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KY | Thinking about putting a small cow/calf confinement barn in in the next year or two depending on some life and job factors. Here, when the grass goes away, mine have all the hay they can eat until spring, a protein tubs and mineral available, and they get about 5 lbs of ground feed/hd every 3rd or 4th day to keep them coming to me when I need to get them up. If they were confined, will that program still work? I don't really want to invest in a tmr early on, but if you keep hay available in a barn how do you do it without feeding it in the bunks every day? Don't care if you do it in a monoslope, hoop barn or traditional barn, just looking for ideas of things people do that I may not have thought of or seen. I got an information binder from Summitt today but haven't had time to sift through it, i would most likely go a much less expensive route than them, but they have good information I'm told. |
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SE SD | One thing to think about. IMO, cows, especially bred ones need some exercise.
I like to keep feed and water quite a distance apart.
I would think a confined stock cow would have problems at calving time.
But, I could be wrong, have been before :) |
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western iowa,by Denison | agree 100% =my cattle in confinement meet a melting point at 14 months on the finishing end-I wouldn't want cows confined over that-I think that's why today in the dairy world they are limited on life cycle |
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KY | Good input. I just know that there's several folks out there doing it, but didn't think about that aspect of it. Guess if you ran light enough numbers, they'd have roaming room, but then your ROI on your building is hurt... I wonder, if you held them under roof during the summer and fall, and cut most of the pasture for hay, and then turned them out after 2nd cutting grew back out some, let them eat grass until it goes dormant, feed them outside most of the winter and then move them inside prior to calving and take them out at weaning and feed the weaners in the barn? Just thinking of options for more head per total acres of ground. |
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Redickville, Ont | +1 on what guys said above. You start calving in confinement your going to have a mess of scours for one. Cows need to move around or they get fat and have calving problems. Here what I do I have heifers in barn at home so I can watch them and give them some grain to keep condition on them and cows are in field till winter comes and once weather gets dirty there on straw pack that's well protected. They stay there till April and then I'll start to pull ones that are close into barn and drop calves there. I'll calve on straw pack too if weathers nice or if barns full before grass ready and ones I miss. Soon as there's a truck load there out of there. Take them to different farm and barn where they will graze for summer. This helps control scours. Seems like older calves in with newborn calves causes problem. You can clean pen every week still won't work. Use to calve some in winter and gave that up when I got done school. Had some for show cattle and breed stock and what a pain. Gave that up and having a lot better success. I keep weaned calves in barns where they where grazed till fats are gone them they come home and cows with newborns go to the barns where stockers where. Have a 7 bank barns in good shape so there always moving around. I feed round bales to cows. Try to feed on fields with bale unroller and feed in feeders when snow gets deep or weather bad. We grow potatoes and you can see how much advantage it is to have cows apply there fert vs manure spreader. You lose a lot nitrogen in barn or barn yard in my opinion. Not for everyone but works for me. I couldn't imaging grinding hay for cows with Tmr everyday. There suppose to work for me. I guess if your short feed they'll pay.
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Central SD | CMA. In one breathe you talk about hauling calves around to different barns and straw packs then in the next you say you don't grind hay because your cattle work for you? I have heard it all now |
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Driftless SW Wisconsin | Cattle are very different from hogs and chickens. One thing to ask yourself is why isn't confinement cow/calf being done on a wide scale today? And maybe even if it CAN be done with enough meds, investment, equipment, and manhours, is it profitable? |
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NE Iowa | If you significantly increase numbers above your pastures capacity the first thing you need is concrete. When cows run on grass year around they tear up a lot of grass when it is muddy. I have limited pasture and my cows never set foot on the pasture unless there is something to eat. May 1st to October 1st. I only have about 0.75 acres of permanent grass pasture per cow. Adjacent to the pasture are a few small tillable fields that are pain in the but fields to farm. I keep one in alfalfa that I rotationally grave and a couple in winter rye / sudangrass. These fields amount to about 0.5 acres per cow. So I have about 1.25 acres of total pasture per cow that gets me 5 month of grazing. Then I get about 3 weeks of grazing rye in April on fields that get planted to beans. I also get about o month of grazing cornstalks and alfalfa regrowth in the fall. But when there is nothing to eat my cows are wintered at a farm that has no pasture. It has a cattle sheds and a big piece of concrete. If the ground is froze they get fed on a cornstalk field to get exercise and spread manure around but they come back to the building for water and sleep in the shed. If it is muddy they get locked in the concrete lot. They calve in the sheds / concrete and when about 3 weeks old there is usually some rye to graze and they get hauled to that farm / field.
I personally would never go total confinement with cow calf. I would build a simple open front south facing shed. 3 walls with either some vents to open on north side or keep it narrow like 24' wide. Then have plenty of concrete. Large enough that you can confine / feed them on concrete if muddy weather. A simple feeding floor that only gets driven on with a skid steer and manure spreader does not need to be thick. We poured all of ours ourselves and it is only 4" thick. We have added on several times but the original piece is 45 years old. If you don't have enough pasture then only turn them out if there is decent growth and the weather is nice. If you get a rainy week lock them up on the concrete and feed them hay so they don't muck everything up. Another nice thing to do is have sheds that are dual purpose with moveable fences. Fill them with hay during the summer. By the time the weather gets cold / snowy they will have ate enough hay to make room to sleep inside. By spring calving time a lot of hay will have been fed and you have a ton of shed room for calving. Clean it all up good in late spring and start putting hay back in. We have a shed we do this in and really like it.
Beef cows don't need a TMR diet. Properly made dry hay fed free choice is all they need. Mine get zero grain but have hay in front of them all winter. I like to also have a bale of cornstalks out but I don't force them to eat it. They willingly eat the best 1/2 of the bale and then I take the ring off and push the leftovers in the shed for bedding. |
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| Look up Hoop Beef on youtube. They have a lot of jersey cross with brangus cows in hoops year round. There's a guy near me that has built there hoop and bought 200 cows from them. Hoop Beef had an open house about a year after it was built,had a a lot of people show up. It all looked pretty good. |
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SW MN | What price do you value your hay at and what do your feed costs per cow end up bring, if you don't mind sharing? We mostly TMR in winter. |
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Croswell, Michigan | Not disagreeing with what you said Jim but remember pigs started outside first then moved in doors. Once you get out of real cow country, where the ground it too rough to row crop, it changes the equation. I have a few cows, one because I like them and two because I have a few patches of hay here and there and so the cows save me from having to deal with selling it to horse people. Fences are gone in our part of the world and depending on your layout a mile of fence can fence in 40 acres or it can fence in 3.
Just part of the evolution of farming. |
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SW “Ohia” | Jim - 12/20/2016 05:28
And maybe even if it CAN be done with enough meds
+1
Cows need their exercise to stay healthy. Young calves need space to move/run and avoid getting stepped on. A well drained calving pasture with a loafing shed would serve well. Fence line hay feeders and gravel heavy use pads. Simple.
But that's just my opinion.
Edited by Red Paint 12/20/2016 07:08
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| Summit has some monoslope plans that allow cows to go outside also. Like others have said kinda defeats the year around building. Like garvo has always said "nrcs" getting tough when it comes to water and runoff nowadays. Son has rented a pasture in South Dakota for years and now the owner said state or whoever will give her x amount of dollars for a easement for water quality. Think he gave her more rent above state and got it back. But that's what farmer ranchers will be dealing with.
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Garland Maine | John e.c.MI - 12/20/2016 07:58
depending on your layout a mile of fence can fence in 40 acres or it can fence in 3.
That's very true. I had a math teacher try to tell me once that fencing in a circle would give the most area with the least amount of fence. . . Somehow that classroom lesson doesn't work in the real world.
For feeding dry round bales at a feed bunk, or feed rail: if you don't want to mix anything else in, the way I have done is to stand a row of bales right up on end at the bunk have them shoulder to shoulder. The cows eat on them for a couple days and you need to push them in so they can reach more.
There is some waste when they pull a mouthful back to chew on it, but overall the time saved is worth it to me. |
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Garrett County, MD | To me cow calf is a land game. Only people I've ever seen make it profitable are the ones with lots of pasture.
I would love for someone to explain to me how to make money with cow calf in confinement.
Yes I have cattle and never seem to have enough grass. Beef cows don't do well inside a building.
Haul feed in, manure out, etc. All the profit is gone IMO.
Edited by Austin 12/20/2016 07:54
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SW So Dakota | We try to never put a cow near a barn out here unless we are calving during a late spring blizzard and other people want to put them under a roof and never let them out. I know who is working harder and I'm pretty sure who shows more profit. Personally I don't think a ruminant belongs in a building until they get the finishing phase, then I don't see a problem with it if it helps to help keep them out of the mud, cold or heat. |
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western OK panhandle | Cactus Feeders is doing it in one feedlot in KS with 8500 cows. They made it a complete stand-alone operation so they could accurately assess costs. They say they averaged about $1.50/cow/day in feed costs, with a total enterprise cost of about $2/head/day in early 2015. It may be less now with cheaper feed and more experience. |
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whitesville new york | Dairy guy here. If we never had to deal with the mud I probably wouldn't even consider putting up a building. Between the mud and the cold wind it is nice having the animals inside during them times. Cows are very happy and seem to be healthier when they can do out side and can get off of the concrete. I'm in my 1st winter with my compost/ pack barn. Animals in it seem to be doing really well right now. Once the weather gets more fit for the cows, they will sound more time outside. Once we start grazing around may 1st, all animals will not see a barn except for milking.
There are lots of ways to do things, you just need to figure out what works for you. |
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whitesville new york | garvo - 12/19/2016 10:45
agree 100% =my cattle in confinement meet a melting point at 14 months on the finishing end-I wouldn't want cows confined over that-I think that's why today in the dairy world they are limited on life cycle
Not trying to pick on you garvo but some real life dairy numbers for you. A 100 cow dairy in theory will calve in 100 cows each year. They will produce 50 hiefer calves, say 10% don't make it to calving, so now you have 45 animals entering the herd, so to maintain size, the dairy will need 45 cows to leave the herd due to death loss, culling, or selling animals back into another dairy herd. I wouldn't be surprised if a 100 cow dairy calves in 120+ cows a year producing another 10+ heifers. |
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| Cows also had loafing sheds and stuff a lot back in the day and so did the pigs and chickens, people seemed to have learned the barns weren't necessary for the cattle. The difference is pigs don't have the thick hide to take the outdoors, cattle do. |
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NS Canada | I think it stems from settling the wet east coast first - where they are necessary. Once people moved to other parts of the country they took the knowledge they had, and eventually learned to adapt to different conditions.
Like mentioned above, keeping cows out of the mud half the year is just part of life around here, there wouldn't be a blade of grass here next year if I let them roam pastures fall and spring. |
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Central Texas | http://www.cattlenetwork.com/news/industry/confinement-cow-calf-man...
This link is to an article about the Cactus confined cow operation. Was written a few months ago and basically said that with current calf prices was not profitable as just cow-calf operation. When considering the calves superior performance in growing/finishing phase was still a viable program overall. |
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western OK panhandle | Thanks for the link. I used to follow this fairly closely. I think the only way it can be viable is on a large scale. Too much infrastructure / equipment / labor for small-scale. |
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Folks with cow/calf in barn full time, couple questions
