rainie said:
NR I was always meaning to try that Pioneer bull and totally forgot about him until now. I've got a, I think it's a Woodhill Valor cow, from ABS. Should have used that bull a lot more. She's 14 now, always fat, and raises a big calf every year. I'm pretty sure his milk EPD is in the single digits. Instead of epd's for quantity of milk, there should be epd's for quality of milk.Her milk must be pure cream ; because her calves are always good and she has a little wee bag. I've got 4 Pinebank Waigroup bull calves,still sucking on their mom's, out bale grazing. With the amount of jiggle in them, you'd think they were getting 10-12 lbs. of barley per day. Pretty happy with them, and hopefully their daughters will turn out to be like the Pioneer and Valor type cattle. Just got to get a little Galloway blood flowing now for our next minus 40 cold snap lol.
Not to burst anyone's bubble what is so special about bale grazeing???
You guy's talk like it's a science it's no different than keeping the cattle on full hay in bale rings.I've done it some and it saves alot of time but it's all they can eat buffet.I've got 25 fall pairs running with the dry cows and they are all eating sept and oct. made swamp hay with a protein supplement.
If your cows are eating all you can eat 15% protein hay there is no reason they can't stay in good condition.And raise a calf.I would bet our weather here would rival your's up north our climate is cold and damp most all winter.We get no chinook's like they do farther west
I have a neighbor here who has 40 fall calver's and he feed's all you can eat top quality hay and those cow's are fat as tick's and the calves are big.Last year they weighed near 700#s by may.Not much profit though if he figured that he's feeding $150 a ton dairy hay to them for 6 month's.
If you want to impress me with funtional cattle (Limit Feed Them) that will sort the easy and hard keeper's.
We have no grazeing at all this time of year I am feeding 5 1/2 bales a day and 4#s of distillars grain per head thats to 260 cows they are getting 25#s of hay each and it test 6% protein and 47 rfv it's what most here call mulch hay.
When I first got into cows I did'nt have a tractor.I bought all my hay and would drive around the pasture and push bales off the trailer guess thats bale grazeing.Back then I would buy all swamp hay and feed it clear till grass no upland hay of any type.And no protein or energy source.Those were the mothers of the herd I have now. I have 7 cows that are 14 to 17 years of age and they were here then and they are still running out with the herd. They actually look better than alot of the younger female's each has alot of daughter's and grand daughters in the herd.