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North Central Kansas | Alot of interesting replies. First of all, you have a decent sized herd. Take inventory of your land assets, evaluate which places have water and good access. Can you do pretty much what you want with those acres? What is your crop rotation? What is your cow/farm ground ratio? I have come to a few conclusions. Your feed acres must be a by product of your crop rotation, or you must get more than one use out of those acres if strictly for cows. I don't like confining cows to be fed because you cut raked baled hauled processed feed for them to eat and then you have a pile of manure to load haul and spread back on the field that you took the feed off. A cows time is worth nothing and she has alot of it, put her to work harvesting her own feed. With the costs of running a cow these days, I don't see the room in the budget for much if any feeding equipment. One idea I have thought of trying this year is grind a long skinny pile of hay, put an electric fence around it, set some good corners, then move the wire as they eat the pile. I've heard of this being done with herds of 3-400 cows but never tried it myself.
I applaud you for trying to do a good job a be more efficient. I think if you'll step back and really evaluate your operation you don't need as much hay as you have been using. | |
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Cow/Calf herd feeding
