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bale grazing pics

per said:
Not my concern whether any of you believe or don't believe, Guest. We are in the fifth day of a Chinook and the snow is disappearing faster than it came. Just imaging in your mind a decent stand cut with a 25 foot swather. It is already 1 and a half feet high. Lots of volume that once the cattle start down a row it is not difficult for them to proceed. I take what I see and hear here and try to use what I can and discard the rest. I would suggest if this model doesn't fit your paradigm you do the same. Next time there is that much snow and I am swath grazing I will most definitely take a photo. Until then feel free not to believe a word of it.
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Oh I believe you as it hit here about 11AM-- wind came up- now blowing 30 gusting to 40 out of the WNW-- temp went from about 14 to 40 in a few minutes....
Only problem here is this is only suppose to tease us- as an arctic front is predicted to follow behind it putting temps below 0 for tonight and tomorrow...
But they still say a big warmup coming for the weekend :D

Just a day or two of what we have now- and with the way our snow is drifted, we'd have a lot of bare spots and grass exposed- and the cows could go back to grazing and I could cut back to 15-20 lbs of hay a day.. :D
 
per said:
Not my concern whether any of you believe or don't believe, Guest. We are in the fifth day of a Chinook and the snow is disappearing faster than it came. Just imaging in your mind a decent stand cut with a 25 foot swather. It is already 1 and a half feet high. Lots of volume that once the cattle start down a row it is not difficult for them to proceed. I take what I see and hear here and try to use what I can and discard the rest. I would suggest if this model doesn't fit your paradigm you do the same. Next time there is that much snow and I am swath grazing I will most definitely take a photo. Until then feel free not to believe a word of it.
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I did something simular one time I had a corn field that some cows got into and they really hammered it.I mowed it with my double 9 mower raked it into large windrows with a dumprake and tried to bale it that did'nt work.After it snowed I let the cows in there they would get on a windrow and clean it up as they rustled thru the snow which had drifted at each windrow.Hungry cows are pretty smart.
 
Grassfarmer said:
1) I guess we're under very different conditions Rod, we can go from two foot snow cover to dry inside a week in the spring. We are on a pretty sandy black loam here with a few pockets that are pure sand.

2) I'm with NR on the quack grass - "timothy" and "pasture" aren't two
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1) Egads, I wish. I've had water laying until September some years. <chuckle> The first hard frost would freeze dry it.

I've got a nice spring pasture (mostly sand) that I like to put cattle on when its wet, unfortunately, its surrounded by lower wet ground that you can't get through with anything, including a quad some years. I boot the cattle out there when there is still frost in the ground, and they've got a steady supply of ground water to drink. When I see cows making it back into the pen, I know its dry enough to go get the rest of 'em lol.

2) I wish I'd never seeded timothy. Rotten crap. But I've never had a whole bunch of success with quack either. I've got pockets of it here and there. Thick as hair on a dogs back, but it only grows 4 inches tall most years and I can't get a second grazing. I bale grazed the pockets this winter, so we'll see what comes this year. But my meadow brome pastures give me three grazings, right down to the ground and it springs right back up. Abusive? Yep. But it keeps trucking. One 30 acre pasture keeps 55 pairs going for 3 months.

Rod
 
You people talk about bale grazing like it is something new. My dad wintered cows on little round bales back in the 50's and 60's. We made thousands of them, the hay was native grass and was very little spoilage.The cows did not waste any either. Worked really well in a snow storm also. Only thing those AC round balers would drive nuts :!:
 
What makes this site enjoyable for me is seeing how different folks do the same chores i do, but do them their OWN way. To me that difference isnt wrong, it's just somebody following their own traditions or how they've learned what works for them. Haul cattle or drive em'. Feed em' in feeders, windrows, mangers, bale graze or don't feed em'. Horses or atv's. Fly in planes or spot with binoculars. Irrigate or water from heaven. Guess my point is that our differences make life interesting and i'd rather enjoy life than spend time arguing who's wrong. :D Now if Gcreek and Soap would just quit pickin' on me life would be grand! :wink:
 
Looks like somebody's runnin' fer sherriff. :D

I agree with you H, just because someone is doing something different doesn't mean it's wrong. Who knows? Some of these methods may even work for you or me. :wink:
 
roger dodger said:
You people talk about bale grazing like it is something new. My dad wintered cows on little round bales back in the 50's and 60's. We made thousands of them, the hay was native grass and was very little spoilage.The cows did not waste any either. Worked really well in a snow storm also. Only thing those AC round balers would drive nuts :!:
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There was a lot of that in this country in those days also. The small round bales worked better than small square bales because they shed water better. One thing about that system, the bales were spread out so that the cattle didn't all congregate in a limited area.

One November morning back in the '50's, a couple kids down in the hills started out riding a horse double to get to their country school about four miles away. Shortly after they left for school, a blizzard came up. The boys couldn't agree on whether to continue on to school or go back home. All they were wearing for outer apparel was Levi denim jackets. I think it was the youngest boy who decided he wanted to go back home. He got off the horse and started walking back while the oldest boy continued riding the horse until he arrived at the school house. When the teacher realized there was a missing child, she called to see if the boy had arrived back home. He hadn't, and the weather had deteriorated into a white-out blizzard. The neighbors all gathered to form a search party. One thing that complicated the search was the fact that the boy had to walk through a meadow with thousands of these small round bales. Each bale with a snow drift attached looked like a boy laid out flat. A good friend of mine was the one who found the young lad, but it was too late. The boy had already frozen to death.

Those Allis Chalmers small round balers were quite dangerous to operate. A hired man who worked for a neighboring ranch caught his arm in a baler. He was trapped with no help around. He did cut off his arm with his jackknife. My neighbor can still point out the exact fence post where the detached arm was buried.
 
Jeez Soap I was enjoying a good feeding discussion til you came along! :shock: Just kidding. :D

Those were a couple interesting stories though.
 
There's one of those little Allis balers parked in the bush at the neighbors. Those first vermeer's with the closed throats took off some arms in our country too-the ones that hadn't burnt up from getting a root caught in the rollers. The NH chain balers reigned supreme up north until a more open throat belt baler was designed. Alot of outfits along the rivers went straight from loose hay to round balers-skipped the whole square bale era,
 
There's been some great research done at the U of S on feeding systems and what they add to soil nutrient content. They tested some bale grazed areas, where the bales were 40' apart, areas where they shredded feed in windrows, spread composted manure, and spread raw manure/bedding. They found that the spread manure - of either source - added less than 1% of its available nitrogen to the soil in organic form - meaning readily available for plant use. The areas where feed was shredded or bale grazed, there was a substantial increase. They said in those areas it was the equivalent of 70lbs of nitrogen added.

In our experience, we've been bale grazing for 7 years now, and if we roll out bales, there's nothing left. Pairs will clean everything right up. You're hard pressed to find any alfalfa leaves in the snow. Where we just drop the bales and leave them, there's litter left behind, estimated at 10%. Now this is all dependent on management. If you give the cows 3 weeks worth of feed, you'll see more waste. We've come to the conclusion that 4 days worth is best for 200 cows, 1 week is the max. Anymore than that, and you have to make them get hungry enough to paw through those packs to clean it up better - if so desired.

As for Grassfarmer's comments on creating litter with hoof action - I couldn't agree more. But, as others stated, every situation is unique. We've been bale grazing to build organic matter in very sandy land. We are getting to a point now where we are able to stockpile grass for winter grazing and extend our season. I hope to see the day where we graze 365 days/year, and only buy feed as an emergeny reserve.

And hoof action/grazing mangement is all a state of mind. Rod made a comment about "having" to keep breeding groups segragated - a state of mind of your own creation my friend. We're running 200 purebred cows in 2 breeding groups this year - 50 reds with 2 bulls, and 150 blacks with 8 bulls. For us it has become far more important to focus on 2 things: Fertility/Conception rates, and Optimal Pasture Utilization. By grazing things as one herd, you have the ability to do what Grassfarmer suggested and "mob graze". It may be 2 acre strips, 40 acre paddocks, or 400 acre blocks. We do all of them. It's not feasible to split everything up, but with one herd, you intensify the hoof action as best you can, and using our Holistic Grazing Plan ensures we leave litter behind - trampled and soiled to feed the soil critters - and cover the bare ground to conserve moisture.

Just my thoughts,
PC.
 
If you are sticking with the purebred business that must get pretty expensive PC - are you going to DNA test all your calves at $50 a time to prove parentage? We run separate breeding groups from July 10th to Sept. 1st and keep them mobbed up as much as possible the rest of the year. We can still graze intensively with some of these breeding groups by making our pastures smaller on our tame pastures but we also graze riparian pastures both at home and on rented land at that time of year so these groups get to spread out a bit more. We can add yearling steers to some groups to make the numbers larger.
I'm envious of Rod though - that must be God's country up there if he can get 165 AUDs/acre off meadow brome with no management. Kind of makes me wonder why we manage ours intensively.
 
No worries, it's $40/crack, and we have to DNA every bull calf we register anyway. The only extra expense in this system, is doing our replacement heifers. And I'll pay that price for the ease of our grazing system. Trust me, with the way our pastures are set up, it makes a world of difference having things in one group.

Over and above that, I have this twisted belief that it will aid in advancing our genetics. Call it a trial if you will.
 
"Over and above that, I have this twisted belief that it will aid in advancing our genetics." How does that work? do ya reckon they can make better mating decisions without you assistance, lol! Can they be trusted not to impregnate their daughters? A trial indeed.
 
It's forum topics like this that keep me coming back to my screen.Thank you everyone for a lot of very good information.And although he didn't have anything worthwile to contribute you even managed to smoke gcreekrch out.
 

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