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plowing snow/feeding

burnt said:
What is snow?
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Snow?

It is that danged white cold stuff that has not stopped falling here for the past month - and it is drifting real bad tonight. It is deep, deep, deep here.

Nope I do not plow and I do not even think of unrolling the bales.

I put them all out in the fall in groups of about 50 bales and turn the cows into them. I do not even close the gate when I leave - the snow is deep and they will not leave the feed except to go to water when they get tired of licking snow.

Lots of people think there is waste - and there is - but I do not have to haul manure, start a tractor, buy a whole bunch of fertilizer and so on.

Works real good for us here

When that group of bales is done I turn them into another field with the same setup.

Minus 32C with the wind chill tonight - around minus 25F if my math is right. I have not even broke out the heavy mitts and toque yet. LOL

Worked outside in it all day today and never even went to the house to take off the leather boots and put on the winter boots. They were pretty wet tonight, and think with ice - but my toes were still warm. must be those genetics Mom and Dad gave me.

Best to all

BC
 
I'll plow a little if it's the first day in a field deep with snow just to get things started. Bales don't unroll worth a darn in deep snow. Next feeding I'll just move over a bit, it will be nicely packed down out a ways from last feeding.
 
I do,a lot less waste then them just trampling it into the snow,and all my feeding is done out on the fields where i want the manure..And i only use a old 2 wheel drive tractor on the bale processor,so i don't have to worry about getting stuck.
 
Decades ago when I put most or all hay up in small bales I had an old ground driven David Bradley manure spreader that I took the flails off of and I would put 15 to20 square bales in it with all the twine off.

I had a grader blade on my old WD Allis Chalmers tractor with a heat houser and I used the angle pin to pull the spreader - - - get to the field and turn on the apron chain and grade out a clean area that the hay would drop right into - - - worked great you had about 8 different speeds on the apron chain so you could bunch the hay up or spread it out.

I think that was probably the most efficient I ever was as the deer did not get any hay and I fed as much as they would clean up in about 3 hours twice a day - - - almost no waste at all.
 
We use electric fence to graze our fields full of stockpiled grass in winter months making about weekly move paddocks until it is gone or the snow gets too deep. We then bale graze by setting out about a weeks worth of feed at a time. We usually have to roll out a couple of bales to give the cows something to eat while we set out the rest flat on the ground and pull the twine. I am liking B C's way of doing it and may try some version of it next by going in and placing lots of bales in the already grazed pastures when the weather is nice and the twine is easier to pull. Thanks for the idea B C. Oh, I would argue that there is no waste especially if you bale graze on poor ground and manage it correctly in the future. I see more waste in the extra fuel and time it takes to roll out the daily ration and having to do it every day. I have to set bales out tomorrow and I think I will just keep setting lots out and see what happens as I stretch it out ten days or two weeks. We buy all of the hay the owner of our lease farm puts up so we can feed it right there. I think I will get him to use sisal twine next year and really go crazy when I set bales out. Thanks everyone for the great ideas.
 
I assume that most of you bale graze in fields that are farmed. Is this right? I understand the benefits of the manure being where you want it and all. I don't understand how there can't be any waste as some of you claim. I know that the feed they trample in the ground goes back in as organic matter and such. But wouldn't the cost of fuel used to put the hay up that's wasted by letting them graze the bale be put toward feeding in the winter with substancial less feed use. I know with the weather and size of herds bale grazing might be the most productive and cost effective way for some of you to feed. I just don't see how you can claim saving so much and not having any hay being wasted. Not trying to come across negative just trying to learn.
 
3 M L & C said:
I assume that most of you bale graze in fields that are farmed. Is this right? I understand the benefits of the manure being where you want it and all. I don't understand how there can't be any waste as some of you claim. I know that the feed they trample in the ground goes back in as organic matter and such. But wouldn't the cost of fuel used to put the hay up that's wasted by letting them graze the bale be put toward feeding in the winter with substancial less feed use. I know with the weather and size of herds bale grazing might be the most productive and cost effective way for some of you to feed. I just don't see how you can claim saving so much and not having any hay being wasted. Not trying to come across negative just trying to learn.
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Probably most that bale graze do it on harder froze ground then you get in Kansas. The "waste" if considered fertilizer. It is a balancing act between what the cattle leave/trample and what it costs to feed it out everyday.Besides there is waste anyway you feed whether it is trampling or grinding or a bale proccessor.
 
There is waste no matter how you feed. But whenever I see these articles they talk about how the waste is justifiable because of saving fuel not feeding every day but never say anything about the extra fuel it takes to make the hay that gets wasted as fertilizer as you say. Everyone just assumes its free. As I said not trying to be negative just wandering.
 
As for the topic that was brought up. Sorry if I got off subject. My uncle used to have a bidirectional all the time and he came across a used snowblower pretty reasonable and after he had it he used it all the time. I don't know if it really did as much good as the time and fuel used but it made a person feel better feeding on bare ground. I mostly just move snow looking ahead as to have some dry spots when it melts. Maybe if we got some deep snow I would move more before feeding but we haven't seen anything to get to excited about for quite some time.
 
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3 M L & C said:
There is waste no matter how you feed. But whenever I see these articles they talk about how the waste is justifiable because of saving fuel not feeding every day but never say anything about the extra fuel it takes to make the hay that gets wasted as fertilizer as you say. Everyone just assumes its free. As I said not trying to be negative just wandering.
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If you get down to it any fertilizer takes fuel to make. Even commercial fertilizer.
 
We don't plow, as Jody says just move over a bit every day. When we move to a new feedground we make sure to not leave any big lumps that may be attractive as a bed. A cow laying on a raised bed of hay and rolling back to lick herself will be a dead cow on her back the next morning.
I see no real benefit or distraction to bale grazing here, we do bale graze our bulls a lot and use them for brush clearing. I just prefer to see each and every cow every day we feed and make sure things are right with them. Our daily presence seems to quell some of the predator pressures also.
 
This is about what we would run for bale grazing waste.
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The area behind the cows is the row of bales from the week before. We leave a bit more when we graze calves, but come in after with the cows and clean it up.
We are working with PFRA to do a bunch of research and this summer our bale grazing area went from producing 750-1000 pounds of dry matter per acre pre-bale grazing to 7500-9000 pounds of dry matter (roughly 6 bales per acre). That is the fertilizer effect. I suspect you get it as well when you roll feed out.
We haven't noticed any more than about 5% more waste than when we used to roll bales out in the field. When we sat down and figured out tractor hours, labour, fuel, etc. it worked out to over a $15000 savings for us as our tractor time went down to about 6-8 hours to feed for the winter and our chores with around 300 head here are running about 2 1/2 to 3 hours a week (barring disaster and cows out).
For us if we feed cattle 1/2 mile from the yard, 3 bales = 3 miles of tractor time. With our older equipment there is a lot less risk for us that something won't work.
We are bale grazing on pastures, and the truck drops loads around the field so I rarely have to move a bale more than about 300'. The other thing I like after a couple of stack fires around here this year, is that my bales are spread out a bit. We stack bales on end that we are 100% sure we will get to so twine is easier to pull, and stack bales on their side if they are near the end of our winter plan, so if we don't get that far they will shed water.
We use polywire and move it once a week or so up/down our electrified paddocks. There are probably better/cheaper/easier ways to do it, and I would be all ears to steal any ideas out there.
 
We have a neighbor who does that only he has a row of 25-30 bale rings and fills them weekly. Either way the tractor was burning fuel to set them.

I unroll 25-30 bales weekly the hay I'm feeding is still scattered on the fields I go get a load and take it right to the cows and unroll. We unrolled 25 bales a week ago saturday as I was going to be gone a couple days that worked pretty well so that's how we'll do it until mud comes. That way Lane is home on the weekend and he can unroll them with the skidloader while I go get another load. Then dureing the week I just feed the TMR ration and cut firewood.

In this country they've been unrolling hay to cows for 40 years or more not a new thing always spreading the manure. What I see your doing is concetrateing your manure in a smaller area.Either way works from what I see.

I normally cover a 50 acre field each winter then till it and raise corn for silage most years it gets no commercial fertilizer.
 
This is all very interesting to me. What type of feed do you use. We feed a lot of less than ideal feed so grinding it somehow gets the best use out of everything. When you stack your bales on end do you wait until later in the year as not to get much rain on the end? Also do the cows tank up on the best feed the first three days of your rotation? It seems like whenever I would try to feed a bale to a small group and only feed every three days they eat 3/4 the first day then the third day act starved. I also am always looking for A better way to do things. I always look at the bottom dollar and end result as aposed to doing thing a certain way because that's just the way it's always been done.
 
3 M L & C said:
This is all very interesting to me. What type of feed do you use. We feed a lot of less than ideal feed so grinding it somehow gets the best use out of everything. When you stack your bales on end do you wait until later in the year as not to get much rain on the end? Also do the cows tank up on the best feed the first three days of your rotation? It seems like whenever I would try to feed a bale to a small group and only feed every three days they eat 3/4 the first day then the third day act starved. I also am always looking for A better way to do things. I always look at the bottom dollar and end result as aposed to doing thing a certain way because that's just the way it's always been done.
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In this country we only get 10 to 14 inches of rain a year normally and most of that come either in the spring or when we have hay cut :roll: so after baling rain usually isn't a problem until they are fed.
 
RSL if my cows cleaned it up as good as your cows do,i would still be doing it.I would put out a weeks worth of feed and by day 5 they were up at the yard bellaring for feed,on the 6th day my neighbours were wondering what was going on over here.I could go out and check on how much feed was left in the field on day 7,and they would probably waste about 15 to 20% of the feed.I figured it out for me,and with that much waste it was cheaper for me to run the tractor and bale processor.
 

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