Editors Note: It takes a brave person to share his successes, challenges and stresses online with all of us. That’s what Troy has been doing this fall and winter as he writes about custom grazing dairy heifers on his stockpiled pastures. We’re grateful for Troy sharing his progress with all of us so that when we want to try this, we can stand on his shoulders and get a boost to success. If you haven’t seen the whole series, here it is.
This update chronicles December 22nd to December 28. Let’s start with the chart and a few pictures so you can see what’s happening on the ground.
The staging of the big bales while it was frozen was a great strategy cause it got rainy and warm last week and would have been a muddy nightmare trying to get around.
You might be asking, why feed hay when you can see the stockpile again? Well, here are some reasons: The 140 day old, cool season, sward smashed by wet snow is like me being at the salad bar with a bunch of wilted lettuce and leftover, stale toppings —It’s just not that tasty and appealing. This offering limits dairy heifer performance so I want them to have a back-up dry matter source so they can just pick the best stuff. It also helps because the weather sucks and they need extra groceries and a place to lay down.
Other reasons are spreading their fertility in a more controlled area, makes the stockpile last longer since it’s melted into the soil, grazing efficiency and trying to find balance with environmental concerns and animal performance.
If we had not received the wet snow followed by frozen crusty conditions, I would be confident in not feeding hay. So the weather is something that trumps planning that we have to be ready for (hay feeding).
Let’s say we didn’t get this snow event 2 weeks ago. We would have saved 20 big bales @ $50/bale or 1000 dollars. If we didn’t have stockpiled feed, the thousand dollars worth of opportunity would have been lost. In another context, if we didn’t feed the hay we would not have added any extra nutrients to the land which is especially important on our organic farm. I’m struggling a bit to answer how I would have gotten through the snow event better and not fed the hay.
First thing in my head was a late season swathing of the stockpile. Second was planting a variety of cover crop species including sorghum back in August and third was changing over to an increased fescue grass base to maintain upright forage. There is constant compromise when I look at our goals in dealing with this issue of extending the season using what you have instead of bringing in the metal and the latest new plant species. Am I missing other facets and considerations?
Folks at our pasture walk talked about leaving decent residuals. With the recent weather, the animals won’t go too far down because the sward is flattened and rotting so this should help come spring. I have also been taking a hard look at the soil life harvest now that the snow has melted. I’m intrigued by how much the earthworms have eaten in a short time and also how the mice have chewed up around the Orchardgrass clumps. It begs the question whether I should graze it at all given how much is removed even after the cows go by. Maybe the better approach or (in conjunction with summer fallowing a field) would be to winter fallow a field to feed all the under-ground livestock. Jeez this stuff is starting to hurt my head on what to do!
You can see I continue to learn everyday and question what I see against all the goals of the farm and life. Trying to find the right balance is challenging. If you have some thoughts to help with this, or on how this series is affecting your ideas on stockpiling for the future, do let me know. More heads are better than one!
Thanks – GW
You can read more at my website, or click on over here to read the whole series so far.
I’ve stockpiled grazed, I planted stuff for winter grazing all trying to get the hay out of the budget and graze as many days of the year as possible.
The weather wins over time. Many seasons I’ve left 45 days of more of forage on these fields only to have them snow covered by an early December blizzard, followed by warmer weather the melt and re-freeze the snow into an icy mass that cattle nor sheep can bust through.
We could have run a few more AU by not stockpiling. Our most expensive feed is that which we pay to grow and then do not utilize. My current forage budgets takes me to Christmas, about 50% of the time I’m right and 50% I do not get to use this feed.
We need to learn how to graze more days in northern climates, which includes stockpiling perennials and growing specific species, but we also need to be cognizant of our local climate condition and when grazing will most likely be over.
We also need to consider the relationship between purchased forage costs and value of our product. Which currently favors running more head and purchasing cheap forage over reducing the stocking rate and grazing longer.
I have been grazing cattle out through the winters in MT on stockpiled forage for years. With few exceptions I have been able to herd the cattle into tighter groups so that the hoof action will actually breakup the crust either snow or ice. By spending a little more time in the saddle and not using the fences as our herder and actually doing it ourselves we have been able to successfully winter bred cows and yearlings and maintain body condition with only winter grass and protein supplements. Moving the supplements weekly as you re-ration those supplements helps change the movement patterns in the pastures as well, which results in more of that stockpiled forage getting churned up by the hooves. May not work for you, but has worked for us. Hang in there.
Thanks William. How high is the forage growth in your area and what kind of weather are you dealing with? GW
Gene, Your sentiment and experience are wise. I really like your last paragraph and “Our most expensive feed is that which we pay to grow and then do not utilize”.
I am thinking about alternatives and approaches in our climate. I would love a program where I could skip Nov. 15th to December 15th weather here and go back to grazing after. It seems January lately is cold, frozen and the snow is drier which lends better to grazing stockpile. If I had the stockpile (or maybe deferred grazing it) I could be grazing right now with no problems but then I would come under the 50% rule if I planned to do this most likely. Much pondering to do and I think I’ll look back at my old grazing charts to see if there might be a trend in weather and planning where I might be able to find some solutions and still be fair to my grazing customer. Thanks for your input. GW