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Feeding straw ?

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J

just a small guy

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Jul 18, 2009
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southern alberta
We have some 650# replacement hiefers. We have some rained on 3rd cut grass/alfalfa not good enough to sell, so my plan is to feed it to these calves. I realize its pretty rich, so want to water it down with straw. We have our own wheat straw, but would we be better feeding barley straw? Or not feeding this to them at all? Any comments will be appreaciated.
 
Calves don't have a very 'experienced' (for lack of a better word)
rumen, so they need fine hay, perferably more grass than alfalfa
at this point. The finer the better. We give our calves the best hay
we have, and that's all they get...no grain...and they do fine. It's
really important that they have good quality hay.

FWIW
 
just a small guy said:
We have some 650# replacement hiefers. We have some rained on 3rd cut grass/alfalfa not good enough to sell, so my plan is to feed it to these calves. I realize its pretty rich, so want to water it down with straw. We have our own wheat straw, but would we be better feeding barley straw? Or not feeding this to them at all? Any comments will be appreaciated.
Click to expand...
if you have a processor put the straw down first then top dress your third cut over top , works not to bad there is a little waste but I like to leave a little trash , it would be better if it were from a rotary. if that third cut is as rich as you say they'll look for the leaf through the straw , forcing them to eat the straw
 
I would be concerned about replacement heifers getting all the nutrients they need if feeding very much straw. A feed test might be a good investment maybe?
 
A good stiff southern Alberta wind and a bale processor should work well-enough leaves will blow away that it won't be too rich for the calves any more lol. If you fed the hay in feeders and just had straw free choice the calves would probably eat enough to get their rumen function balanced. I'd be a bit worried about bloat but if you have much grass at all you should be ok. Did you do a feed test on the hay?
 
burnt said:
I would be concerned about replacement heifers getting all the nutrients they need if feeding very much straw. A feed test might be a good investment maybe?
Click to expand...

Absolutely. This would take the guess work out and give you some concrete figures to work with.
 
We feed wheat straw all the time to our calves. We have really good second cutting that is to much for the calves... Gives them the runs.. So we grind straw with our hay and alfalfla.... We even do that for fat calves..They'll do just fine, We do add salt and mineral..
 
NR good wind in southern ab , is that what that is , leaf in hay, all them dairy guys down here grind it as short as short can be , them magpies must not have any teeth lol
 
Watch how much barley is left in the straw though, if they hay is pure alfalfa. Barley and alfalfa combined can be bloaty. We've fed barley and wheat straw, and we do find they like the barley better. I agree with the suggestions to get a feed test done.
 
Well he's gonna do a feed test one way or the other - either by spending $30 bucks for 15 minutes in a lab with sure fire results or run a long-term test on a whole bunch of $700 heifers with the potential for either a good outcome or a disaster. . . take your pick.

Hey I could sell insurance maybe.
 

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