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Bale Grazing

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Priority Livestock

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Aug 19, 2016
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K so I need some professional expertise
The fiancé decided we're gonna try and make a living on this farm and we wanna take on a 1000 cows and calve them out
Here is a list of what we have intended to have
Set up 3000 1300 lb straw bales
1000 1800 hay bales (these are already made)
300T of pellets
What we would do is sit down with a nutrionist to formulate a pellet that would consist helping to meet the requirements
We would feed straw & pellets in mid gestation.
Than add hay to increase DMI in late gestation and calving
We would feed the bales via bale grazing and the pellets would be in the form of a quad with a trailer that would feed the pellets evenly on the ground
Now tell me how you think this would work and how ya feel anything to help out our system
 
Welcome to Ranchers.net - interesting plan. Location, cow size, and expected number of feeding days would probably help members give more accurate advice because of the differences in cow maintenance requirements based on size and environment. Having a nutritionist fine-tune your plan is always a good idea.

When he was still alive, Northern Rancher was one of the biggest proponents of bale grazing that we had. You'll find a lot of wisdom in Cory's old posts. Do a search for bale grazing posts from Northern Rancher. I'm sure there are probably other members that use bale grazing successfully, as well.

Other than that, feeding pellets to 1,000 cows off of a quad sounds to me like a recipe for disaster. Wouldn't want that job. You might want to look at all of the beat-up cake trucks around and rethink the quad.

Good luck - sounds like a busy winter in store for you two. I hope you'll stay with us through the winter and let us know how everything is going.
 
Where are you located? Testing your feedstuffs might allow you to NOT have to use pellets. By pellets, I hope you mean something of
substantial size or they will disappear in the ground, not in the cow's belly. Hopefully your nutritionist will do a cost analysis and is an INDEPENDENT nutritionist, not affiliated with a company selling feed. In many instances a bit more hay is much cheaper to feed than buying cake, plus if you are already set up to feed hay that helps too, with not buying more equipment.

Texan had some very worthwhile comments; BMR had some great questions. Water is the most important nutrient. Without enough water, cattle can't perform as you would like or as you have figured on.

Good luck! Keep us posted.
 
I gave up on pellets when the processing costs became larger than the ingredients cost.

That just don't seem to make sense.

No offense intended---but if your level of experience makes you think that you can efficiently feed 1,000 cows cake with a 4 whlr, you might want to start on a tad smaller scale.....
 
littlejoe said:
I gave up on pellets when the processing costs became larger than the ingredients cost.

That just don't seem to make sense.

No offense intended---but if your level of experience makes you think that you can efficiently feed 1,000 cows cake with a 4 whlr, you might want to start on a tad smaller scale.....
Click to expand...

I was kind of thinking along those lines. Would be interesting to know the worst case scenario weatherwise, facilities, natural and manmade windbreaks, and experience, besides something about the cows. Figuring out the nutrition thing will be the easy part.

Sometimes in a weather or mud situation, setting bales out is the best choice for a time, or when there isn't another choice. There's also a chance there's going to be some eye trouble, depending on the bales.
 
Welcome to Ranchers. I wish ya well in your endeavors. But the folks who have posted ahead of me have some very valid questions we would need to have answered to give you advice that would be worth much. It takes a lot different approaches to feed cattle, depending on climate, water, working facilities, shape of fences, vaccine and treating sick cattle, ect.ect.... I have neighbors who winter cows on the desert and those cows get nothing but mineral and water. And I know outfits who feed cows 5 months of the year. They are simply too many variables in your query for me to do more than guess. 1000 head of calvy cows owner by somebody else is a huge undertaking and I hope it works out for ya. I admire you for asking for advice. Luck to ya!
 
I have bale grazed. Works fantastic and a couple years ago drifts around buildings were 15 feet high. Bale grazing worked fine. Hard part was getting out to bales to move wires down to next setting. I just followed the cow trails. No way a tractor could have navigated the fields.
 
I have bale grazed. Works fantastic and a couple years ago drifts around buildings were 15 feet high. Bale grazing worked fine. Hard part was getting out to bales to move wires down to next setting. I just followed the cow trails. No way a tractor could have navigated the fields.
Bale grazing is my back up to winter grazing (sorghum sudan and cover crops). last year in central Minnesota I fed hay, bale grazed, for about one month, the rest of the time I winter grazed. All I know is the last year or two when I do taxes my total expenses are half of what they were for the same number of cows. This is what works well for me. If you don't like it, don't do it. farmguy.
 
There is so much to the nutrition equation. For instance, in your program, how many dries do you have? How long do your cows stay in your herd? How do you put a price on longevity? Yet it is of utmost importance. The longer a cow stays in the herd, the more money she makes her owner. Not saying bale grazing cheats cattle on nutrition,but if any program does, the first thing to go is reproduction capability.
So much to consider besides feed cost. Sometimes you need to take a look at the long-term performance of your cattle and put that into the equation and not just consider feed cost on a yearly basis.

FWIW....:-)
 
Have lost a few little calves when we've needed to set out bales during calving, even though we try to sort every day. They lay down by the bales and get stepped on, or tramped into the snow or mud. Every rose has a thorn.
 
Traveler said:
Have lost a few little calves when we've needed to set out bales during calving, even though we try to sort every day. They lay down by the bales and get stepped on, or tramped into the snow or mud. Every rose has a thorn.
Click to expand...


That's what I was wondering - calves getting stepped on by other cows laying behind a windbreak where the cows are eating. Outta pay money for fh's thoughts on longevity and nutrition - running the numbers for replacement costs on a yearly basis shows what an extra calf per cow does. I like to wean a little early to effect longevity.

I'm ignorant about bale grazing purpose or plan. It sounds like it's to save money, but I don't see much cost unrolling hay. I like to spread out hay so the wolfy cows don't get more than their share or sling their heads and knock calves (abort). Lotta wisdom having bales set up for blizzard feed, so I get that.
 
We bale graze a lot and find it a useful tool. That is how we background calves, feed replacements, winter cows, etc. Not for everyone, but for us it is a HUGE cost savings. We set all out feed out for 250+ cows and all the calves in 6 hours in the fall and move the wire in about 2 hours a week. Big savings are on time and tractor hours, as well as cleaning corrals. We used to wean calves in corrals, but now we wean onto bale grazing. We use portable windbreaks. When we "fed" the same cattle, or if we supplement grazing now, we would be looking at 2 to 4 hours a day all winter. We have seen no difference in performance on the backgrounded calves on bale grazing as compared to feeding, however our health issues have gone down in this group.
On rented or deeded land I have even quit hauling bales home, as I prefer to move cows to the bales.
We have not had issues with cows laying or stepping on calves, but we always have a large "previously" bale grazed area when we start calving and most cows will go off on their own to calve and May calves are pretty mobile for the most part. I think we have less problems that way than when we used to corral calve.
The other impact is the increase in production on our ground post bale grazing. We have taken 500 pounds per acre dry matter production up to 9000 in a single year.
We may have to change our approach, depending upon the growth of our local elk herds, but until then we will likely keep on...
 
One needs to take in the amount/timing of moisture your area gets as that will affect the amount of loss of hay due to spoilage. Y
 
RSL said:
We bale graze a lot and find it a useful tool. That is how we background calves, feed replacements, winter cows, etc. Not for everyone, but for us it is a HUGE cost savings. We set all out feed out for 250+ cows and all the calves in 6 hours in the fall and move the wire in about 2 hours a week. Big savings are on time and tractor hours, as well as cleaning corrals. We used to wean calves in corrals, but now we wean onto bale grazing. We use portable windbreaks. When we "fed" the same cattle, or if we supplement grazing now, we would be looking at 2 to 4 hours a day all winter. We have seen no difference in performance on the backgrounded calves on bale grazing as compared to feeding, however our health issues have gone down in this group.
On rented or deeded land I have even quit hauling bales home, as I prefer to move cows to the bales.
We have not had issues with cows laying or stepping on calves, but we always have a large "previously" bale grazed area when we start calving and most cows will go off on their own to calve and May calves are pretty mobile for the most part. I think we have less problems that way than when we used to corral calve.
The other impact is the increase in production on our ground post bale grazing. We have taken 500 pounds per acre dry matter production up to 9000 in a single year.
We may have to change our approach, depending upon the growth of our local elk herds, but until then we will likely keep on...
Click to expand...


Sounds quite interesting--but this part " We use portable windbreaks" How much wind will they stand? 40-50 mph is not out of the ordinary on east slope---and up to 100 mph. I like the idea of this---but sooner or later ain't they gonna blow over--or away? And seems like the more they'll stand, the bigger the wreck when they adios...?
 

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