day? Need to recruit a beef cattle nutritionist to the board.

20% cubes are running about $8.75 a bag around here and you're getting them for $5.00?? Wow. Buying bulk might be a little bit cheaper but not a whole lot.

14% high fiber cubes were $230 a ton 2 weeks ago if buying in bulk. I'm not talking about sacks. When you buy in sacks the sack cost you $.50 - .75. Feed is quite about cheaper when you buy a truck load and you can get it from anywhere you want. Commodity mix was as low as $190 a ton depending on what mix I called on. 30 tons of cubes @ $230 = $6,900 or about $5.75 per 50 pounds. I think 20% cubes were $240 a ton. I am afraid feed cost is going to go up if corn production ends up being low this year.

 

[Lucky]

I wonder how much straight commodity mix or the 14% cubes it would take a day for a bred cow to survive the winter? Both are fairly cheap if you can buy them in bulk. Do feedlots feed hay? You could feed a cow 20#'s a day of bulk feed for about $2 a day. Could she survive on this alone if she could find even a little pickin through the day? Need to recruit a beef cattle nutritionist to the board.

20% cubes are running about $8.75 a bag around here and you're getting them for $5.00?? Wow. Buying bulk might be a little bit cheaper but not a whole lot.

TB could probably answer the pounds a day to satisfy nutrition needs.
You still need x number of pounds equaling 30 pounds to fill that cow up.

That's what I was getting at 20 pounds of feed and let them find something to eat even if you had to find old hay and limit it or even feed cornstalks. There's got to be more options than feeding just hay. I guess a feed mixer would work but who has time for that. My main concern would be bloat or getting them too loose.

 

[TexasBred]

20% cubes are running about $8.75 a bag around here and you're getting them for $5.00?? Wow. Buying bulk might be a little bit cheaper but not a whole lot.

TB could probably answer the pounds a day to satisfy nutrition needs.
You still need x number of pounds equaling 30 pounds to fill that cow up.

That's what I was getting at 20 pounds of feed and let them find something to eat even if you had to find old hay and limit it or even feed cornstalks. There's got to be more options than feeding just hay. I guess a feed mixer would work but who has time for that. My main concern would be bloat or getting them too loose.

If you're going to feed that many cubes I'd drop down to a 12% or 14%, whatever I could find. Knew a man who sold thousands of rolls of hay because it got high then fed his own cows 20% cubes all winter. Said his calves looked awesome becuase the cows were giving more milk but his cows looked hike crap. The did survive though.

 

[Lucky]

TB could probably answer the pounds a day to satisfy nutrition needs.
You still need x number of pounds equaling 30 pounds to fill that cow up.

That's what I was getting at 20 pounds of feed and let them find something to eat even if you had to find old hay and limit it or even feed cornstalks. There's got to be more options than feeding just hay. I guess a feed mixer would work but who has time for that. My main concern would be bloat or getting them too loose.

If you're going to feed that many cubes I'd drop down to a 12% or 14%, whatever I could find. Knew a man who sold thousands of rolls of hay because it got high then fed his own cows 20% cubes all winter. Said his calves looked awesome becuase the cows were giving more milk but his cows looked hike crap. The did survive though.

I agree that's why I priced the 14% high fiber cubes. I was about to start feeding 8#'s every other day but luckily we got a few good rains and the grass came back. My supplier also came through with some really good hay this year so I think I'm safe there.
It's just that everyone gets so hung up on feeding hay and lots of it. There's got to be some more options besides hay. Hay is easy though, everything else requires allot of time and effort. Time is the killer during feeding season for most. I'm definitely not a nutritionist maybe a short course is in order.

 

[Allenw]

http://www.beefextension.com/pages/ccnutr.html Go down to Limit Feeding Concentrates to Beef cows, sixth one down, and open the pdf.