crop ins adjuster just left

Dave from MN · Sep 4, 2013

Pretty depressed right now. Rather have a crop than a check. Are poor soybeans cut and rolled any good for beef forage? Will be out of hay by November, can beef cows live off just silage and supplements? Does it pay to chop and bag for beef cows, when you have to hire the job out, or sell the cows and buy a bunch of feeders. Guess it is cover crop experimentation time as with no moisture I can not see any type of forage being planted growing enough to bale before winter

LAA · Sep 4, 2013

Soybeans make good hay if cut before the seed sets and as long as there are still leaves on the plants, they make good silage too if not burnt up or dried out. You can winter your cows on silage and a pound or so per day of cottonseed meal or equivalent protein, they will still need and want dry roughage even if it is poor quality hay or wheat straw fed free choice or dried out pasture.

Dave from MN · Sep 4, 2013

How about corn stalks that are too dry for silage, but could make nice round bales if hit with a stalk chopper now to dry the core down. Would that be ok with the silage?

JD Seller · Sep 4, 2013

Corn stalks will work for the roughage your cattle need. I have fed shredded corn stalks and corn silage to cows for years. It makes a cheap ration. The corn stalks have to be good and dry. Then it works best if you have a TMR wagon. I usually feed about 30% corn stalks with corn silage. I give them free choice mineral. Blocks would work too.

A 1200 lb cow will eat about 50 LBS of dry matter per day. So with dry corn stalks at 15% moisture and your corn silage at 60% moisture. That would be about about 18 lbs of corn stalks and 87 lbs of corn silage per cow per day. This is with no other fed. If you have hay they will eat less.

David G · Sep 4, 2013

Can"t hardly sell hay right now in Iowa, much better crop than last year.

paul · Sep 4, 2013

A whole lot of cornstalk bales have been fed around here the past 3-5 years. The cattle seem to eat 1/2 of a bale before going after alfalfa bale when both are put out....

Bummer on your crops, its been a rough few weather years here if you have any kind of lighter soil, or this spring if you had the wet spots.

Paul

John A. · Sep 4, 2013

Dave, String electric fence! One strand of wire, a re-bar post and a plastic insulator every 20 steps! Oh, a water trough too! Turn those ole cows in on them NOW! They will know what to do with those beans, Supplement with Silage and any other nutrition you deem relevant. Graze the hound out of it till you need to move them out.
Then go to Corn stalks and silage, It just doesn't get No better than that. Hope this helps.
Later,
John A.

LAA · Sep 5, 2013

Corn stalk bales are perfect for compensating good silage.

crop ins adjuster just left

Dave from MN

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LAA

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Dave from MN

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JD Seller

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David G

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paul

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John A.

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LAA

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