haying

[15444]

Enough money invested in making feed for these four-leggers without having to throw another 30k in the pot. Even with all this rain, we have always been able to make hay. Might not be of the highest quality, but these are just beef cattle. They don't care about wrapped June hay versus September baled hay, when the alternative in February is cedar boughs and twigs.

[grassfarmer]

The difference in feed quality between June silage and September hay would pay to make a lot of silage. We don't own silage machinery but hiring a custom crew pencils out really well. Getting the whole job done custom was costing us @$1200/hour but the speed and quality of job these guys do makes the cost reasonable. Based on tonnage in the pit it was between $10-$11/ton. If you can find anyone to bale hay around here it would be at least $10/bale and that's only the baling - still have the cutting/raking/hauling and all the weather risk to take.
I think making silage is cheap compared to hay given the better feed quality, less weather risk and getting the field regrowing straight away.

[smcgrath76]

GF, what is your cost to get the silage back out to the cows? We have talked about it here a few times, but the deal breaker is always the feeding cost and delivery method in the winter time.

[kato]

Same with us. We save so much fuel grazing corn that it's hard not to just let them go and get it themselves.

[15444]

Yeah, it would mean I would actually have to start the tractor more than a dozen times a winter to push snow around the yard.

[grassfarmer]

Sean, feeding the silage out again certainly has a cost but I think that's part of a broader "systems" discussion. We typically feed for 100 days and even if the cows are on silage all that time (which they often aren't) we have the bunk capacity to feed every 2nd day so you could say only 50 days actually hauling feed to cows.

I still maintain the difference between poor hay and silage quality hay made from the same field could be 2c/lb dry. So on a 1250lb bale of hay I think you risk wasting $25 a bale, then if you bale graze how much is not consumed at that stage and is the hay good enough to keep the cows in the condition they need to be in?

kato, I'd love to graze corn but it ain't happening here with our sub 1700 CHUs.

[smcgrath76]

Thanks GF. This kind of systems thinking is interesting to me.
When we look at it, I know that one of the issues for us to go that way would be the need to upgrade our feeding equipment, although as our numbers have grown we certainly keep exploring silage just for the issue of risk management alone.

[grassfarmer]

We don't have a lot of money tied up in silage feeding infrastructure. An older fwa tractor with loader/grapple we already own, a used scholar bunk feeder that you can get on kijijji for $4000 and then some big 30" bunk feeders made from oilfield pipe and wood. I think they are a great buy - $600 buys new and allows for a replacement set of wooden boards. Depreciate to zero over 20 years (although they will last longer) that gives you an annual cost of $30 divided by 30 cows divided by 100 days comes out to 1c/day/cow and it essentially eliminates wastage. That's something to consider when comparing to bale grazing.

[kato]

Hubby cut three rounds yesterday, and got chased home by rain. Oh well, at least he knows the hay binge works.