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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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Folks with cow/calf in barn full time, couple questions
