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SW Ontario | Hello all, been poking around agtalk for a few years but haven't posted before. Lots of good information on here!
I am looking at diversifying our family farm operation with some beef (cow calf). We have been predominantly cash crop utilizing no till/strip till as well as covercrops, do some custom work as well as corn drying and elevating. On the farm side we have access to around 250 acres of land we can fence to graze crop residues, cover crops, and could put hay or pasture on. Also some acres of rented ground we wouldn't fence but could utilize crops/residues off of, as well as some sharecrop and custom work ground we could possibly harvest residues or covercrops for "cheap".
I currently run a small cow calf herd on my own but am looking to scale it up. Being in SW Ontario, my challenge has always been finding a winter feeding system that is efficient as well as low cost/cow/day. I would say we would be feeding "stored" feeds for about 150-200 days give or take. Currently I feed good quality baleage (alfalfa grass mix) but not having our own haying equipment or wrapper makes feeding this way fairly costly.
I have looked into things such as bale grazing on lower quality land, but doesn't change much of the above problem unless we start to acquire our own haying equipment as we acquire more cattle to spread the cost of ownership over more head.
The other option I have looked at is grazing standing corn. I like the idea as we already cash crop land and have all the equipment to do it, but some would say grazing corn that we can achieve an average of 200bu corn would be a waste. Also have heard the challenges of acidosis. Anyone tried this method? Do you up your plant population and grow corn that's WAY longer than your CHU to try to increase tonnage while decreasing the amount of corn that makes it to black layer to try to reduce starch?
Any other ideas or suggestions would be appreciated and please poke holes in my ideas!
Greg | |
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Winter Feeding Cows
