Bale feeders for shredding green feed into

[WiltonRanch]

[ATTACH]1380[/ATTACH]

Here is a picture of where we fed greenfeed last November. Used single rings, moved every day with a lot of cattle per ring. Very little wastage and good manure distribution. About 400 cow days per acre of manure/urine applied by the animals themselves.

It's part of our redneck rejuvination efforts on one of our poorest pastures. Because there was no snow cover it was barked off very short but was already dormant. Will go in soon and broadcast 40lb P and 2-3lbs of Norgold sweet clover seed and harrow in. Leave till fairly late in the fall and graze it off - 3lbs pretty much gives you a solid stand of sweet clover even into established sod it seems. Spring of next year it should produce a huge biomass of primarily sweet clover so we'll heavily graze and trample that. After that allow nature to complete the renovation but expect there is a plentiful and diverse seed bank in the soil, the sweet clover roots will break open any hardpan as well as fix enough N to feed the grasses present. Growing a big volume of forage and getting it back into the soil through manure and trampling kickstarts the soil micro-biology.

That looks good. What did you use for greenfeed and when did you cut it? That is great utilization there. Like I mentioned before I want to put a few oats into my greenfeed mix for 2018 when I hopefully grow some more seed. I have a bunch of norgold and a pooped out hay field we fed a bunch of feed on. I should do that.

[grassfarmer]

That looks good. What did you use for greenfeed and when did you cut it? That is great utilization there. Like I mentioned before I want to put a few oats into my greenfeed mix for 2018 when I hopefully grow some more seed. I have a bunch of norgold and a pooped out hay field we fed a bunch of feed on. I should do that.

It was Haymaker forage oats with some under-seeded hairy vetch. Cut the last week of July. Was disappointed with the quality - 55%TDN and @9% protein. We had hoped to cut early and get higher quality but that was about the only dry week all summer. If the alfalfa is played out in your hayfield you might want to seed some of it too as the Norgold will only get you the 2 years.

[WiltonRanch]

It was Haymaker forage oats with some under-seeded hairy vetch. Cut the last week of July. Was disappointed with the quality - 55%TDN and @9% protein. We had hoped to cut early and get higher quality but that was about the only dry week all summer. If the alfalfa is played out in your hayfield you might want to seed some of it too as the Norgold will only get you the 2 years.

Good point. My problem on hay fields are the pocket gophers. Generally get 4 years before fields get rough. Can float all I want but they keep digging. Even so these fields are needed for grazing and renovating with clover would really help. Want to rotate alfalfa through my crop land as a rotation and hay source. Figure a 4 year deal, spray out after and seed direct. Looking at nutrient removal if a guys planning for 2.5 t dry matter removal wow she's hard on pks and calcium but I need something different growing there.

[woodland]

What kind of fertility are you pushing on your alfalfa? Potash isn't limiting here but phosphate and sulfurare usually needed.

We are using a blend of 10-18-18-8 and figure on about 100 lbs of product a year. Aiming to soil test every few years to check it out so it's not depleted when it's rotated back to grain.


Grassfarmer that is a very good cleanup on that greenfeed. Our cows would have better bedding I guess from the higher waste.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

I hate greenfeed, for so many reasons, but beside that, hay saver feeders do help a lot, we've built or modified most of ours to be more effective, anything to make it difficult to pull their heads out. Plain rings are bad, tombstones are worse than useless. Bale grazing would work really well if hay was free.

I like to feed many days at a time, but still want them crowded into the hay feeders enough that they don't waste it. So I'll feed the same # of bales of really good hay, some decent hay, something poor, and straw bales. They crowd into the really good hay for a day or so, then move to the next, then the next, and whatever they don't eat of the straw or poor hay, I spread around for bedding. Move the feeders everytime i feed, move windbreaks regularly. I usually feed 4 days at a time, but can go up to a week.

With good hay I'd say a couple percent waste, with straw, probably 30 to 60 and greenfeed ~5%. I choose the feeder by the type of feed. fine grass goes in the best hay saver feeders, slough hay or straw goes in rings.

[grassfarmer]

I inherited a bunch of beaten up old rings with the place here, just the 1" tubing type that had never been sheeted at all. I bought some old mine belting and put a 26" strip around the outside of the rings and it's worked really well. Reduces wastage and protects the ring itself from further abuse by the cows.