acres per cow

[Horse]

Grassfarmer I was wondering how many acres per cow you need with your banking grass system. This yr my banked grass basically rotted with all this moisture ,over 3in of water, is it more cost effective to pasture or feed. In my case it seems II can get by with less acres by feeding,I say6 acres per cow. Anyway would appreciate your feedback.

[grassfarmer]

I couldn't give you a simple acres per cow/per year Horse, we are still putting together a system here and don't know how long/how many days per acre we'll get off each component part. If we can get up to 200 cow days per acre grazing corn that'll reduce our winter feed acreage but we also graze some bush pasture at 12 days/acre, old grass at 30, improved tame grass/legume @75, alfalfa rich grazing closer to 100.
As far as banked grass we use that for 6 weeks a year but it doesn't seem to work as well down here as it did in AB. Grass lignifies more here so there is less palatability come spring so you are relying more on the fresh growth coming through. If its rotted or gets trampled in it's making great litter/organic matter so you aren't losing anything. It's always more cost effective to have them harvest their own feed every day they can simply by the elimination of the yardage cost to feed them. It also gives the ideal conditions for calving on and that's our priority this time of year.