Market Farming

[Andy Wendt <andyflys AT heritagewifi.com>]

I don't think it is bad economics.  Any time you have the cow work for herself instead of you working for the cow,  you're saving money.

Some forages are more cut out for stockpiling on the pasture than others and therefore have much higher quality throughout the winter.  Take Tall Fescue and Meadow Bromegrass for example, they stands up well with a sheet of snow on top, maintain their quality throughout the winter, and they produce a high quantity of forage, these two work great in Idaho.  Now someone might say "but what about endophyte toxicity?" it just so happens that Fescue loses its toxicity with the onset of colder weather, and if you pick one of the endophyte freindely/free varieties you should just about zero problems.  I wouldn't just have fescue though put a little variety of grasses in the mix.  A monoculture is inherently unstable and takes large amounts of inputs to sustain it.  It also matters how much time you leave the forage to start stockpiling, generally about 75 days is the optimum amount of time to allow a field to stockpile. 

Even if the forage was lower in quality and if the cows had to expand more energy to get their daily intake, it still pays to stockpile pasture.  Stockpiling on pasture compared to haying is less than 1/4 to 1/2 the cost.  You can make a lot of errors, and sacrifice a large amount of weight gain for that cost difference.  I am not just making these figures up either this was research done by the Forage Systems Research Center out of the University of Missoiri  in the 80's and 90's (I believe the head man on the research team was Jim Gerrish).  Hay making is expensive. 

Thats my 2 bits,

Andy



robert schuler wrote:

Around here farmers can generally get at least 4  cuttings of alfalfa, cutting just before bloom yields the most TDN per acre but not the most dry matter. Some people confuse dry matter for nutrients. Old over matured hay contains a lot of indigestible fiber that a ruminant can not digest and will have to be supplemented with another protein source. Anytime you have to buy extra  protein your loosing money. The only way to stockpile forage in the north is by cutting high moisture green forage and storing it either in a silo a bag or piled up in a bunker under tarps. I think allowing cattle to dig for their forage in the snow is bad economics... Bob.

Errol Castens wrote:

My uncle used to let his hayfield get desperately overmature before he'd cut it, because it created so much more volume, and it made him feel like he was accomplishing more. The resulting hay was of exceedingly poor quality, and the condition of his cows showed it all winter. (His explanation was, "Well, it beats a snowball.") Maybe there's a logical difference, but can someone explain to me why stockpiling summer grazing for winter foraging would yield substantially better quality feed than my uncle's hay? Blessings,errol castensOxford, Mississippi

_______________________________________________
Market-farming mailing list
Market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/market-farming

Get the list FAQ at: http://www.marketfarming.net/mflistfaq.htm