Grazing Christmas Eve

[per]

I'll concede that these are tough grazing conditions due to the hard snow pack. Deep snow is not a problem but hard blow snow makes year round grazing a challenge. Never the less the calves are still making out fine and continue to gain weight because the feed in there is plentiful and of decent quality.

Merry Christmas to all.

 

[Denny]

Are you swath grazeing and what is it they are eating. They sure look like nice calves.

 

[per]

Yes there are swathes under there. Not great pics but the snow was deeper and harder than it looked and I kind of had to keep moving for fear of getting stuck. There is a bit of a smorg available in that paddock. Where they are standing is oats, barley and triticale. There is rye in the bottom but it's fairly unavailable right now. Need a Chinook. The swaths are in 20 foot windrows and where they open up a new area it is quite thick. At the other end of the field there is also millet swathes. All around the field the headland grass is mostly brome as well as a creek draw on one side that was left to winter graze. If a snow eating Chinook comes along there is fall rye on one side that could be grazed. If not it will be early spring grazing in conjunction with the next paddock that has crested wheat grass. There is another field adjacent that also has oats, barley and triticale as well as barley straw bunches from the combine that they will go to next. The cows will clean up what the calves don't get later on after they have exhausted the barley bunch fields. They are still in the hills on native grass with protein supplement.

 

[Grassfarmer]

Look like they are managing fine per. We have deep snow but it's soft and easy to get through. More than a foot on the flat, many areas will be 16 inches plus. We can't expect chinooks to clear it off here but we get iced over less often than you chinookers. We have half the mature cows still grazing un-supplemented and they are looking really good.