Tell me your story

[dluther]

It has been a different year going from no rain ,heat, etc. to getting some rain making green grass . We are able to get some feed . The market seems good . Hopefully it will turn out ok. Tell us your story.

[littledoggie]

Temperature swing in 6 months - 80 degrees. Hay yields were 1/2 of average. Luckily we had carry-over from the previous high yielding years. We received late summer rain which allowed for another rotation on the pasture and some hay fields. The late rains allowed for better then expected yield on the oat green feed and because it germinated twice, there was some nice oat head development. We have been processing these green feed bales every day through this deep freeze and it has really helped to reduce the amount of hay that they consume. This is the 3rd winter we've used that processor and it is worth its' weight in gold. Hopefully we'll get some weather relief. Sure reminds me of winters of the '60s and '70s when we had to walk uphill both ways in a blinding snowstorm to get to school.

[WiltonRanch]

A fair portion of what we feed is cereal greenfeed. Usually it’s a mix of oats and barley. Sometimes wheat as well. We consistently grow more calories per acre with this than we can hay. 2021 seen hay yields less than half and I thought greenfeed was such until we weighed bales and realized it was 50%. 64” greenfeed bales are 1950#. For this reason and the fact we have a fair bit of straw I’ve been putting out straw to balance the higher grain proportion in the greenfeed. I also feed some good hay and slough hay. Also I give them some barley. It sounds like a lot of things but I am feeding a bit of everything in proportion so they get a balance of what available. I sure like having them on some grain so when weather gets really cold I can bump that up to address energy needs. Only so much volume late gestation cows can consume. I am still willing to learn. These dry years and feed shortages make you bone up on feeding know how.