Burning Through Hay

[klintdog]

With the winter we've been having, we seem to be burning through hay at a record pace this year. This, combined with the horrible drought we had last year, has the hay supplies dwindling quickly. At our current pace we'll be out of hay by April 10th. Do any of you folks have any ideas on what we can do to stretch things farther? We're feeding free choice hay out on the prairie, so the ideas have to be conducive to our situation. I'm thinking of trying to supplement the cows that have calved already with protein tubs in hopes of slowing them down.

 

[Okie Boy]

unrolling round bales can make them go farther.  Feeding 20% cake ( cubes ) is usually is cheaper than tubs.

 

[showsteerdlux]

What is available as far as gluten, distillers grains and so forth? Here in the south we supplement with a soyhull/gluten mix at about 5#'s per head/day. This works very well for us, but I don't know how feasible this is out west. Any chance of finding corn stalks, or maybe some grinder hay maybe from your northern neighbors? Make sure to have them on a top notch mineral, we are using Purina Wind and Rain and have noticed a huge difference in the amount of hay used.

 

[Cattledog]

Man, I feel for the situation you are in right now.  Last year we had the same problem.  We lucked out and got some warm weather in time for our pasture to take off.

 

[CM Cattle]

Protein tubs  should help some.

 

[klintdog]

Right now we have them on free choice Payback mineral as well. Corn distillers are goign to be about the only option available as far as feed supps since we have an ethanol plant a short ways away. Honestly, we'd probably be better off buying hay though since a ton of distillers is going for around $200.

We do have some oats straw that we could chop and cut the hay with, but the way oru winter is going, I'm really hesitant to do that since we might end up without any straw. Cornstalks are non-existant as everything is either silaged or cut for grain, not many bales available. Welcome to a catch 22.

Anyone know the going rate for cake?

 

[ROAD WARRIOR]

Several years ago during a drought I remember a man south of me that got hooked up with a candy vendor or grocery store - he would get truck loads of out of date candy bars that he would grind in with some corn. The cows really developed a sweet tooth and wintered well. I have also heard of people getting "old" bread from bakeries and stores to feed their cattle as well. There is a feedlot east of me that used to feed raw potatoes and turnips. RW

 

[klintdog]

We actually have a local food plant that specializes in doughnuts and breads. One of my neighbors gets a semi load a week from them of their cast offs and uses it in his feedlot. Apparently they really love it. Unfortantely that's the only food outlet like that that we have around here...Good ideas though!

 

[MSweeney_199]

Try contacting your local elevator for any kind of corn screenings or any screenings for that matter.

 

[jbw]

Just had 3 semi loads of distillers deliverd for $35/ton, very nice stuff. There was some big round bales of brome grass hay sold on Monday for $39/bale. I know a guy getting rejected sweetcorn, carrots and peas from Birdseye, delivered for $30/ton. Its to bad that you guys are going through that shortage, I really feel for you.  The sad part is, economically, it would be cheaper to send the cows to the feed, instead of sending the feed to the cows.

 

[klintdog]

I sold some cull cows in November and got $375/cow for 1200 pound cows. At that price, I figure it's actually smarter to try and winter them and sell them as pairs....but who knows the way things are going!