swath grazing economics

[cowman]

We did a little test if you will this year swath grazing. Planted barley late June and swathed it late September.
Grown on crop land that was worked once the fall before. Burned down mid June with 1 liter/acre weathermax, cultivated twice, disced once(a lot of dead material) Seeded and fertilized by the local dealers floater, disced lightly and harrowed once.
Nice decent crop cut in late milk stage. I estimate it was around 3 tons/acre, maybe a bit more.
Okay. Costs: Sprayed by us...$15. Seed was 2 bu. acre...$20(Used the good stuff treated etc.) fertilizer, a complete blend $40/acre, paid the neighbor $10 acre to swath it. Put the rent cost at $60/acre(going rate here).
So my costs were $145/acre and I'll throw in all the field work for $5(big bargain) for a total of $150/acre?
If I got 6,000 lb. of dry feed at 3 cents/lb. then I grossed $180? Not too bad?
Right now am feeding cows hay delivered at around 2 cents/lb. fed at the same rate as the swath grazing(as close as possible).
I'm trying to get this across so it makes sense. Now if I'd had that 20 acres in decent cultivated grass I could have run 10 cows on it for 5 months? The going rate here is $30/cow/calf/month for pasture or $150/pair for 5 months?
Looking at it that way maybe it paid more to swath graze than to pasture? But does it?
The cow being fed outside feed deposits manure worth $31(Alberta Ag). There is definitely some extra opportunity profit by running a cow/ calf pair? And if I can buy hay for less than what it costs to grow it or swath graze it...then it makes sense to buy it?
I hope I got the idea across? Sometimes its hard to explain these things?
My conclusion is swath grazing isn't the boon it is cracked up to be...at least this year. I do know it was a pain for me to be out doing the field work when I was busy with other things. I had the small equipment necessary but not the time.
It takes about two hours a day to feed our cows and it probably isn't the most efficient system in the world but fairly cost effective. Because I am a firm believer in lots of straw, couldn't go to a full system of swath grazing anyway.
....Think I'll be planting that 20 acres to grass next spring.

[rookie]

cowman, I did 25 acres of corn and 45 of swathgrazing and I will never go back to feeding until I have to again. granted It was a good growing year.

[cowman]

So what were your costs per acre and how much do you think the yield was on a dry matter basis?
There seems to be a lot of corn being raised for winter grazing around here. I have this one neighbor who was one of the first to try it and he claims swath grazing is more profitable compared to corn. What do you think?

[cowman]

The cows are done with the corn and the numbers were good but I don't know if I'll do it again, I live too fasr north for comfort. But I had a whole bunch of cows out there for a long time and they look good.

As for the swaths they just started on them and it looks good so far, granted the weather is so mild. I looked at you costs and mine where about half so...

But its also other things. The land is real handy for this type of stuff, and more importantly, we a had a baby this summer so my time is freed up a whole lot more while mom is back at work.

Still, I can say I will do swaths again even with the season for it just starting. I have double the tonnage you stated, and used alot of manure from the corrals and only half the commercial fert. The big key for me was the fert rates ( even on the corn ) ,I used alot of the organic kind and the cows put it out there themselves too.

Well I rambling now.

[farmers_son]

I think you may be comparing apples to oranges. It would be better to compare swath grazing to winter feeding than to summer pasture. On a normal winter cows can swath graze through quite a bit of snow when they would have trouble getting enough to eat on stored tame pasture.

If every year was like this year we could all do things quite a bit different but I would not want to count on many winters like this one.

[rookie]

excuse the delay, dam computer security settings too high.............

My cost seem half of yours and yeild was double. I will admit the swath stuff couldn't have worked out better. My silage didn't hit the rain and heat like the swaths.

None the less, I was able to rely on lots of manure and the cows put most of it out there themselves.

It also has been a mild winter and the cows just hit those swaths but things look good for cost per cow per day.

The corn really grew well too. But I am hesitant to try it again ( growing conditions were perfect and when does that happen twice ). I feel I am too far north with rain a rare comodity sometimes. No problem getting the fertilizer out there, but thats only part of the needed equation.

The big plus was the time it freed up for me. I babysit our new baby while mom is at work and it is easier to check an electric fence from the truck with my son.

Time wil tell on the final numbers but I will do swaths again . Corn A big maybe...

[blackjack]

...cowman...you bring up some good points...however when you seeded your crop in late june i imagine no one knew hay could be delivered in at 2c/lb... since i raised an imbundance amount of hay this year i am mixing swath grazing with feeding hay...

...i have a question why did you use treated seed and spray if you were planning on swath grazing

[Bruce14]

Cowman if you can get $60 an acre rent why not rent it out?

[ALLFARMER]

I at one time heard if you took a strip 10 or 15 miles wide from Edmonton to Calgary you would have 80% of the land value in Alberta. You can buy decent Gov't land up here for $25,000/quarter but clearing costs are If there is any decent wood on it must be logged first or the value of the wood is added too the approx $25g Good thing I like iron 4 more tractor payments & I'am buying a dozer. Glad the wife doesn't read this board!

[ALLFARMER]

Rookie "growing conditions were perfect and when does that happen twice"

Your right I had a son right off the bat followed by now 3 girls!!

Fish or cut bait???

[cowman]

farmers son: Wasn't looking at winter grazing grass. The idea was if I bought winter feed it would free up the 20 acres for more summer grazing. 10 more cows?
blackjack: Because this was an experiment I just went with the easy way when it came to treated seed. The fertilizer dealer just picked it up at local seed farm. No time to bother with running around. Sprayed the weeds out pre harvest(roundup) because they were pretty thick...thistles, sow thistle, chickweed etc...
Bruce: Rent out some land already on a share deal and usually get at least $60/acre but am having trouble convincing my cousin to even continue renting. Not interested in any other renters.
The whole point here is does it make more sense to swath graze or buy in feed? Now this year hay was extremely cheap and probably makes more sense, in my opinion, but the numbers might not work another year? However I see a lot of grainland going back into hay around here and a whole lot less cows around. I am close to about four big hay producers and if they have hay that gets a rain they roll it up in round bales instead of small bales for the horse business. No long trucking hauls.
I think for me buying hay makes more sense than swath grazing due to time restrictions? I have time in the winter to feed cows. I have zero time in the summer.
If adding 10 cows makes me a gross profit of $7500 then I can see spending $1500 to feed them over the winter? All how you look at it but at $6000 for 20 acres is $300/acre! Now I know that is pretty simple and not a true picture but I hope you catch my drift?

[cswilson]

We swath grazed long before it was popular-(they even had our critters on the TV lol). We pretty much quit it because like Cowman said it was pretty borderline economically-by the way 6,000 lbs per acre dry matter is a pretty impressive yield-in a wet year when your swath grazing will really perform hay is usually pretty reasonable in a drought year well nothing really shines. One place it did work good was vback in the day when we still broke grassland up-we'd seed a swath grazing crop and let hoof action etc break down and pack the sod. Right now were using what most what call bale grazing-we hire a picker truck to haul our feed and he puts a weeks worth in every paddock-this hay is costing us 1.8c/lb delivered to the cows mouth. I suppose swath grazing might work if you have the iron etc but we always had to hire it done-it was getting to be quite a nuiscance.

[cowman]

I thought 6000 lbs. was pretty decent...in fact it might have been a bit more? I just did a guesstimate!
Not sure if rookie was quoting dry matter when he said his yields were twice mine? If he was, then its time to move to his neck of the woods!
I will also note I didn't include all my costs. You don't run equipment over a field for nothing! Now maybe I overdid it but this was just an experiment. If I was doing it in a big way on a continuing basis I could get those costs lower?
But I do consider this: When I bring in feed I am getting a bonus from the manure? Grassfarmer has mentioned this in the past? I believe the extra fertilizer value is estimated at $31/cow for the winter feeding period? So if it costs me $150/cow per winter then you get $31 worth of nutrients back, you come to $121/cow per winter?

[rookie]

cowman, you wouldn't want to live in this neck of the woods......

Looking back at the post, my costs were half if not a little less, dry matter was aboyt the same, and every day I look at the the stuff I'm impressed.
Tractor is not running and neither am I for most of the winter.

It fits into my operation like a glove. And the numbers are just as good.

[cowman]

Hey if it works for you thats all that matters! It could work for me too...if I had the time in the spring/fall. As it is I have time in the winter and I like feeding cows(well if I only have to do it once in awhile...its nice having someone you can pawn the work off on!).
As I stated I suspect I could get the costs down if I was seriously pursuing this. I should be able to reduce the fertilizer bill to almost zero? Also my seed costs were very high and I sprayed the roundup at a heavy rate of 1 L/acre when in fact .67 L/acre is the rate for weathermax. At $13.37/L the .67L rate would cut $4.40/acre right off the top? Might get away without spraying at all?
This year was a fairly good growing season with a lot of timely rains although generally too cool. I did notice some leaf disease which was pretty general for cereals in this area.