Bale feeders for shredding green feed into

[woodland]

Generally we plant a fairly high percentage alfalfa with orchard grass or Timothy. My brother has been pushing the fertilizer (P K S) to it pretty hard but the yield has definitely been worth it. Last year was an exceptional year and we got 10 Tonne/acre on first cut and 5 Tonne/ acre on the second of silage on our newer fields. We just bought a tedder to try and get dry hay. Last summer it rained every two days so most everything got chopped instead.

I know guys around here that set all their bales, pull the net wrap, and string electric wires before the snow for grazing but we do it a little different. Two or three of us go out once a week and set enough bales for the next week and pull the wrap that way we don't use any electric string. I don't seem to have luck with fencers. Between hills, snowdrifts, moose, and grumpy cows the odds seem stacked against me. That way if you have lots of snow your bales aren't buried in a drift.


Here's the new "tool" and hopefully we can bale instead of chopping. It makes life so much easier in more ways than one.

[grassfarmer]

WR, your mention of the good condition your cows are in brings up another aspect of this equation. Giving more feed and allowing cows to select the best out of it always puts them in better condition. You don't want to put excess condition on the cows but if they are in better shape rather than to the leaner side that might negate a lot of the cost of "wasted feed".

Woodland your idea of setting the bales out once a week makes sense in that it gives you some flexibility if weather conditions changed and you had to move the cows elsewhere. Winters like we just came through re-enforce the need for flexibility in these extensive feeding systems!

We have been seeding alfalfa/grass stands here to silage the first cut then regraze in late fall. We've been getting 8 T/acre silage then 30 cow days/acre grazing and leaving a lot of litter behind. Economically we are way ahead as custom seeding a cereal crop every year with cost of seed and fertilizer soon adds up plus you have less fall grazing opportunity.

[woodland]

Our goal is to reseed all our pastures to grazing alfalfa over the next couple of years to crank up the production. We can't find anymore land and are losing some every year to the coal mine beside us so we feel it's our only option. We used to swath graze 30 years ago when I was a little kid but too many harsh winters killed that idea. I'm toying with the idea of trying three cuts of hay to make the windrows lighter and quicker to dry. I know a dairy by spruce grove does that and might have to talk to them about it. I appreciate the different ideas that float around here vs lots of guys that do the same thing year after year and have nothing but negative attitude.

[WiltonRanch]

Our goal is to reseed all our pastures to grazing alfalfa over the next couple of years to crank up the production. We can't find anymore land and are losing some every year to the coal mine beside us so we feel it's our only option. We used to swath graze 30 years ago when I was a little kid but too many harsh winters killed that idea. I'm toying with the idea of trying three cuts of hay to make the windrows lighter and quicker to dry. I know a dairy by spruce grove does that and might have to talk to them about it. I appreciate the different ideas that float around here vs lots of guys that do the same thing year after year and have nothing but negative attitude.

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

[grassfarmer]

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.

[WiltonRanch]

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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.