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Cornstalk grazing project

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Haytrucker

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Commencing November 15th and 16th I turned 240 cows in a rented circle of stalks. I started time grazing another half-circle the week before Christmas, until about New Years Day, then free choice on that 1/2 for a week. They spent until yesterday and today on another half-circle, plus where they wanted behind that. Good water, generator/submersible pumped, checked twice daily; free choice salt, a custom blended mineral until 10 days ago, and Loomix free choice. The protein consumption was scheduled at a pound per head, and varied between .75# and a pound and a quarter. Cows probably gained about 80 pounds, and I shipped home 2 empties, 5 pairs, and two extra cows. Not real sure how that happened... but the owner wants to come back next year.
Yes, that is 18,000 cow/days on 260 acres.
 
Good on ya! :D

Every year won't be like this one was, though. :cry:

I have been spending a lot of time treating old junk bales or junk hay that has already been ground.

The rubber will meet the road PDQ.
 
You are right, the mild weather helped a bunch, and the stalks seem more palatable than normal this year.
 
My story is similar. I've had my mature herd on stalks since the middle of October. So far they have been on 5 pivots of stalks and 1 pivot of alfalfa and orchard grass regrowth. Offered them tubs for the first 2 months and a couple pounds of alfalfa per day since for protein. So far it has cost me about 60 cents a day to winter that 370 head. My coming 2's and 3's have been getting fed since the middle of Dec. I haven't figured that ration cost but would guess it's close to $3 a day.
 
We are also running cows on cornstalks. Around here winter is the cheapest time of year to run cows. If the stalks don't get buried in snow it cost 25 cents a day for the stalks, and 23 cents for ADM ROUGHAGE BUSTER and salt. This year we had a bad wind in the fall and there are a lot of ears on the ground. We put Sodium Bicarbonate in the water for a few days when we go into a new circle and don't have much trouble with corn overload. We have had a real open winter and the cows look like they have been in a feedlot. It doesn't always work that way!
 
That same wind blew here also, there has been every range of the spectrum for corn down. I have never grazed stalks behind a rake and a baler before, but I am this winter. Time grazing in strips, yet. Got lucky and found that circle next to a half that was pretty clean. Our other deal behind a rake, has a grass draw between two small circles, so it should handle a load of old cows pretty well.
RBT, do you mostly water out of irrigation wells, or are there a lot of domestic wells available?
 
Was in northwest Nebraska a month ago and witnessed what to me would be called a small disaster. 3 cows in the, ahem, "pile" by the side of the road awaiting the sanitary wagon. Not a profitable day for that farmer. Too lazy or uninformed to break up the circle into smaller sections with electric fence. Costly deal and I wonder how many there were on other days. Could happen to anyone but a bit of thought put into the situation would have saved about $3600 on one day.
 
I am about to turn my cows into my last pivot next week. There is probably 30-40 bushels on the ground. I used electric fence to divide the field into four quarters so they have can only have access to part of the field for probably an hour a day then move them out and feed them hay. It's going to be a lot of work but the field should last a couple months.
 
HP; worst case I heard of was over thirty head in one deal... Some cows don't tolerate corn very well, no cows tolerate unlimited access indefinitely. I may have been over cautious with my grazing this winter so far, but my log chains are still clean. The poor 'ol 4-wheeler is starting to show some wear, however.
Big Swede; that system will work perfect, just watch the manure. It has amazed me how much corn will show before it gets off-color and too loose. The one deal I have cows on behind a rake, I step up the time a little each day from an hour and a half to two hours, after a day off. I'm stocking about 10 head an acre. I also vary maybe up to thirty minutes depending on the temperature. Then they get 3 or 4 days to clean up until we start over. I am also pretty fussy about access to good water and whatever ameneties are to be supplemented. I've decided this is like limit feeding, they might yell some but BCS is telling the story.
Anyone besides RBT using Roughage Buster mineral? I heard a neighbor say that was all he needed, no bicarb, or salt or especially protein. I haven't seen his cows, but I am curious about that scenario, and he hasn't started calving yet...
 
If it's the same Roughage Buster from Moorman's that I used it is about 70% protien. Well maybe not quite that high but it had Biuret and triueret as well as urea and maybe some Soy It's been a long time I can't be sure.
 
Now some of the fog is beginning to lift, I couldn't figure how a product designed to use coarse forage better, would help with ear corn.
 
A couple years ago I grazed 15 acres of standing corn mid october. The guy who bought my calves was a corn farmer and thought I was nuts. He figured it was 125 buschel corn and I figured I was out of grass. A couple cows got a bit tipsey but none died. It worked out pretty well and I did'nt burn any diesel.
 
You hit the nail right on the head, Denny. We are running these cows for around or less than a third of the cost to stay at home.
 
Haytrucker we have water mostly from domestic wells, but do have a couple pivots we have to break down and water out of. I hate paying the bill for the roughage buster but we have had good luck with it and I have a very accomadating feed dealer that takes good care of me. We feed the salt to regulate the intake. We shoot for about one third a pound a day. I hadn't heard that that helps with corn overload. The sodium we use runs about $16 a bag. Usually use half a bag for 4 days on 165 cows. 20 cents a head is pretty cheap insurance to me.
 
A fella down this way lost 6. Right on the highway. OUCH!

My customers who are using the Roughage Buster 35% tubs are reporting consumption right around 1/2# per head per day on stalks. At that consumption level, the RB 35% is cheaper on a per head per day basis than LOOMIX. The RB meal can be purchased in 60, 80, or 100% protein levels.

This has been a damn funny year for stalks, what with zero dryland stalks available (or so high in nitrates you wouldn't want 'em even if they were free) and so much corn on the ground from the high winds. I have bunches on stalks where the LOOMIX has been pure sweet to get them to consume their pound per day, and other bunches where they are on pure bitter to hold them to a pound to pound and a quarter per day.....and to look, the stalks look identical.

But, stalk grazing is about over, and most folks will be bringing them home to calve in the next couple of weeks. Then things will get interesting. I have spent the last couple of weeks either setting out LOOMIX troughs so the producer can treat his own hay bales, or in several instances, setting up my hose and gun and shooting LOOMIX directly on the hay as it comes out of a grinder. I've never seen so much poor quality and OLD hay in stack yards in my life. Some guys in my country will probably regret not buying corn stalk bales when they had the chance. I also don't see any choice but feeding hay and supplementing pastures all summer, if folks even take their cows to pasture. Probly gonna be plenty of cows drylotted this year, and plenty of calves weaned plenty early. :cry: Folks just figgered it was gonna snow and rain this year, so they grazed the pi$$ out of their pastures last year, and now there is more nutritional value in the WalMart parking lot than there will be in their pastures this summer.....
 
Just heard that the AGP Ethanol Plant in Hastings, NE, will close. Seems that ethanol plants all over can't make it with high priced corn and are either already closed or will close soon. Distiller's will soon be a thing of the past as a relatively cheap feed, a the remaining plants that are still running have probably already turned folks away wanting it, and, if you can find it, that pesky little thing called freight will jack the price up astronomically.

This summer will surely be a time of creativity.
 
This fall when corn is $4 there will be plenty. They're already talking most planted acres of corn ever even with an average crop that's going to be a lot of corn.
 
3 M L & C said:
This fall when corn is $4 there will be plenty. They're already talking most planted acres of corn ever even with an average crop that's going to be a lot of corn.
Click to expand...

Do you have inside information that it's going to rain?

Delivery on a new T&L pivot is now a minimum of 7 months.

Reinke can't build pivots fast enough right now. They are all going to China.
 
loomixguy said:
3 M L & C said:
This fall when corn is $4 there will be plenty. They're already talking most planted acres of corn ever even with an average crop that's going to be a lot of corn.
Click to expand...

Do you have inside information that it's going to rain?

Delivery on a new T&L pivot is now a minimum of 7 months.

Reinke can't build pivots fast enough right now. They are all going to China.
Click to expand...

With one of the worst droughts in us history we still had the 10th biggest corn crop is history. I don't see the worst drought happening two years in a row ad more acres on top of that and the price only has one way to go down. I can gaurentee you farmers are planting more drought resistant hybrids that are more consistant this year instead of planning for a home run record yields. Also your point of the sprinklers only ads to the down side. More pivots equal more yield regardless of them being in china or wherever. The only way I can see corn going any hirer and that would be temporary is if there are some planting delays.
 
I don't see it that way. Probably a good thing that I'm not a tiller of the soil.

If I had livestock to feed and irrigated land, I would be looking at planting something the cows could eat this summer, not something that will take til fall. I'd give up a corn crop to keep my cows fed.

I'm afraid this summer will be dryer than last summer.

Like I said earlier, things are going to get "creative".
 

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