Northern Rancher
Well-known member
Your cows must crap or pee more than mine-here's a tip feed them than stay away for three days. With me and my cows abscence makes the heart grow fonder.
Bale Grazing Revisited
- Thread starter Northern Rancher
- Start date
Northern Rancher said:
I left a few bales extra out on sat. did'nt feed on sunday there was'nt 50#s of waste where those bales sat and they were lowground meadow hay.So it seemed to work in a couple weeks It will get tried on a larger scale.
I see your bull is up on the Genex website looks good will have to try some.
Northern Rancher
Well-known member
Is he really-do you have the link lol.
Northern Rancher
Well-known member
I just got a research paper they did comparing bale grazing,bale processing and drylot feeding. The waste per day with bale grazing was 4.5% and with a bale processor was 7.7% per day. Dry matter yield was 3-4X where cows were fed over the control site. The site is www.wbdc.sk.ca.
Northern Rancher
Well-known member
I just got a research paper they did comparing bale grazing,bale processing and drylot feeding. The waste per day with bale grazing was 4.5% and with a bale processor was 7.7% per day. Dry matter yield was 3-4X where cows were fed over the control site. The site is www.wbdc.sk.ca.
I have a question on the subject.
If I was to leave the bales on the hayfiels where they drop from the baler how many bales is to many for 260 head to graze on.I have leased my uncles place and the fields would vary from 40 to 100 bales per hayfield.Would you just turn them out on the 100 bale field or split it up some??
I tried it on one field I left 30 bales of canary hay out and they really cleaned it up good.The hay I unrolled has bigger piles than where they bale grazed.The water system on this place is a tank which is either on or off I know the cows are lacking water but they are licking snow and look fine other than 3 head and who knows whats wrong with those.
If I was to leave the bales on the hayfiels where they drop from the baler how many bales is to many for 260 head to graze on.I have leased my uncles place and the fields would vary from 40 to 100 bales per hayfield.Would you just turn them out on the 100 bale field or split it up some??
I tried it on one field I left 30 bales of canary hay out and they really cleaned it up good.The hay I unrolled has bigger piles than where they bale grazed.The water system on this place is a tank which is either on or off I know the cows are lacking water but they are licking snow and look fine other than 3 head and who knows whats wrong with those.
DiamondSCattleCo said:My girls stay in the paddock, but they bed down on some of it, and once its covered in manure and urine, they won't eat it.
Just out of curiosity this year, I tried an experiment on a pen of 50 late pairs. For the first month of the year, I fed out 5 bales on the ground, spread over a small area. The girls would clean up all 5 in 2 days flat, bedding down on some of it. I then moved my hay save feeder out into the pasture, and fed 5 bales. I'm down to feeding every 3 days, and there is usually enough left in the feeder to do them at least another 1/4 day. I've switched back and forth a couple times, just to make up for weather, and my results are consistent. So that tells me that they're wasting 1 to 1.5 bales every 5 bales. I haven't recalculated how much it costs me per bale since I switched to the hard core baler, but as of 2 years ago, I was sitting at $7 per softcore bale. Just guesstimating this year, I think I'm sitting at $12 per hardcore bale. Thats $6 - $9 waste every day. I can easily run my loader on those kind of dollars, especially since I need to bed every couple days anyway.
I wish I could get away with it. It suits my lazy bone to a "T", and I agree with NR's idea of getting away with minimal equipment, however I just can't make it pencil
Rod
The only ones here that do it are the ones that have access to a lot of free hay just for the cutting and baling. Everyone else uses round feeders of some sort. If I tried it I would be out of hay a month early IMO.
Northern Rancher
Well-known member
The most I've ever put out at one spot was 10 days feed-wasn't monitoring my haytrucker close enough. I talked to one guy that does just what you are thinking Denny and he doesn't even tie his bales. He hays half his place every year then pastures it the next. You could split those bigger fields with some temporary electric fence. Just talked to a guy this A'M he's a hay seller and I guess the swath grazing guys are buying hay because their swaths snowed under bad-challenges to everything at times.
PureCountry
Well-known member
Denny the only thing you may want to consider is that with the bales being in rows closer together, you distribute leftover litter and manure evenly over the whole field. If you just leave them where they fall out of the baler, you'll have patches that are getting a great uptake of nutrients, and some without any. Just a thought, but that's my favorite part of blae-grazing as opposed to swath-grazing, is that you're not taking from the soil, you're bringing in nutrients that the cows will spread for you.
Cal
Well-known member
Our cows must not be smart enough to close their eyes when they attack a whole bale, cause sure as hell if there's any cheat grass in it, well....geuss where the sticker ends up.