Hay feeding. Another thing to add to the list that I didn't know
 

I just got around to feeding hay in earnest last week. I still have grass stockpiled in another part of the ranch, but winter water is tricky there so I am going to sit back and enjoy a few weeks of hay feeding up here by the house.

In years past, I usually rolled hay out on schedule of 1 to 1/2 bales a day. I am pretty sure that is all they need. This week I thought I would get "wise" and save some expensive tractor time by rolling out 3 days worth at once. Anyone care to wager how long that lasted? They are worse than dogs.

I would really like to figure this small aspect of winter feeding out. I would unroll the hay in separate paddocks, but I don't like driving the tractor all over unless it is tundra, and it has not been (much). Hmmm. Maybe if I put 9 days worth out, they will get sick of eating it after 2 and slow down...nahhh.

I used to think our horses wasted a lot of hay-until we got cows. The cows seem to delight in pulling huge wads of hay out of the round bale feeder and smashing it into the ground to lie on. We've resorted to using a fenceline feeder and hand peeling bales, an old gate keeps them from flipping it out of their reach but the hay's far enough away they have to stand with their heads in the openings to eat so they don't drag any out. It's ok for our little herd, can't imagine having to do it that way if there were enough cows to eat a bale a day!

I roll out a weeks worth of hay in straight rows, and then put up a series of break wires and step in posts between rows, or even poly t posts and create mini breaks. Will put out a weeks worth, or two if I don't think I'm going to get ice or rain. Don't tell me the ground is to froze. A cordless drill, a long auger bit(so you don't have to get on hands and knees or bend way over, a worthwhile expenditure) a smidge smaller than step in post diameter and rubber mallet and you are in business. Can work an hour or two on one day a week, and 10 minutes rolling up breaks every day, or every other day the rest of the week.

I only try and offer about 3 1/2% of my cow herds weight in good hay a day(stored inside dry hay or wrapped balage, on a dry matter basis). If you store hay outside you have to be honest with your cows about the amount that isn't good anymore, and feed total hay to meet feed required + pounds on the bottom and outside that aren't good anymore=total weight delivered.

Congrats on feeding stockpile so long!!!!! I try to feed less than 30 days of hay unless I'm in a way up North heavy snow belt, then I may get stuck with 60-75 days of feeding in a bad year.


Two alternatives to hay that may not apply to you, but may to others reading this:

The only good thing about living in the north is snow on the ground and cattle that know how to eat snow which are worth their weight in gold, or at least a lot of diesel fuel, electricity, or LP. I don't give water to dry cows or heavy stockers or dry ewes if there is 2-3" of good snow available, either total, or that much underneath the light crust. Can't use it if covered in hard deep crust or thick ice.

And I can walk cows and sheep and goats to water and back from dry stockpile to a large water point(creek, pond, big round tank, etc)with a good dog or two in less time than I can generally get a tractor and hay moved ! Did I mention I really don't like to feed hay............I'd probably walk cows even if it took longer than the tractor. Pigs are so fat and slow, well, I'd probably have the pigs on permanent water.............

Rolling it out is pretty wasteful in general. I've got two round bale feeders that I alternate putting a new bale in. Really I've been impressed with how little they waste. If it's going to be real cold I'll leave a bale outside the ring so they can eat part and bed in part.

Hey Farmer David glad you are here!

It depends on the situation. If you only allocate a days worth at a time, there is very little waste. And if you need to add fertility to the area, what ever isn't eaten is evenly distributed across the area along with the seed and manure.

Hay rings are nice if well managed, moved each time bales are set out, residue is raked or drug out, etc but they are often mud holes with a ring of poop around them. But you still would have to own a lot of rings, and break wire the feeding areas apart if you wanted to put out 2 weeks of feed for a moderate to large group at once and not have a heck of a mess.

If need be for smaller groups, I've planted my step-ins right in the middle of the windrow of the bale, and made the cattle eat 60-70% on their side of the break wire, 30-40% by reaching under the break wire.

Volume of feed available/ volume of intake day dictates the waste as much as anything in my experience.

I've recently built a trailer that I can put two round bales on and then drag into the pasture on a poor spot of ground. I leave it until they clean it all up with next to no waste. Then, I pull it out for two new bales. I jump this trailer from poor spot to poor spot and am seeing those poor spots grow grass now. A cup of seed is hand thrown into the cow tracks works wonders!

Have you guys ever read some of the threads on Cattletoday? Folks there get down right religious about the topic of rolling vs hay rings. Net wrap vs. string. I'd rather not participate. Hay waste is a myth--unless you rake it all up and toss it in the ditch at the side of a road.

@dog, I think I will take another crack at the multi-day thing using step-ins. I borrowed a device once that was a ground pounder for quickly making pilot holes for step-ins. I may try to recreate it as a summer project.

If you do it and bump into problems, let me know if I can help. Just PM me and I'll give you an email and number and can help get you on the path to less work and more productivity if you need it.

I usually check out CT a few times a week, not a member just reading, I consider myself to much of a noob to offer any real knowledge.

When I worked away from home it required me to fill enough rings to last at least a week. There was considerable waste. Especially in wet weather.
I'm fortunate now to feed just a little over what they will consume each day.
If you can do that with decent hay they waste very little. I also like to move the rings each time. I've rolled more out this year due to drier conditions and frozen ground. Again, with good hay they clean up pretty decent. When I roll a bale out there is usually a half a ring somewhere they can fall back to that day.
The system of the poly wire restrictions sounds like a good idea. It would certainly save starting that tractor every day. Just me, but I hate to start them in real cold weather. You all are right, the woods are full of experts on CT. Most of them are pretty quick to tell you also.

Water is profitable feed, don't scrimp water.
Cattle will lay on hay and crap on hay. If that isn't wasted hay, then they must be so hungry that they'll eat the soiled hay. If you are the Donner Party, stuck in the Rocky Mountains for the winter, let them eat snow and feed on soiled hay. But if you have a cow that you are milking, a cow growing next spring's calf or a steer that you expect to grow, provide them the hay they are built to digest. If they get fat, scrimp on the grain. But always provide free choice mineral salt.

Cranbrook,

The post by awnry abe about not wasted, means that even if it isn't consumed by the livestock, it is trampled into the soil to add fertility and carbon. A different target for the same nutrients.

Not everybody is rolling out high TDN dairy quality alfalfa for hay. Lots of inexpensive mature grass/clover and other hays out there that can have more than one purpose. So even if a percentage is defecated, urinated, and trampled on it can still be very beneficial. Especially if winter supplemental hay feeding is done in lower fertility or organic matter areas of the operation. The biggest reason many of us low inputers buy other peoples fertility and carbon in the form hay. Double gain, input through the stock and to the soil!

If I only have two acre/inches in water available in the form of good snow that is 54,300 gallons of water per acre of paddock. I agree on not scrimping on water. Second most important nutrient right after oxygen. All stock can water at my water point simultaneously....how many 2 or 4 hole insulated drinkers to do the same thing with 300 head of dry cows or 2,000 or 3,000 brood ewes? Food for thought...........

In some places it takes bushes upon bushels of fluffy snow to make a single gallon of water. Warmer climates, snow is more compact, but the calories needed to melt all the snow a cow would have to eat is more than you might imagine. Cattle won't eat enough snow and dehydration is serious. When you figure 2 inches of rain, remember that is about 2 feet of snow. Indiana's 2 feet of snow cover is uncommon or at least short lived.
I completely missed that arnry Abe was talking about flat land composting. But even cheap common grass hay is more valuable going through the cattle than just laying on it.

Cranbrook,

I have managed stock in WV, VA, MO, IN, MI, KY, and the Dakotas.

Consulted and carried out livestock management, sales and service activities in many more, plus have direct contact with owner and manager clients in 4 different countries and 3 different continents. If dry cows died from dehydration from eating snow a good portion of the northern great plains and inter-mountain west cow herd in the States and Canada would not exist. Most of the sheep, goats and yaks in Mongolia would die. There is virtually no open water on much of the high steppes for months.

This is an exchange for information and different ideas. If they don't apply to your situation, let them go by.

You'll find 2" of good quality settled snow will crank out a lot more water volume than the fall from the sky snow fall to rain equivalents tossed about. I have 12-18" of the stuff outside right now. Way more in the drifts.

A pointed analogy: You telling me snowfall can't be used for a water source is kind of like a virgin telling an experienced man that sex isn't any fun.

http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/...cts/09-065.pdf

from above cited work

CONCLUSION
Without any apparent stress, dry pregnant ewes and
beef cows can use clean snow as their sole source of
water. This watering alternative may be used for an
extended period of time or when there is a disruption
of the normal winter water supply. Clean snow is a
safe and economical option as a source of water for
Ontario sheep flocks and beef cow herds

I did not realize that about the snow. That could open up an option or two.

Abe,

Managing snow is like managing grass. Gotta judge volume and quality, and appropriately assess intakes of your stock. Cows that know how to do it already can teach other cattle quickly. Cows that don't know may need a mix of open water and snow alternately, until they catch on. The sheep I've managed always catch on quicker.

It is actually better for a cow in cold weather to melt snow in its mouth slowly for moister than for them to drink a gallon of water from a water tank at one time, snow slowly or a big slug of water in their gut at one time (shock)!

question for you guys on the matted down hay that didn't get eaten-in the spring what do you guys do, if anything, to spread it out if you have heavy mats of hay left? Do you hit it with a disk or harrow to smooth it out before the grass starts back in the spring?

Mid-MO.

I try to use the pallet forks on the loader tractor to move it to the compost pile. It doesn't work too well. The loader and hood block my view, and I drive across the field with a handful of hay, and mash the rest into mud. Piles that get left take about a year to break down. I think forks with more, smaller points would work better. That, or take the trailer and a few hay forks and do it by hand.

First off, try and manage break wires, animal units and time to minimize heavy mats. Sometimes you do just get gooey, rotten sticky bale bottoms laying around though.

If I am on poor, sandy or low organic clay soils, I tend to let them lay and let subsequent heavy rotational grazing continue to break down and tromp in residue. Often,as far as disking or dragging, it gets real easy to damage more good sod with tire tracks, etc, and you end up with an equivalent surface area covered in matted chunks, just in a more eye appealing scattered out mess. Ultimately spending fuel and labor to get no more net turn of new growth..........I try to get folks to think about profit per unit......Hard to stand for the bush hog, worry about the neighbor types to accept.

If you use a sacrifice type hay feeding area in the winter and had a large quantity of low quality hay or stalk bales that leave a high percentage of the ground covered more than 8" thick, I will buy cheap cull sows that are fit and healthy, fence break them, and then dump shelled corn and protein pellets on the matted hay and let them graze and turn it over for a few weeks to two months. I will usually dump 4 pounds of shelled corn and 1 pound of decent quality protein or roasted soybean, or 5 pounds of bin run oats and 1/4 pound of roasted beans or bean meal per sow a day. Can dump it out every other day or every 3 days with no real problems once they are settled and learn to root for extra nutrients on their own. Then I sell high margin bratwurst, italian, or sweet maple links to folks I know, fill my own freezers, or worst case sell the 3 or 4 boogers at the sale barn for what I bought them for. The rooting, urinating, defecating, etc innoculates and aerates the residue much better than anything I can do mechanically. I usually broadcast some rape, radish, clover, beet, milo and sunflower seeds on this kind of beat up stuff prior to pig release.

Get a couple old feed bin rings or similar and make solid bale rings. Set the bales in the pasture and rings them roll them out by hand when you need them or push roll them with a ranger or 4 wheeler