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NPN (Urea) vs. Natural Tubs

my oldest hydrabed is 25 years old. It took a dozen calves to buy, but it's still worth what it cost (in dollars not calves). You don't need a very sharp pencil to make that work. When I'm caking with alfalfa, I just err on the side of excess.
 
The hay I bought tumbles around quite well in my tmr wagon 700#s of alfalfa and 3500#s of silage topped off with 300#s of ear corn. They most likely don't need it but I've got it and my storage systems say get it fed up.They get all the other types of hay they will eat.
 
Went to the local sale barn today. Was visiting with a guy about hay grinding. Said he had 80 bales ground & it cost him $600ish. I asked him if it was over an hour. He said it was dang close. So that's about as close as I know on the topic of hay grinding prices.

I wound up buying alfalfa. I drove like 2 hours to look at it. Wrapped pretty tight. I tried to dig into the bales. Had them piled tight, but other than pretty stemmy, the one on the end looked as green as a 4020. So I bought a load. Sent trucker up to get it. He called as he was loading it. Said that there was mold on the sides (flat) of the bales. I told him that I thought is was just "surface moisture"...snow etc. Well I'm feeding a bale every other day. Feed 4 so far. Anywhere there is mold on the flat side, there is mold inside. Kinda a greyish mold. Feed man, who also has cows/put up alfalfa thinks it was just put up a tad tough and its alright to feed. One of the bales was that 4020 green with areas of that greyish mold. Sometimes just certin layers about the size of your fist etc. The other 3 have been kinda brown looking. The guy said he did a test on it. Tested 15-19%. Not sure if he just hit the right bales or not telling me the heat damaged protein! I will say this, for being first cutting, they are cleaning up all the steams. So I'm impressed with that. Guess that's the nice part about cubes/tubs....if your buying from a reputable company....you should be getting a quality product. I'm not exstatic about my purchase, but I guess I'm going to feed it. Feed man said that if I test it for microtoxins etc, you have to get your sample in the right spot. One inch one way or the other....you might get the toxins or you might not. I'm feeding one alfalfa bale for every 7 grass. So its getting blended down pretty good.

Guess it was mentioned previously that alfalfa isn't used more because its more labor intensive or something. I go the cheapest/most labor intensive route & get kinda crappy stuff. Guess that's whats called life!
 
That 'kinda brown looking' might have turned to tobacco and the cows absolutely love it. That could be caused from it being baled a bit too green....but it is great feed. The grayish mold is a different thing altogether. One thing about cows, you can't fool 'em.
If they are eating it, they like it (unless they are starved to it) and if they are cleaning it up, it's pretty digestible. Put out a bad bale of hay and a good bale of hay.....they'll show you the best bale every time.
 
Ya, I got some freshly baled rye one time. Crimped, macieated, & inoculated. Way to f...ing wet. I'd be feeding it & hit a hot spot. If the wind was from the right direction the steam from that would almost make it so you couldn't breath. Your exactly right. Sent in a test on the tobacco stuff. Even after you took the heat damage off it was still awesome. So I'd feed 2 bales of 4 year old junk hay & 2 bales of rye. It was first part of may. Had 3 cows sneenk through gate before I could get it shut. So I figured go feed. Then come back & get them back in. They had fresh green broam to eat. They heard the bale processor run. When I got back to the gate, they were standing there wanting in to the rye!

As far as the alfalfa is concerned, I was slightly concerned about abortions from mold. Driver is originally from Colorado. He said he'd had to return stuff that looked better than this. I know its stemmy. I have also heard how picky Colorado horse people can be! :lol: . I thought it might of been they put inoculate on. Applicator might not of functioned properly. I talked to seller. Said no inoculate. Would rather bale & loose some leaves than too wet. He looked it it up. Baler had in xab moisture sensor. 12-17% with average of 15, but ya....I'd say it was a little wet. Kinda peaved me off, he was off on weight guess by almost 200# a bale! Driver put them on Tootsie roll ways & brought 30. Which if they were 1700#, it would of been 26ton. Well we were about 3 ton light....could of scaled 4 more bales. Oh well.
 
One fundamental of physics is energy is neither created or destroyed, only converted, agreed?

Hay is stored light energy from the sun, in the form of calories, agreed?

When hay heats, the heat is the potential energy (calories) converted to heat, and eventually released into the atmosphere, agreed?

I haven't run protein tests on tobacco brown hay, but I don't think energy conversion diminishes protein analysis.
 
Never thought about it like that Brad S. Its income tax season. I kept them feed tests around somewhere. If I find them, Ill share them. I'm thinking that say the stuff was maybe 14%, then with the heat damage the available protein was like 10%
 
Well I decided to sell my grinding hay. To put a price on it, I called the grinder man to see what it cost now. $325 an hour.
 
Never thought about it like that Brad S. Its income tax season. I kept them feed tests around somewhere. If I find them, Ill share them. I'm thinking that say the stuff was maybe 14%, then with the heat damage the available protein was like 10%


That would be interesting to know what the protein does. My point is the energy loss is a deal killer on tobacco brown hay.
 
jedstivers said:
Won't the tubs cause them to eat more hay?
You might price corn and ddg too. It will stretch hay.
Click to expand...

Yes. Tubs will cause them to eat more hay. But that's the point. Without enough protein, they can't digest as much hay. I've seen cows eating poor quality hay that are laying around full, chewing their cuds, all the while not getting enough nutrients to survive and do well.

The easy way to check your cow's protein consumption is the height of the manure piles. Shouldn't be any higher than the toe of your boot.
 
Not exactly accurate. Height of manure patties is an indication of fiber digestion. The flatter the patty, the more fiber is being digested, the higher...the less.

Nobody here has ever fed a cow...you are feeding the bugs in the rumen that break everything down. The better the job the bugs do, the more good they will get out of their feed. They will eat more poor quality hay because they can digest it. Adequate protein is essential for this process to occur, but not the only factor. Micro and macro minerals, along with good water are important as well. And always, always, adequate groceries. When switching from a high fiber diet to a starch based diet, it can take 2-3 weeks for the bug population in the rumen to get switched over, and vice versa.

I've noticed there are some folks in the business of selling bulls advertising that their bulls are on a "high fiber diet". What they don't tell you is that they didn't go on the high fiber diet until a day or two before the sale.
 
loomixguy said:
Not exactly accurate. Height of manure patties is an indication of fiber digestion. The flatter the patty, the more fiber is being digested, the higher...the less.

Nobody here has ever fed a cow...you are feeding the bugs in the rumen that break everything down. The better the job the bugs do, the more good they will get out of their feed. They will eat more poor quality hay because they can digest it. Adequate protein is essential for this process to occur, but not the only factor. Micro and macro minerals, along with good water are important as well. And always, always, adequate groceries. When switching from a high fiber diet to a starch based diet, it can take 2-3 weeks for the bug population in the rumen to get switched over, and vice versa.

I've noticed there are some folks in the business of selling bulls advertising that their bulls are on a "high fiber diet". What they don't tell you is that they didn't go on the high fiber diet until a day or two before the sale.
Click to expand...

Have you noticed how some of those 'high fiber diet' bulls have dirty behinds from too much protein?
Good point on the bugs in the rumen, loomixguy. Right on. I've learned when feeding energy, "Under 5# or over 10# so the rumen
bugs are most efficient at digesting.
 
loomixguy said:
Not exactly accurate. Height of manure patties is an indication of fiber digestion. The flatter the patty, the more fiber is being digested, the higher...the less.

Nobody here has ever fed a cow...you are feeding the bugs in the rumen that break everything down. The better the job the bugs do, the more good they will get out of their feed. They will eat more poor quality hay because they can digest it. Adequate protein is essential for this process to occur, but not the only factor. Micro and macro minerals, along with good water are important as well. And always, always, adequate groceries. When switching from a high fiber diet to a starch based diet, it can take 2-3 weeks for the bug population in the rumen to get switched over, and vice versa.

I've noticed there are some folks in the business of selling bulls advertising that their bulls are on a "high fiber diet". What they don't tell you is that they didn't go on the high fiber diet until a day or two before the sale.
Click to expand...

The last stage of manure piles is called "piled-high-and-deep" (PhD). Just as the name implies, the manure is beginning to stack up when it hits the ground, and has less moisture in the stool. Someone who actually researched the correlation of digestibility of forage to manure status told me that the one consistent factor in estimating relative digestibility from manure was the moisture content of the pile. The more moisture, the greater the digestibility.

When you begin to see the droppings dry out and PhD, you can make two assumptions. First is that the indigestible fiber content of the forage is increasing, or the digestible fiber in the forage is not being digested as well. Second is that the cattle are probably deficient in degradable protein. Remember degradable protein is the part of the protein that is broken down and made available to the rumen microorganisms.

You can't do much about the increasing fiber level in the forage, except to move to a better pasture. However, you can begin to supplement with protein when you start to see the manure become more coarse. Many of my customers use a urea based mineral supplement when we first see the manure begin to show the PhD stage, because urea is 100% degradable. Liquid feeds and protein blocks that contain urea will work as well. You need to be sure you have sufficient energy intake for the microorganisms to utilize the urea, but as long as your cattle are just moving into the PhD stage, the urea based supplements should work
 
I already posted the research in this very thread proving npn doesn't work in a forage based diet. Anecdotes don't dispel research conclusions.
 

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