Eliminating costs is always better than reducing costs

[rainie]

We usually get 3 to 4 feet of snow in my area. We've grazed corn for 7 years and have dabbled with swath grazing to a small extent. Grazing corn was a cheap source of feed. We quit using fertilzer after the 4th year because the cows had put enough back into the land that it wasn't necessary. The only problem with grazing corn was that all the nutrients from the cows was going back onto the same piece of land every year, which wasn't doing anything for improving the grass on our other paddocks. We turned the corn land back into hay and started bale grazing our land that is the farthest from home and on the poorest grass producing areas.Where we bale grazed is now our best producing grass areas. We can usually graze green quality grass well into December depending on the amount of snow.This froze green grass is like candy to the cows and they won't even look at a hay bale if this grass is available.I'm sure we can knock off close to two months of feeding, by producing this stockpiled green grass from bale grazing.It's just going to take time.I'm continually amazed at how much snow the cows will go through if they know there is green grass underneath. They won't touch the hay until after they have the green grass under the snow. I'm also not as hung up on alfalfa as I used to be because it is a high maintenance crop and has to be treated right or your stands get thinner every year. I'd rather spend my time, or the cow's time, increasing the soil fertility,which improves the quality of grass stands.

 

[joaker]

I'm always amazed at how guys around here love to make hay and haul manure. Got one neighbor that is convinced his cows won't eat corn stalks. He makes hay all summer and hauls it back to the farm and is all ready feeding. His corn stalks are just on the other side of his feeding yard. For some strange reason my 15 cows do just fine on corn stalks and a lick tub and will until well into november or possibly into december.

 

[PureCountry]

Also.... What about waste vs cost of harvesting some of this? If I feed a cow 25 pounds of hay, it is what she will eat... If I leave it stockpiled, she will eat a lot more than that...

PPRM

My best answer would be that with planned grazing, you take as much as you need to, or leave as much as you want to. It depends on your goals for your grazing. On years where you have plentiful forage, you could let the cows only graze 25-30% of the stand, leaving the rest for litter to improve your soils, IF THAT PADDOCK NEEDS IT. If not, graze more. Or if it's a year where you need to take more for financial reasons and such, so be it. I've done both many times, depending on the year and conditions. But NEVER, EVER consider it waste. It is going into your soils as fertilizer, and a better fertilizer you cannot purchase anywhere.

As for harvesting, you have to remember that every time you harvest your haylands with equipment, you are taking all of the nutrients OFF that land. Denny mentioned his cows eating the bales right where they fell out of the baler, but in that scenario, the only nutrients going into the soil are manure and urea. The leftover hay they don't eat is not extra nutrients as it came from the soil beneath it. That is a totally different scenario than buying hay and dumping it onto the poor/marginal land and bale grazing there.

I admit grazing the bales where they fell is obviously a cost-saver, I'm just making a point that you cannot compare that to the bale-grazing mentioned earlier.

Cowzilla - in tests done at the Lacombe Research Station in Central Alberta, creeping red fescue was the best species for holding nutritive value over the winter, followed closely by meadow brome. We have lots of brome in our river hills, and the cows graze it happily enough. I have taken clippings of brome, and the rough fescue(Prairie Wool) that Per mentioned. The protein levels after a hard frost dropped from 11% protein to 7% on the Rough Fescue, and from 12.5% to 7.5% on the Brome. At 7.5% protein, we have grazed cows into December with no supplements other than a loose mineral and vitamin mix. The added vitamins are essential as the grass has none when dormant.

The cows lost no weight in this period and went onto bale-grazing paddocks in great shape, all the while, still nursing 450lb calves. I have to also point out that these are May/June calving Galloway and Gall-cross cows, who are multiple generations of being raised on this ranch. They are "locally adapted" as Dr. Provenza would say. Cows brought in from another region and feeding system would likely lose significant amounts of weight under our system, and it's entirely possible that cows like ours could go to another region and suffer also.

If there is one underlying point to be made here from everyone's posts, it is that beef production does not hinge on 1 thing. It does not hinge on producing Kit Pharo type cows, or feeding bales on sand holes, out of the baler, shredder, TMR wagon or any other single method. It hinges on a planned management system that encompasses every resource the ranch provides and can sustain.

 

[Big Swede]

A common number being thrown around here is 25# of hay to be fed to their cattle. A 1250# cow eating 25# of hay is only getting 2% of her body weight in feed. Can a cow maintain condition with that much hay. I usually figure 3%. A grazing cow will surely eat that much if it is available and she has the capacity.

 

[Ben H]

I would say 2.5% is the average Dry Matter Intake you would want to figure on a cow, maybe 3% for a growing steer. 2% is going to be tough to meet those needs especially when it starts getting cold. If you want to maintain weight I'd say 2.5% but that is without waste, if you aren't using a feeder to reduce weight then you could be looking at the 3% range or more. On the other hand, some folks manage for "controlled starvation" in the winter. I don't really do it, but I beieve it really is a natural thing. Naturally, a cow would start gaining some of her condition back in the early spring, then she would have her calf and be at peak production durring the peak of the grass. Production is maintained through the summer and a second period of gain in the fall allows the cow to build a little condition for the winter. The cow eats what she can but slowly uses up some of that stored fat until the calf is practically self weaned and spring comes so she can start preparing for the next calf to be born.

I will say that my cows have to survive on hay once the grass is gone (dry and baylage), if there are any that get thin, they won't be seperated and fed a different ration, they will be on the cull list and I'll have a better herd without her. The only one I really have a problem keeping the weight on is one that is 25% Holstein/75% Hereford. She makes too much milk, therefore too much of her ration goes to feeding her calf. Last spring was her first time calving, but her steer had the best growth rate in the group and I finished him last month.

 

[Northern Rancher]

It might be easier to extend your season by grazing a bit earliar in the spring and a bit later in the fall rather than just trying to graze furthur into winter-I'm in an area alot like Rainie's winter can come in hard and fast and you are forced to feed cows-my apologies to Kit but when the deer and moose starve in winter the cows need a little feed. I've found that cattle don't really relish the grass on bale grazed paddocks that next summer-I think it might have too strong a taste. However as soon as the snow goes they will graze those paddocks with unabashed greed. Swath grazing works fine if you have access to equipment but I don't so it's grass and bale grazing here. We get our hay delivered to the cows mouth and hire it unloaded.

 

[per]

A fall crop like Rye makes for good early season grass. Milk fever and pugging are the biggest downsides.

 

[burnt]

I'm always amazed at how guys around here love to make hay and haul manure. Got one neighbor that is convinced his cows won't eat corn stalks. He makes hay all summer and hauls it back to the farm and is all ready feeding. His corn stalks are just on the other side of his feeding yard. For some strange reason my 15 cows do just fine on corn stalks and a lick tub and will until well into november or possibly into december.

Question - and it may seem like a dumb one to some of you, but when you say that your cows eat the corn stalks, do you mean to say that they actually eat the whole or most of the corn stalk after the corn has been harvested with the combine?

I am thinking about cutting my stalks for stover silage with the forage harvester after we shell the corn in a week or two. But if they would eat it in the field, I may not need to?

 

[Big Swede]

Absolutely they will eat the stalks in the field. And it doesn't cost anything to harvest them either. Be careful if there is a lot of ears in the field though. They will eat till they nearly pop and if they get too much corn it will kill them. Back in the day before corn borer resistant corn (Bt) my brother took in cattle on a field that had a least 20 bu per acre on the ground and he warned the owners but they turned in anyway. Within a few days there were 25 dead cows and that many more that were foundered enough that they never were the same. These days the corn varieties and genetically modified genes don't usually allow there to be that much field loss.

In good yielding corn, 1 acre will support a cow for a month or even a month and a half. Towards the end of the period most of the goody is gone so some protein supplement will extend the time you can graze. If there isn't too much snow we can graze stalks into February here. If I had more acres I would graze all winter if possible.

 

[Brad S]

I've wintered alot of cows on cornstalks and Sweed's admonition about burning up cows on down corn is spades. This is one reason to limit or rotate your stalk grazing, another: cows will graze through snow to ungrazed stalks, but if the stalks have been picked over they'll bawl behind the windbreak. My thoughts, make cows clean up ears, husks, and leaves (and crabgrass if you're lucky), but you'll spend too much on supplement forcing them to eat much stalk (without backing up).


For what its worth, I was roughing cows before I ever heard of Kit Pharo and proven "if you cheat your cow, you'll end up cheating your kids" Another thought, any good management decision must include opportunity cost; the progeny from high output management herds are about 150 days away from high end harvest (there's alot of savings there too). The only way I can justify yearlings on grass is to cheat the cowman (I'm certainly ok with doing this), and I love grassing yearlings.