What are my options with my hay?

Callieslamb

Feeding a milk cow and a calf that would run about 400 lbs, I'm guessing, you will need some pretty decent hay. If you can make a trade for some better hay you would probably be ahead.

Low quality hay is more suited for dry beef cows that don't require much more then a maintenance ration. Adding a protein source such as soy bean or cottonseed meal or similar high protein feed at 1 to 2 lbs a day will allow them to digest the hay, grass or stalks better and eat more of it. Some added protein will also help keep up preformance in late summer early fall as the grass matures.

Any chance to make silage next year? I wonder if that might work if it is another wet year, so's you wouldn't have to wait for dry weather to get it bagged.

How do you store silage? I had actually thought of this. Cut for silage the first cutting and hay the other cuttings. Can I store it from May until feeding time in the fall. What would i need to do. I see people with piles of feed covered with plastic that's held down by tires - is that silage?

If it doesn't get cut soon, there won't be a second cutting to save my check book this winter. I had thought maybe I should just burn this stuff. It's been raining for about an hour - that's actually good. We haven't had a good rain in a month. My pastures were really hurting. I had my hay people bring me a large bale today. I HATE buying hay with a field right there....full of it!

[QUOTE=Allen W;4544621]Callieslamb

Feeding a milk cow and a calf that would run about 400 lbs, I'm guessing, you will need some pretty decent hay. If you can make a trade for some better hay you would probably be ahead.........QUOTE]

The bale my hay people brought me today- it's all yellow. The cows all turned thier noses up at it. Guess there's more pasture out there than it looks like. Will soy beans affect the flavor of the milk? I can't eat soy, but if my cow can, that's great. Thanks for the info. Where did you guys learn all this stuff?

Experience?
Ya feed a few (teen) thousand cattle over the years and ya notice stuff...

__________________
~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

Experience, thinking outside the box, a willingness to learn, staying out of the coffee shop so you don't get brain rot.

This will keep you busy a while http://beefextension.com/.

Yes cattle can eat soy bean meal, the old timers always said cottonseed meal made the hair shiny soybean meal made them milk.

Here, we can buy really good hay in small or large round bales a lot cheaper than having someone cut it for us. We don't have large equipment, and really do not want any. We sold the large tractor a long time ago. And it never is as good as someone who does it for a living, and puts up really good hay. You are always last on the list, for baling too.

We mow our 12 acres of pasture with 2 riding mowers. Don't laugh! It is a blast and a very fun time for my DH and myself. We mow on highest settings to cut, and in 5th gear. Too much fun. And our pastures are beautiful thick green grass and lespedeza. We graze it all, not very many on each, plus give them fresh cut hay we buy all year. Hay is $15 to $20 for rolls here. Plus they don't eat a lot of hay 8 months of the year. And they have new fresh pasture graze all the time. Just a thought.

__________________
TheTshirtPainter
Free Christian Wallpapers
SolidRockHomestead

I really don't think cows are that picky. My Dad had beef cows and in the old barn (that his parents had baled) when he was probably a teen was buried in the hay mow. Wanting to use up the old hay once Dad got down to it, he tried using it for bedding for the cows, but they munched on it like it was prime hay.

It had to be at least 40 years old!

__________________
Michael W. Smith in North-West Pennsylvania

"Everything happens for a reason."

With only 2 animals and 4 acres of hay silage wouldn't be my first choice, it would be way down the list. You haven't much to put up so any spoilage will affect how much you have to feed greatly. You only have 2 animals so even if you can keep it all from spoiling before its needed you will have to really work to keep it from spoiling once you open up whatever storage system you are using.

If you really wanted to make silage in your situation putting it up in garbage bags would be the only option that would keep you from losing lots to spoilage.

Stacking and covering with plastic sounds good but it requires heavy equipment to pack the stuff down while stacking and you will lose some or maybe lots to spoilage.
Round bale silage might work if you can get it put up in smaller rounds.

Colder weather will slow the spoilage but it will still be there.

__________________
Deja Moo; The feeling I've heard this bull before.

Thanks Sammyd- that's kind of what I thought. It takes as much equipment for silage as for hay - of which I have none...a tractor is looking better and better though! I would have to feed silage slowly and there aren't many cattle people around to sell any extra to either. Not sure I have the skills to get it just right so it doesn't spoil.

If I could get someone in to silage it- they should be able to get in to bale it, right? The weather has been the biggest problem. We had 4 inches of rain last night. At least, after a week of saying it was 'going to rain' it actually did. They can't come and bale if it says it 'might' rain.....Hopefully, this week is the week!

actually it takes more and expensive equipment to put up silage. Choppers aren't cheap, chopper boxes are not cheap and are pretty much not usable for much else. You need big HP to run a chopper and pull a wagon.

Baling takes much dryer hay than silage so no.
Plus on 4 acres there may not be enough room for the equipment. I have a few small patches I have to bale on the ground cuz I can't get a tractor, baler, and wagon through the gate and if I could the fields is too narrow to let me go around without bending or breaking the hitch pole on the wagon.

I went through all this frustration when I first started. I had 5 acres of grassy alfalfa that I could cut and bale for free if I gave the guy some for his daughters horses. I had a tractor and mower and a buddy with a rake and a baler.
By the time it was all over I was in for rent on a big tractor and haybine, the hay had been rained on twice cuz my buddies tractor had flat tires, I flattened one rear tire on my tractor and all I got was 148 bales of grassy bedding. Sometimes it seems like it would be easier to go to the store for that gallon of milk................

__________________
Deja Moo; The feeling I've heard this bull before.

Of course it's easier! LOL!!! But my milk cow gives my kids something to worry about with their mom in her failing years..... Gotta keep them guessing!

I have a much longer winter that some folks posting here. Whew! I wish I had 8 months with them eating very little hay. (and 8 months to grow hay). I think I can expect87 long months without grass, but that brings us back to rotational grazing information. With just the ONE cow and baby and 6 tiny sheep this year, hopefully we won't go through as much of it as last year. We had to buy every bale after last year's late haying and then drought. I felt everyone of one of those as I put them out! OUCH! We had plans for something different this year. Oh well.

Are you allergic to soy? I read somewhere ( I think it was in "Keeping a Family Cow")that if you're allergic to something the cow eats it can be passed through their milk to you.

I dont' think I am 'allergic' - It just gives me a stomach ache. I just try to avoid it when possible. I will try with the cow and see what happens. But maybe I can just find good hay and not have to worry about the soy. I imagine the grain she is already getting has plenty of soy in it anyway.

If you only have a couple cows, couldn't you chop and bag it with just a lawnmower with a bagger, put it in garbage bags, squeeze it down and then stack that under plastic, with tires? I know it sounds like a ridiculous way to hay a field, but you are working on such a small scale, it could feed your cows at least and cut spoilage that you would have from a big open silo, feeding just a few head. This year sounds like a bust. I think you will be lucky to get it out of there any way at all. How big is your hay field?

It's way too tall for the lawnmower. Way to much to bag individually. 4 acres would be a LOT of bags. I'd be out there for weeks trying to get it all bagged up. We aren't planning on any hay this year now. It has been yet another week. If he comes today, there might be a chance, if not, we are just going to buy it this year. It kind of puts the providing for ourselves back a bit though. I imagine lots of folks will be having trouble finding good hay.

I know this year is probably a bust. I was thinking for next year. For your own personal use and maybe hay the rest.

Callieslamb

Can you utilize your hay field for grazing and off set some of your purchased hay expense? I understand you are trying to be self sufficient, but for the small number of animals you have it almost seems like it is more trouble then it is worth to bale hay. It might not be any more expensive to buy quality hay and gaze your hay field then to put up low quality hay and purchase supplemental feed to go with it.

I think you might need to run the numbers, but here hay runs $3.00 - $4.00 a bale and grain feed (16% stock feed) is around $10.30 per 50lbs right now. So the way I look at it, if you just need to supplement poor quality hay that you don't have to pay for (or pay much for), you are better off. I feed 4 bales a hay a day in winter, so that would be $12-16 if I had to buy hay. If I supplement, it is going to be at most 20lbs a day or $4.12 a day in grain. So the way I see it, supplemental feed is cheaper as long as you have enough filler hay....

I have learned so much from this thread! There are a lot of options out there if the weather would cooperate. I have six months of winter weather - or did last year. I fed hay from mid-Sept ( had a drought) to Late April and still had to leave a few bales out into May. There really isn't a way that I can see that I can graze the pastures to offset the hay usage with that short of a season. Hopefully, this year will be a bit different - maybe we can put off the hay until Late Oct as their full-diet. I can see that I need to consider adding more early and late-season grasses to the pastures. I don't have enough animals to graze it properly. It would quckly get to be overgrown and useless if I don't do something with it. I don't want more animals to have to overwinter if I am buying hay. It's a pickle, huh?

I would love to have my own equipment and on those days when there is a slight chance of rain- just cut a bit of it. Then if I lost it - no great loss. But something would get baled. Today is the only day all week that they can come and cut my fields. I am pretty sure they are not coming. Alas.