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Sunday snaps

G

Grassfarmer

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 21, 2005
Messages
998
Location
Central Alberta, Canada
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Looking west to the start of the forested foothills - follow the cutline over the horizon and walk for 500 miles and you should finish up a few short miles north of gcreekrch.
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Special snack for a single, solitary, skinny suspected twin carrier.
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Looking northwest - another foggy start but another beautiful day in prospect.
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Steaming, silage sabbatical snack.
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Delivered by an American server
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Trying to train a cheap, readily available type of dog to round up cows. He needs some work on his outrun :wink:
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Maternal inefficiency of the F2 cross? - a cow sired by a neighbors fence jumping polled hereford out of a red baldy dam. She is 250lbs heavier than her mother ever was and has yet to turn in a heavier calf than her mother did as a teenager.
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Maternal inefficiency created by the use of an F2 bull from a "Cattlemans kind" program where they tried to cram it all in one - growth, milk, maternal, frame and selecting high EPD numbers :roll: - The result? a cow that can turn in a slightly above average weaning weight calf IF you are prepared to feed her extra in winter and cull 80% of her type by the time they should be 6th calvers. That's not a calf in front of her it's a 950lb bred heifer!
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One of my favorite commercial cows - an F1 Luing x Red Angus cow.
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A sign of spring with the first northbound geese spotted today. :wink:
 
Sure a different time zone from here GF. The ducks, geese and swans arrived about a week ago. Haven't spotted a Robin yet so spring is not yet assured.
 
Pretty spot you have there Grassfarmer, other than your hat amongst individual plants we don't get to see much of it. :D

Your stray dog would definately be trying to outrun something if he was within sight here. :wink:

I think the geese would be flying south if they were here today, it has let up now but it snowed sideways for 3 hours since 10:30 AM.
 
Yeah, we like this spot - can't see the mountains though :(
We can certainly hang onto our snow Per - only got to +3C today. We've really had very little since Christmas so the remaining snowpack is down to about a foot deep. We don't usually lose our snow before the first week of April but this year we might.
 
They made a fine bunkfeeder garn, one of the simplest and easiest machines I've ever owned. There are lots of them out here but most new ones I've seen were Jiffy so I don't know if Schuler still make them.
 
Grassfarmer, did you ever get any tires for silage bunks or did you add more of those pipe and wood feeders?
Debating on a grinder/mixer for our calves for next year and thinking the tires may be the most economical route for feeding and spreading manure on our oat patch.
 
Nice pictures, Grassfarmer. Your cattle are looking great and well-cared for.

Some of our geese stay here all winter anymore, but we've seen the migratory geese headed north which is a good sign.

gcreekrch said:
Grassfarmer, did you ever get any tires for silage bunks or did you add more of those pipe and wood feeders?
Debating on a grinder/mixer for our calves for next year and thinking the tires may be the most economical route for feeding and spreading manure on our oat patch.
Click to expand...

From a voice of experience, unless you have kids or someone else that likes to use a scoop shovel, don't buy a grinder-mixer. It is just buying a job. :wink: My experience is from 35 years ago, though, so maybe now there is less hand labor.
 
Soapweed said:
Nice pictures, Grassfarmer. Your cattle are looking great and well-cared for.

Some of our geese stay here all winter anymore, but we've seen the migratory geese headed north which is a good sign.

gcreekrch said:
Grassfarmer, did you ever get any tires for silage bunks or did you add more of those pipe and wood feeders?
Debating on a grinder/mixer for our calves for next year and thinking the tires may be the most economical route for feeding and spreading manure on our oat patch.
Click to expand...

From a voice of experience, unless you have kids or someone else that likes to use a scoop shovel, don't buy a grinder-mixer. It is just buying a job. :wink: My experience is from 35 years ago, though, so maybe now there is less hand labor.
Click to expand...

Had one of those screw type grinder/mixer wagons in mind Soap, although I know how, I'm kind of allergic to scoop shovels myself. :wink:
 
gcreekrch said:
Soapweed said:
Nice pictures, Grassfarmer. Your cattle are looking great and well-cared for.

Some of our geese stay here all winter anymore, but we've seen the migratory geese headed north which is a good sign.

gcreekrch said:
Grassfarmer, did you ever get any tires for silage bunks or did you add more of those pipe and wood feeders?
Debating on a grinder/mixer for our calves for next year and thinking the tires may be the most economical route for feeding and spreading manure on our oat patch.
Click to expand...

From a voice of experience, unless you have kids or someone else that likes to use a scoop shovel, don't buy a grinder-mixer. It is just buying a job. :wink: My experience is from 35 years ago, though, so maybe now there is less hand labor.
Click to expand...

Had one of those screw type grinder/mixer wagons in mind Soap, although I know how, I'm kind of allergic to scoop shovels myself. :wink:
Click to expand...

That is why I like cake cubes. You can feed it right on the ground, anytime and anywhere. No investment is needed in feed bunks or grinder mixers. It is delivered to our overhead bins when we need it. Then it is a simple matter to drive underneath the bin, load the pickup caker, and drive off to feed it to the cattle. I know, it is probably not the most cost efficient way to do things, but it is easy, the cattle like the stuff, and the local cake-making companies need the business. :-)
 
Soapweed said:
gcreekrch said:
Soapweed said:
Nice pictures, Grassfarmer. Your cattle are looking great and well-cared for.

Some of our geese stay here all winter anymore, but we've seen the migratory geese headed north which is a good sign.



From a voice of experience, unless you have kids or someone else that likes to use a scoop shovel, don't buy a grinder-mixer. It is just buying a job. :wink: My experience is from 35 years ago, though, so maybe now there is less hand labor.
Click to expand...

Had one of those screw type grinder/mixer wagons in mind Soap, although I know how, I'm kind of allergic to scoop shovels myself. :wink:
Click to expand...

That is why I like cake cubes. You can feed it right on the ground, anytime and anywhere. No investment is needed in feed bunks or grinder mixers. It is delivered to our overhead bins when we need it. Then it is a simple matter to drive underneath the bin, load the pickup caker, and drive off to feed it to the cattle. I know, it is probably not the most cost efficient way to do things, but it is easy, the cattle like the stuff, and the local cake-making companies need the business. :-)
Click to expand...

No plans for grinding hay for cows.

Some of our meadow foxtail is quite coarse, even though it is good quality feed the calves we are backgrounding refuse to eat a certain amount of it. We are feeding 3 lbs of pellets to them besides their roughage. A friend of mine is feeding poorer quality hay (no grain) to basically the same cattle as ours and is getting 1/2 to 3/4 lb per day better gain than us by simply grinding the feed. An extra 30 to 40,000 lbs of calf would be nice to sell.
We won't know what that gain will cost unless we try it. Wanting moveable feeders to avoid spending more for hauling manure.
 
gcreekrch said:
Soapweed said:
gcreekrch said:
Had one of those screw type grinder/mixer wagons in mind Soap, although I know how, I'm kind of allergic to scoop shovels myself. :wink:
Click to expand...

That is why I like cake cubes. You can feed it right on the ground, anytime and anywhere. No investment is needed in feed bunks or grinder mixers. It is delivered to our overhead bins when we need it. Then it is a simple matter to drive underneath the bin, load the pickup caker, and drive off to feed it to the cattle. I know, it is probably not the most cost efficient way to do things, but it is easy, the cattle like the stuff, and the local cake-making companies need the business. :-)
Click to expand...

No plans for grinding hay for cows.

Some of our meadow foxtail is quite coarse, even though it is good quality feed the calves we are backgrounding refuse to eat a certain amount of it. We are feeding 3 lbs of pellets to them besides their roughage. A friend of mine is feeding poorer quality hay (no grain) to basically the same cattle as ours and is getting 1/2 to 3/4 lb per day better gain than us by simply grinding the feed. An extra 30 to 40,000 lbs of calf would be nice to sell.
We won't know what that gain will cost unless we try it. Wanting moveable feeders to avoid spending more for hauling manure.
Click to expand...

Soapweed I don't think we could feed pellets on the ground economically given that we have fairly deep snow cover all winter, we would just lose too much. We do use pellets sometimes and if feeding silage it's easy to drop a (tractor) bucket full into the bunk feeder. Given the higher feed value we find pellets more economic to buy that grain which would need ground.

gcreekrch, We didn't buy tire feeders I built some wooden bunk feeders to my own design which are working OK - not great.They are better for the calves than the pipe and wood ones because they have bottoms so I don't lose feed when I move them. They would work to feed just pellets in too if the need arose.
I would need some convincing that chopping poorer quality hay and getting the calves to outperform those on better hay and pellets by that kind of margin was genuine before investing in a mixer/feeder. Sounds too good to be true to me - have you an actual analysis on the meadow foxtail and the other guy's hay?
 
Grassfarmer, our hay is either wild meadow hay or Meadow Foxtail with very little Reed's Canary mixed in. It will vary from 10-11% for early cut to 7% for later and 55 to 68% TDN.
The other fellow is at Prince George, clay soil, wetter climate, Timothy, Clover etc for hay. That area traditionally averages 7% protein for their best hay.
He is a good operator that I have known for years and would have no reason to stretch the facts. Another big difference in our feeding regimes is that his calves are wintered in a smaller pen of about 5 acres compared to ours in 30 acres. We are feeding the pellets in wooden bunks and rolling out hay and baled silage on the ground.
 
gcreekrch said:
Grassfarmer, our hay is either wild meadow hay or Meadow Foxtail with very little Reed's Canary mixed in. It will vary from 10-11% for early cut to 7% for later and 55 to 68% TDN.
The other fellow is at Prince George, clay soil, wetter climate, Timothy, Clover etc for hay. That area traditionally averages 7% protein for their best hay.
He is a good operator that I have known for years and would have no reason to stretch the facts. Another big difference in our feeding regimes is that his calves are wintered in a smaller pen of about 5 acres compared to ours in 30 acres. We are feeding the pellets in wooden bunks and rolling out hay and baled silage on the ground.
Click to expand...
I don't think the difference is protein - in never usually is - but feed them TDNs down around 55% and it will soon slow gains - 3lbs of pellets or not. Your range of TDNs 55-68 would indicate to me the differences in weight gain you suggest. 68% could well get you 1/2 to 3/4lb day more gain that 55% hay. I suspect your friend although he only has 7% protein hay must have high TDNs which you often seem to get with timothy, typically accompanied with lower protein. On the face of it though any feed analysis expert would tell you calves wouldn't gain well on 7% hay. Chopping hay won't improve the quality only increase the intake. I would look very seriously at the feed values of the hay before investing big dollars in a machine that grinds it up.

Dylan Biggs said:
Grassfarmer where does the white come from on the F1 Luing Red Angus heifer?
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From the Shorthorn ancestors (they were a 5/8 Shorthorn, 3/8 Highland blend). Although selection has been for solid color you can get cattle of any color naturally occurring in the two parent breeds ie Red, yellow, roan, red and white, pure white and the occasional brindle.
 

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