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West Central Illinois | I guess you could say I do kind of a hybrid of bale grazing and just unrolling hay. I bale 4x5 bales that weigh around 700-800 lb usually so unrolling by hand is possible, in early December I set out all my bales in each paddock I'm planning to feed hay in. Generally stock enough to last til April 1 then figure i'll set the additional out depending on how the spring is going so I don't have too much set out. By setting out bales where they'll be unrolled in early December when there's no snow I can tell where bales were unrolled last year as I avoid unrolling on the same spot, also I try to get the bales unrolled on the poorer looking spots in each paddock. I put up a hotwire in the area that the bales are in then I move the cows in to that paddock and just move hotwire just a bit to unveil their bale each day. Currently I unroll by hand because 90% of the time i'm unrolling down a slight slope anyway if not a pretty good hill so gravity helps with the work load, very little flat ground around here. I've got 2 separate spring cow herds and a fall herd i do this for unrolling 3 or 4 bales per day honestly probably would take me longer if I unrolled with a 3 pt unroller on tractor it's really not too bad
Couldn't find a pic in my phone of the bales set out like that but google earth had a pic of where cows were at in a paddock that had some bales out so you get the jist.
Edited by Lb94 4/29/2025 10:29
 (Screenshot 2025-04-29 102545 (full).png)
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 Screenshot 2025-04-29 102545 (full).png (78KB - 4 downloads)
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How not to feed cows.
