Alfalfa value?

I have about 50-60 nice alfalfa bales 4x5"s, all bales dry with no rain. 50% stored inside. One nutritionist says my beef will maintain condition great with it, and eat less, waste less, another says I should feed grass hay and supplement. First what is alfalfa worth per ton? 2nd, what do some of you beef guys think? I personally had no grass hay this year to bale, just alfalfa, I also have alot of cornstalks. My feeders will be on alfalfa, minimal grain mix till finish. Should I sell the excess alfalfa and rebuy more bales of grass hay?

Feed it.No worries,cows will do fine.

I agree.

No big deal. My cows get first cutting,everything from new seeding to older alfalfa brome mix from older seedings,corn stalks along with the hay for as long as the stalks last. The weaned calves and cattle in the finishing pen get the second and third cutting.

Does the second one sell or work for a place that sells supplement.

Bob

Feed it . Ours get alfalfa mix to good straight alfalfa corn sligage for the brood cows and we do set out some minerals to them . The feeders get the hay and sliage along with free choise grain .

For the grown cows free choice cornstalks and 12-15 pounds of Alfalfa per day, about as good a wintering ration as you will find.

Dave,
I'd say if you have it, just feed it. I feed pasture mix grass hay to my cattle because that is what I grew. Who knows what kind of hay some people are trying to sell out on the open market today with the drought situation. The hay prices are so volatile depending on your location.
Kow Farmer (Kurt)

Feeding your cows is not a hard thing to do. They need so much protein and fiber in their diet. So you have good hay that will be higher in protein so they will not need as much of it. If you have a feeder wagon I would have the alfalfa hay and corn stalks tub ground together. One bale of alfalfa and two corn stalk bales in a rotation as the guy grinds them.

You may have trouble getting the cows to eat the corn stalks if they have the real good hay in the same field. They are like us in that they like the "good stuff" best. LOL

They do not need all high protein hay. They need some lower quality roughage to have a more balanced diet. So you can split fed some stalk bales and alfalfa to get a more balanced ration.

The nutritionist that told you to sell your hay and then buy supplement was selling supplement. I never trust any nutritionist that works for a feed company. They will have a product that they promote to make their company money.

One of the nutritionist that is supposed to be the big beef feeder guy around here does not like corn silage. He tells all the guys to shell their corn and tub grind hay instead of feeding corn silage. Also to buy this liquid supplement from HIS company to get the protein level you need.

Guess what? I feed corn silage, high moisture corn and some tub ground hay. I feed a dry mineral in the ration. My ration is about 10% cheaper than his and I get the same to better rates of gain.

Now to your hay issue. You have alfalfa hay it would be worth $225-250 dollars a ton. Good grass hay would be in the $160-180 range. So on paper you could make money by selling your better hay and buying the grass hay. The trouble it that you will have a hard time finding good grass hay. Also you would have the cost/labor of moving/selling your hay and then getting the grass hay back to your farm. I think that would wipe out any financial gain.

Just feed what you have. If you have standing corn stalks put your cows on them to graze and feed them some of your good hay in a limited manner. This would work until you have snow cover. Long an short of it, your better hay will not hurt your cows at all. You just may have to watch and not let them get too fat on the high protein hay. You can do that by limiting how much good hay you give them and make them eat some corn stalks.

I like the idea of mixing the alfalfa with the cornstalks. If done right you should be able to get a balanced ration out of it at a reasonable cost. Remember cows are ruminants, they have the ability to produce protein from roughage if the ration has enough N in it. The question becomes do they have the capacity AND is it cheaper to feed the protein or the precursors to the proteins.

Why can't your nutritionist balance a ration for you knowing what you have for inputs? The idea of mixing the corn stalks with alfalfa sounds good to me. You should need very little if any protein or energy supplement.

I think what you need to do depends on when you are calving. If you are winter calving your cows need your alfalfa. If you are spring or summer calving I would either mix with a grinder (expensive) or feed all corn stalks one feeding, then alfafla, and keep mixing according to how your cows look. People fed cows for thousands of years by looking at them and making adustments to their feed based on their condition before nutritionists came along and tried to make it complicated. Time spent watching your cattle is never wasted, and I always enjoy it. As for the guy who told you to sell your alfalfa and buy grass and supplement, I would tell him to go hump a stump. It is always cheaper to feed what you have than what you don't have.