Brown Cow - 5/8/2024 19:08 Jim - 5/8/2024 10:21 This time of year I just can't see how you can graze cattle in a (usually) moist climate like ours without having the ability to make hay. Cow consumption is fairly uniform, forage growth is anything but uniform. Seems like you need a way to store excess grass growth at its peak nutrition for times when the grass slows down. I've tried doing it with just grass, you're right that doesn't work well. But hay, whether purchased or put up myself, just can't compete with the price of corn silage. I have about 80-100 tons on hand for when the pastures start slowing down. I'll have adequate grass for it to be 100% of my forage until probably sometime in June, depending on moisture. I agree that corn silage produces a lot of feed per acre. I grew corn for bagged silage for a couple years. You are a dairy farmer and I can see how silage works for you. But I have two problems with it: 1) getting anyone to custom chop and bag corn silage on a small (10 acres) scale on a timely basis is darn near impossible. I understand and I wouldn't do it but also don't want to marry myself to silage by getting set up with the equipment to do it myself. Not to mention the additional labor involved in feeding beef cattle silage. I found if I put a feed wagon out cows just got too fat. They do much better over the winter on good hay. And just feeding silage to steers is not at all practical for me. I like the way my Hereford genetics are doing on good hay alone except for mineral-lyx, salt and good water. 2) My retail beef customers want "Grassfed" beef. You know the area we're in. A profitable segment of the local beef market wants beef that is not raised on corn. Actually if I was going to finish my yearling beef steers on corn, I would go back to the controlled grazing of mature standing corn. That worked. Here's a pic of some of my cows this past Feb on the last of my homegrown hay. I'll also attach an old pic of steers grazing standing corn as is done in the prairie provinces of Canada.
 (PXL_20240202_143402566 (full).jpg)
 (Steer grazing standing corn (full).JPG)
Attachments
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 PXL_20240202_143402566 (full).jpg (111KB - 65 downloads)
Steer grazing standing corn (full).JPG (268KB - 61 downloads)
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Started Rotational Grazing today
