protein tubs

One other thing to consider, 10 days @ 1.5 # consumption per head  X 30 cows is 450 pounds.  They are probably eating more, but your intake is still less than 1# of supplemental protein per day if your tubs are 32% or 38%.

Put the first tub out today.  A few licks and they seemed only mildly interested.  When it gets real cold they will go at it harder.

We don't use tubs but we do have a somewhat unique way of getting some extra protein into our herd.

With the increased cost of hay the last couple of years, we have been feeding more corn stalks instead of hay.  Last year we fed twice as many corn stalk bales as hay bales.  I was worried how to get some additional protein into them to offset that lost from the hay.  We came up with a feed mixture that works pretty well for us.  We mix corn or good quality corn screenings with DDGs and a legume balancer.  As the pastures decline in the fall, we start by feeding a pound or so of this per animal per day and then as we shift over to feeding hay and corn stalks we will start to increase the amount we give them.  In mid winter, when the temperatures are the coldest we may feed up to 6 pounds/ head/day.  Of course, this varies by the ratio of corn stalks to hay and the body condition of the cows but we feel this has been a good program for us and has allowed us to keep our cost/cow under control even thought the hay costs and grain costs are up.    This program can also be adapted to a hihger level of DDGs if you want a higher protein level and less energy.  We have used a formula of 1800 pounds of corn/screenings, 160 # of DDGs, and 40# of the forage balancer as our base product.  If we are feeding more stalks than a  2:1 ratio over time, I would probably increase the level of DDGs to compensate for protein needs.
We also have salt and a good mineral available for them on a free choice basis.

This is kinda related to corn screeninigs....but a local elevator(2 million bu. capacity) has a vacum system that sucks dust out of the air and it is sucked into a tank. I get it free and dump it out as far from the cows as I can so they have a ways to go for water. I haven't lost any cows yet and they love the stuff. One sample was a 8% protein result. Some people think I'm nuts cause the think it is dirt and not grain dust. It is soybean,wheat,sunflower,milo and corn dust all mixed together. I guess 30 years ago they hauled yhe dust to a cube feedmill and used dust in pellets somehow. One year the wheat had a rust in it and we decided not to feed it to pregnant cows because of abortion worries. I worked there a couple years and kinda got in on the deal.

I guess we are pretty fortunate in that we have a lot of alfalfa ..  That's what we normally use as our protein source. 

The tubs do have their place, we've used them in the past & I'm sure we'll use them again. 

I would be cautious about feeding a large amount of grain screenings to cows.  Small amounts <10 # hd/d are ok, but if you allowed the cows to consume ad lib, you could have some major problems.

We don't feed more than 6 pounds total of this mix and its always a lower percentage of screenings than corn. In addition, I always demand that they are good screenings.  I sent one load back for poor quality screenings and ever since that they have been very good about telling me in advance what quality of screenings they have.  If the quality is poor we just use corn.    Works for us but may not be for everyone.

In the mid 80s, when we were in the middle of a decade of drought, we came up with some pretty good ways to make feed out of refuse.  One year, we tub ground wheat and oat straw and mixed it with refuse sunflower screenings and stillage ( the watery component left over from distilling or ethanol process) We put the straw into a pit silo, then layered in a few inches of sunflower screenings. We had a large tank filled with stillage and we pumped it onto the straw/ sunflower mixture, then packed it with a tractor. The stillage was just a few degrees below boiling, so it helped start the heating process. It insiled and made a silage like mix that the cows just loved. I was really surprised when we did a feed test and this mixture tested better than our alfalfa silage for protien and TDN. The sunflower screenings by themselves tested 42% protein and we got them free. A local farmer was cleaning them and had discarded the screenings into a slough. The stillage cost us 1 cent a gallon delivered to the farm. This took a little work, but it was a much cheaper feed than buying high priced hay that had to be hauled over 500 miles, and it got us through a few winters. The cows also did very well on this feed.

I would also add, that hay is often the most expensive feed source for cows. They do need some hay but you can cut the hay by 1/2 to 2/3, by feeding a few pounds of grain or screening pellets and a few bales of corn stalks or straw. You have to pay attention to the mineral intake of the cows. Grain and/or screening pellets are much easier to haul and are usually price effective when it is calculated on a proteinn and TDN basis.