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Feeding wheat?

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Evans

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I'm just wondering. So wheat and barley crop are really looking bad. Drought, grasshoppers.
So farmers dont want to sell standing until after crop insurance (Canada). I'm wondering if enough there after crop insurance to cut and bale for cattle to eat.? It won't be greenfeed at this point. Any wheat kernels will be hard.
Can I bale wheat and feed direct to cows? With molasses maybe so they will eat it? The barley around here has barbs and cows get score mouths if you dont mix it with hay or something. I have no mixer.
I'm just trying to think of some affordable feed.
 
I can tell you from experience if you feed straight wheat hay be sure to feed a mineral low in phos because the phos in the wheat will cause the cows to back off their mineral intake (phos is a limiter).
We had customers who ran into problems feeding straight wheat hay. The cows developed winter tetany. They changed to a low phos mineral so the cows would eat the mineral. I did a lot of research to find out what was happening. The veterinarian said it was 'milk fever' causing them to go down,
but they hadn't calved yet. It was an imbalance of mineral that caused it.

Winter Tetany in Beef Cattle

Grass tetany is considered a problem that usually occurs when cattle or sheep are eating lush, spring grass or annual cereal forages such as rye, wheat or triticale; but, it can also occur when cattle are being fed harvested forages.
beef.unl.edu beef.unl.edu

I would say get your wheat tested so you know what is in it and then you know for sure how to supplement it. Adding molasses won't make it any better nutrition wise, it will just help them to eat it, but that's expensive too. Be careful not to feed too much molasses. That can upset the rumen and
cause acidosis.

Good luck!

I'm sorry crops in your area aren't looking good.
 
Thanks
Just keeping what we have feed for. I have snoozed all Facebook hay groups. Depressing seeing desperate people basically begging for hay ,plus endless scammers. Maybe I just buy one load in fall?
We did get an inch of rain that will help pastures. Cow prices are strong.
Shipped some. No point over grazing or paying 300 for a round bale.
 
A bumper crop of grazer is being cut down around here right now.Sellers are wondering what they are going to do with all of it.Maybe you could arrange to buy some around here and have it trucked to you.
 
DosArroyos said:
A bumper crop of grazer is being cut down around here right now.Sellers are wondering what they are going to do with all of it.Maybe you could arrange to buy some around here and have it trucked to you.
Click to expand...
Trucking would be killer on round bales. I see guys charging 5 cents a km. So I'm guessing thats loaded mile? But even at loaded mile thats 500 for 60 mile. For amount of bales they can haul that would get expensive really fast.
I'm thinking best shot is an open winter and year round grazing. Haha I'll start praying for that. Right now its literally raining every where but here.haha oh my
 

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